The word ‘leadership’ is more often than not associated with notions of prestige and strength.
Forget the stress and pressure of managing a team and the airtight discipline required to run a well oiled machine, the work’s glitz and glam can distract hopeful managers from its true realities, and it isn’t easy.
Radha Ruparell is the well known author of Brave Now (2021) and the Head of Global Leadership Accelerator for Teach for All. And she is the guest on the recent episode of On the Balcony. Tasked with developing collaborative leadership in education globally, Radha not only knows what good leadership looks like, she also knows how to do the work herself.
And while it’s great that we focus on an authority's status and the role’s deliverables, a great leadership cannot function without internal growth and some form of grounding. Leading her organization and in the midst of publishing a book, Ruparell suffered from a severe case of COVID-19 that she almost didn’t survive.
For the first time in her career and life, Radha had reached a breaking point. She learned about the importance of asking for help. After leading a team of people that relied on her and her alone, she needed to find someone else that could be that person for her in return.
In the moments when all hope seems lost and all anxieties feel insurmountable, we must look inward, ground ourselves, and harness our self discipline to care for us as they would for others.
In Ron Heifetz’s book, he mentions the holding environment, as a space to feel supported to do the difficult adaptive work. But too often we focus on what that environment can do for others, rather than also thinking about what holding environment is needed for the person in charge. We need anchors: places, people and practices that sustain us while we support others: whether it is yoga, meditation, walking, listening to music, gardening or calling an old high school friend. .
Gone are the days when reaching out for mental and emotional support was a shameful taboo. Having the emotional capacity to navigate uncertainty, frustration, and pain is no small feat, but if we come equipped to the table with an internal ability to deal with conflict, capacity for compassion, and self awareness, we make that struggle just a little bit easier.