Overcoming

People operate on a spectrum between overcoming obstacles and leveraging what is already working. We each tend to have a usual position somewhere along that spectrum. That position is our mindset. No particular position on the spectrum is inherently better, but a particular position may be more effective in a given situation. Problems arise when we default to our usual approach regardless of what the situation requires.

Operating from overcoming

Overcoming focuses attention on the obstacles, constraints, risks, or problems that stand between where you are and where you want to be. For some people, that orientation is a powerful source of action. When the stakes are high, they focus intensely on what has to be dealt with and push until they find a way through. The CEO works through the weekend. The founder personally closes the deal. The executive refuses to let a problem go unresolved.

For others, the same orientation produces the opposite behavior. When the path through isn't clear, they stall, and the obstacle that might have generated energy generates avoidance instead.

For leaders whose orientation is toward the obstacles, and who repeatedly respond by pushing through, there is another cost. When the leader is the one who keeps clearing the way, the system around them has less reason to develop. People wait for their solution. Teams optimize for their approval rather than their own judgment. What looks like heroic leadership can become a bottleneck.

And it can become exhausting. Continually pushing through obstacles requires energy, particularly when overcoming has become the answer to problems that could be approached differently. Many of the CEOs I work with have been the one who pushes through for so long that they've stopped noticing the cost. One of the first things we look at together is which obstacles actually need them.

I know this end of the spectrum well. I spent years as a CFO, and CFOs tend to sit closer to Overcoming than CEOs do. It's what makes us good at catching errors and spotting trouble early, and CEOs rely on it. It can also get in the way of growth. One of the most successful CEOs I've worked with liked to say, "You have to spend money to make money." It took a lot of direct conversation to get their CFO there, and having been that CFO myself, I understood exactly where they were coming from.

The other end of the spectrum

At the other end is leveraging: recognizing what is already working, in yourself, in others, or in the situation, and building on it to create progress.

This orientation can generate possibility, optimism, and momentum. It can also create its own blind spots. A leader who is focused on what is working and what could go right may underestimate a risk, overlook a developing problem, or become too comfortable with what is already going well.

Leaders at this end of the spectrum tend to grow their organizations quickly and to attract people who want to build. The risks surface later, in the problems that went unexamined because everything appeared to be working. The work for these leaders is to keep building on strengths while looking directly at what the momentum may be hiding.

The question worth sitting with

Each orientation can serve a leader extraordinarily well, and each can get in the way. The mindset that served you in one situation or season may not serve the next. The work is to expand your range: understand where you tend to operate, recognize what the situation requires, and respond deliberately instead of defaulting to what comes naturally. Sometimes my work includes helping a leader see where they, and others, are on the spectrum versus where they would be if they took current reality into account. Often this insight is enough for the leader to start moving to a different spot on the spectrum, the one that matches their current situation and that allows them to be more successful.

The question worth sitting with: What does this situation require of you that may not come naturally?