This month we have extended our reflection on GRATITUDE by reconnecting to Tasha Eurich’s story and also how LISTENING is such an important way we demonstrate our gratitude to others. Gratitude for their service, for their commitment to continue to grow, and gratitude for the difference they will make in the lives of kids in our profession. These are important affirmations that will continue to influence and inspire their great work. To tie all these ideas together, I recently was reading from another new book, Radical Candor, and up pops another message about our work. It resonated because it is a common issue in coaching conversations…what’s the balance. I’ll let Kim Scott, the author, sum it all up.

“I’d gotten only a few steps into the office when a colleague suddenly ran up. He needed to talk right away. He had just learned that he might need a kidney transplant, and he was completely freaked out. After an hour and two cups of tea, he seemed calmer.

I walked toward my desk, past an engineer whose child was in the ICU. Must check in. “How’d your son do last night?” I asked. He hadn’t improved—and as he told me how the night had gone we both had tears in our eyes. I convinced him to leave the office and go and take care of himself for an hour before returning to the hospital.

I left his desk drained, passing by our quality assurance manager. His child had better news: she’d just received the highest score in the entire state on a standardized math test. He wanted to talk about it. I felt emotional whiplash as I jumped from sympathy to celebration.

By the time I got back to my desk, I had no time or emotional reserves to think about pricing. I cared about each of these people, but I also felt worn out—frustrated that I couldn’t get any “real” work done. Later that day, I called my CEO coach, Leslie Koch, to complain.

“Is my job to build a great company,” I asked, “or am I really just some sort of emotional babysitter?”

Leslie, a fiercely opinionated ex-Microsoft executive, could barely contain herself. “This is not babysitting,” she said. “It’s called management, (leadership) and it is your job!”

Every time I feel I have something more “important” to do than listen to people, I remember Leslie’s words: “It is your job!” I’ve used Leslie’s line on dozens of new managers (leaders) who’ve come to me after a few weeks in their new role, moaning that they feel like “babysitters” or “shrinks.” We undervalue the “emotional labor” of being the boss.”
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Your relationship and your responsibilities reinforce each other positively or negatively and this dynamic is what drives you forward as a leader – or leaves you dead in the water. Your relationships with your direct reports affects the relationship they have with their direct reports, and your team’s culture. Your ability to build trusting, human connections with the people who report directly to you will determine the quality of everything that follows.

This month offers the opportunity to have gratitude for the privilege to support others in service to children – children who will be our future – and children who will experience caring, respectful, supportive approaches to growth and learning. Children who will be the leaders of tomorrow. I’m so grateful for the journey.