One Last Thought Before We Dive In

There is one last idea we want to share before we get to the nit and grit of building our way out to the other side:

One last thought

• Being the boss can be incredibly hard emotionally – and lonely.

For the founder/CEO/leader, the challenge of staying positive while also staying real can be very difficult. Most of the time you have fellow managers/leaders to share with – for encouragement, gallows humor, whatever is needed. But sometimes, due to the nature of the issue, you have no one to talk to about it. And that can be hard, facing lots of hard thinking and harder choices.

So we want to share a blog post titled "Acknowledging the Intense Emotional Labor of Being the Boss" from Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor. Her example is pre-pandemic, but her points are absolutely still valid today. Here’s the tiniest of excerpts:

Caring for others starts with caring for yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re feeling burned out. Give yourself the break you need. You can’t possibly Care Personally about others if you don’t care about yourself!

We need to acknowledge how emotionally difficult it will be to lead during the coming days and months. Give ourselves permission to feel the pain. But we cannot be frozen, resentful, or secretive. We have to create and share a positive, but realistic, plan of action for the future. And as hard as it will be, lead our organizations forward.

Stay strong!
Joel