Leading high performers won’t develop your leadership

Every leader has noticed it's easy to lead people who are like you. We’ve all hired these people, enjoyed working with them and the experience has made us feel like we are great leaders. It's great for the ego and the bottom line.

It's the other people that challenge us.

The ones we don't quite gel with. The ones who we knew were a good hire but knew it wouldn't all be roses. The ones who frustrate us, whose methods and motivations we don't quite understand. The ones whose performance is inconsistent, or average, even disappointing. Who force us unknowingly back into 'management'.

The ones you secretly dread your meetings with.

The ones you might even complain about afterwards, even if only in your head.

Most leaders put these people in a different category, call them 'difficult' and stop there, when what these people are presenting is the greatest opportunity your leadership will ever uncover.

They expose something in your leadership your high performers never will.

They reveal your development edges – your impatience, your discomfort with conflict, your inability to speak clearly when you’re frustrated. Your tendency to dance around what needs to be said. Your reactions, assumptions and ultimately your leadership limits.

I call them your unicorns.

Not because they are magical, but because what they offer you is rare: they bring to the surface the precise development edges you would otherwise be able to avoid.

High performers can make you feel like a better leader than you are.

Difficult people show you your truth.

They show you where your default is still to manage instead of lead.

Unless you consciously face it, the standard approach is to manage around these people. To subtly make up for what they lack. Leaders fall into complaining about them, avoiding them, lowering their expectations, working around their limitations, even hopefully waiting for them to leave. They conclude that the person is the problem, which conveniently means they don’t have to examine their own role in the relationship.

But this is the opportunity.

No-one likes managing people, but I’ll bet you haven’t noticed that the only people you have to manage are the ones you haven’t truly faced into. Once you are willing to face what you perceive is difficult about them, and what is difficult in you as a result of them, leadership becomes possible.

That is the essence of Unmanaged leadership.

The full taking of responsibility for performance by stepping into your own authority to lead, trusting deeply that everyone has more potential, and you have the keys to unlock it simply by leaning into your own development.

If you are serious about leadership, the Unicorns are the people to move towards.

That means becoming curious about what is actually happening – not just for them, but within you. It means asking why this person bothers you. It means getting clear on what you see, what you have not said, what you are avoiding, and what you are assuming. It means finding the language to express what needs to change without dumping your frustration all over them.

This is the real work of people leadership and self development.

Which is exactly why it develops you.

The growth that comes through difficult people can be confronting.

It asks you to face the parts of yourself you would rather not face – not just once but over and over again. It asks you to stop outsourcing the problem to their personality, their attitude or their capability, and start asking what this relationship asks of you.

The choice to face and change this is one you make again and again, and it’s a choice that changes you as a leader and as a person.

That is where real leadership development happens.

Not in theory or naval gazing but in the performance it’s easier to assume is fixed, and the relationships you’d rather not take responsibility for.

Every leader has someone like this. Sometimes more than one.

The person you notice you’re a little too quick to cancel on. The person whose name makes your energy drop. The person you discuss with others more than you speak to directly. The person whose potential you have stopped believing in.

That person is a mirror.

If you are willing to look, they will show you exactly where your leadership needs to grow next.

Difficult people drive development.

They reveal whether you’re prepared to step into more of your potential.

Anyone can lead the easy ones.

But your development lives in the people you find difficult.

Have you got a difficult person in your team, and are you leaning into this opportunity for you or leaning out and blaming it on them?