Squeezed
(Note: This blog is the first of a two part series. Tune in next month for part two)
Have you ever looked at a lemon and thought it looked perfectly fine only to pick it up and feel nothing but a soft, mushy ball of nasty? Imagine for a moment what would happen if you were to grab that lemon and squeeze it. I can guarantee what would be excreted would not be pleasant (yeah, I just said “excreted”).
If we leaders were lemons, many of us would have peels that appeared fresh and firm, but squeeze us and, oh boy, what comes out is far from fresh. This unfortunate fact was made abundantly clear to me shortly after I published my last blog Hard Soft (if you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, click here to learn about the tension between hard and soft power). I was with my church’s worship team getting ready to record the worship set for the week. In my mind I already knew the perfect outcome for the evening: members would stand at attention behind their instrument, eyes straight ahead in obedient expectation for the worship leader to begin practice. The leader would then orchestrate each song in an angelically utilitarian and efficient manner. When any error was made, the band would instantly become quiet in perfect unison until the problem was fixed and the leader resumed practice. Of course there would be no interruptions and my delightful little daydream would end with the team finishing 13 minutes and 45 seconds ahead of time so that I could hurry home and start writing a blog on how pressure reveals the true colors of our character.
Oh irony, how you torture me.
If you haven’t already guessed, the story I just described is fiction, not fact. But before you assume the evening was a train wreck, let me assure you it wasn’t! Looking back on it now, I can see the intentional and strategic way in which the leader orchestrated what was a continuation of a challenging season for our team (the current pandemic had forced us to make several significant changes and in very little time). The only train wreck came from my attempt to man handle the results of the night with my inclination toward hard power instead of letting her skillfully applied soft power do its work. Instead of submitting, I became impatient, irritable and tried to “save” the practice by taking control myself.
I had been squeezed.
In better trying to understand what causes us to lead in such unproductive ways, I recently conducted a survey to discover what specific circumstances people felt revealed the worst parts of themselves. In doing so, I identified what I have called three primary “squeezes”.
Squeeze #1: Pain
This one seemed to be the most common and the type of pain varied greatly. Responses included physical pain, emotional and sexual trauma, being gossiped about, missing loved ones, heartbreak, and doing things we don’t like (i.e. shopping for jeans and swimsuits). Pain has the unmatched capacity to expose the true colors of our character, whether we like it or not.
Squeeze #2: Pressure
Pressure also acts as an indicator of our character. In fact being squeezed means you are literally being put under pressure. The pressures people communicated to me were vast, including lack of essential resources like food and sleep, stresses from work, marriage, and parenting, and even self-induced pressures from lack of self-care, unhealthy boundaries, and over commitment. Much like dough, our mind and emotions are pliable and can be stretched to great extents. However, the thinner they are stretched, the less pressure it takes to break them.
“Pain has the unmatched capacity to expose the true colors of our character, whether we like it or not.”
Squeeze #3: Change
When we make plans for our life to proceed a certain way only to have a wrench thrown into that plan, it can shake us up and knock loose nasty things inside of us that had previously laid dormant. Changes that result from things like being late, car troubles, and global pandemics have the uncanny ability to squeeze us in ways that we don’t experience when everything goes according to plan.
“Much like dough, our mind and emotions are pliable and can be stretched to great extents. However, the thinner they are stretched, the less pressure it takes to break them.”
What, then, are we to do when we experience one or more of these squeezes? Here are three ideas on how to respond with intentionality:
Describe Your Lemons
Unless you first decide in the core of your being that you truly, deeply desire fresh, non-moldy lemons and commit to fight to the death for them (ok, too far), no lemonade recipe will have the power to change the outcome that your heart has already set in stone. Desire drives direction. Whether your soul desires comfort at the cost of excellence or excellence at the cost of comfort, rest assured it will get what it wants. Too often the desire for comfort leads us to justify the state of our lemons. We see that they are moldy and consider how nice it would be to have fresh lemons, but then decide that the cost of starting over with fresh lemons is too great. “It’s not that bad,” we say. “In fact it’s probably a lot like blue cheese. There’s nothing wrong with a little multicellular fungus on my lemons!” Unless we intentionally commit to being leaders that pursue growth no matter what the cost, we will be forced to add more and more sugar to our lemonade in order try and drown out the taste of the moldy lemons we used, all while making ourselves sick (because there actually IS something wrong with drinking multicellular fungus).
