Riding the Leadership Teeter-Totter

A leader who is too much a member of the crew lacks the necessary influence to get things done, and the teeter-totter crashes to the left. A leader who is too much the dictator lacks the commitment necessary to partner with employees, and the teeter-totter again crashes, but this time to the right. The challenge for any leader is, therefore, to be insistent enough to make things happen and approachable enough so that people will confide when necessary.

A better approach to leadership is to balance between the two extremes; to stand in the center of the teeter-totter, being both friendly and demanding, being neither dictating nor meek. It is a tough balancing act.

Walt Disney once explained his job as neither drawing his characters nor writing his stories. Rather, he said his job was “coordinating these talents, and encouraging these talents, and carrying them down a certain line. It’s like pulling together a big orchestra. They’re all individually very talented. I have an organization of people who are really specialists. You can’t match them anywhere in the world for what they can do. But they all need to be pulled together, and that’s my job.”

To balance in the center of the teeter-totter, be the one who pulls them together: inspiring by pointing your employees in a direction, articulating a vision of what success will look like, offering timely course corrections, cheering employee successes, comforting well-intentioned failures, and coaching unacceptable behavior.

A leader who balances in the center of the teeter-totter will earn respect, and admiration, and is likely to be effective, even if they are not everyone’s buddy.