“Desire drives direction.”
“Whether your soul desires comfort at the cost of excellence or excellence at the cost of comfort, rest assured it will get what it wants.”
Identify Bad Lemons
Once we’ve committed to pursuing fresh, healthy lemons, we must learn to identify the bad lemons. This requires digging down to the root of our actions and identifying what caused our lemons to mold in the first place. While the solution to keeping lemons fresh might be as simple as refrigerating them, identifying the root cause of our leadership failures is rarely so straightforward. One of the requirements of mindfulness is to practice “noticing” your thoughts and feelings free of judgment. This means not becoming angry with yourself for leaving the lemons out in the sun for two weeks (I once left an entire pot of soup out on the counter for several days because I was too lazy to put it in the refrigerator. Bachelor move). The wise leader knows how to sidestep the downward spiral we fall into from beating ourselves up for our mistakes by instead choosing to recognize the need for correction and then making the correction. I could have easily beat myself up that night for making some of the same mistakes I’ve made as a leader in the past. Instead, I chose to observe that my decision to try and usurp authority stemmed from my impatience and fear of not being in control. By identifying those emotions and not condemning myself for making them, I was able to make a plan to overcome those weaknesses, which leads us into our third point.
“The wise leader knows how to sidestep the downward spiral we fall into from beating ourselves up for our mistakes by instead choosing to recognize the need for correction and then making the correction.”
Protect Your Lemons
Now that you’ve described your lemons and identified the bad ones, it’s time to protect your lemons. Again, the solution of refrigerating the lemons is probably much simpler than when we apply it to leadership (although cooling off is ironically exactly what we need sometimes to keep from saying something stupid in the heat of the moment). Protecting your lemons means making a strategy to grow past your weaknesses. Benjamin Franklin once said “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Here are a few tips on how to plan:
Partner
Be proactive by beginning a dialogue with your people before you find yourself being squeezed. Trying to create a game plan on how to keep your lemons fresh while in mid-squeeze is pointless. After recording our worship set that night, I approached the leader and (after apologizing for my anarchy) discussed ways that we could partner together to help me avoid making the same mistake. Now that we are on the same page, that leader will be better equipped to help me overcome my weakness and will also be more motivated to help since I initiated the conversation and humbled myself enough to admit my need to grow.
Listen
Often times our bodies provide clear and observable physical symptoms of when our emotions are on the verge of overpowering our deepest desires of being a good leader. Learn to identify what happens to your body when the emotions that usurp your desire for fresh lemons start to take over. Several signs I have noticed in my own body are shortness of breath, feeling cold, and elevated heart rate. I also begin losing patience much more quickly. A good plan to protect your lemons should include learning to identify the signs that you’re likely about to act in a way that is inconsistent with your desire to be a good leader
Wait
Once you can identify the signs that your lemons are at risk of molding, often times we just need time to cool off (get in that refrigerator!). Having grown up in the martial arts, I can attest first hand to the power of taking deep deliberate breaths in helping me cool down and clear my head. When our brains are starved for oxygen, irrational decisions are much more likely. Instead of responding right away, try taking a few deep breaths, ask a colleague to check your email for any inappropriate words or tones, or simply postpone a conversation to give yourselves time to think clearly and overcome the grip of emotion.
In this life, no one can keep from being squeezed. Yet while being squeezed is painful, it is also painfully ironic that it is exactly what gives us the opportunity to become the type of leaders we’ve always dreamt of being. That’s something no coma of comfort could ever do. So what will you do when pain, pressure, and change wrap their strong fingers around you? Will you watch the mold spill out, shrug your shoulders and admit defeat? Or will you choose to intentionally pursue only fresh lemons, identify what keeps you from them, and then fight to protect them?
Let’s embrace the squeeze.