I Love My Cruise Control!
Dr. David Rafeedie
I love setting my cruise control every time I am on the highway. I love doing it for several reasons. One reason is it makes for a comfortable drive. I don’t have to sit in the same position with my foot on the gas. I will often lift one leg and put it on the seat like a half yoga position. I find it very freeing. Another reason I love cruise control is I don’t have to worry about any police officers who happen to parked waiting for a speeder. I set the speed for “under the radar,” and while others around me are putting on their breaks when they see the policeman, I just keep on cruising—no worries! Lastly, I love to use cruise control because I think I get better mileage at the consistent and steady use of the gas rather than speeding up and slowing down all the time. That is easy to do if you start talking, or fiddling with the radio, or whatever other distraction comes your way.
But, and this is a big but, when I am on cruise control, I am in reality, controlled by the other vehicles around me. For example, if a car is next to me and the car in front of me are slower than I am, I am stuck. I tap the break and slow down. The truth is, cruise control is the optimum way to travel for me if there are no other cars on the road. I can only cruise by a police officer if the vehicle in front of doesn’t slow down. That never happens! They slow down from a knee-jerk reaction to seeing a patrol car. That means I have to slow down too.
Cruise control is great on the open highway with no other vehicles on the road. No obstacles to go around or road construction to maneuver through. But even though cruise control allows one to relax behind the wheel physically, it is necessary to keep both eyes open and to be aware of the surroundings. There are always other vehicles on the road or potholes to miss, or construction to maneuver around.
Often as leaders, we put our leadership in cruise control. Things are going well. We can take our foot off the gas and put our legs up. We can get comfortable with the speed we are doing and enjoy the scenery. We live by the common-sense slogan, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That may be an important truism in some spheres of life and work, but for leadership, it is an invitation to maintenance rather than growth. When we put our leadership in cruise control, the team and organization we lead go into cruise control too.
After a time, in leadership, as it is on the road, circumstances, competition, or internal issues cause us to step on the breaks maneuver in an unanticipated direction. Flexibility is required. In a car, we sometimes change lanes quickly to avoid a collision. Cruise control doesn’t help with that. In leadership, if we are in cruise control mode, innovation, creativity, and production are often stifled.
Well, enough of beating that metaphor to death. As I said, it can be easy to fall into cruise control and not even be aware of it.
Here are four actions you can take to help you avoid putting your leadership in cruise control.
Be a lifelong learner. Keep in touch of the industry you are a part of or the profession to which you belong. Be a student of the culture, and probably most important, be a learner of who you are. Know your strengths and your soft spots. If you know yourself well, you can play to your strengths and put a strategy in place to work around the soft spots that mitigate success. Who we are is our greatest strength but who we are can also be our biggest challenge. If we are self-unaware, there is no hope for personal or professional growth.
Strive to help your executive team grow, personally and professionally. Facilitate that growth, insist on it. It isn’t enough for the leader to grow alone; the team, no matter how you define them, is important to the success of any organization. I picked up a slogan years ago in a conference at North Coast Church in Southern California, and I have used it often, “Your team is more important than the people they minister to.” In other words, take care of your team well, and they will do their jobs well. You will prosper, they will prosper, and your organization will prosper.
Remain focused. Have a destination articulated clearly. Design standards to ensure excellence and develop metrics, so you know what the “win” is. Don’t forget to evaluate, evaluate, and evaluate. Periodic assessment of the activities around the goals helps measure their effectiveness. Quality control of the systems and people involved in accomplishing the mission helps keep the systems and the people sharp.
Be accountable. Accountability is a two-way street for every leader. It is your job to hold the team and organization accountable for performance, and the leader must have accountability in place herself. Everyone needs accountability to help them stay focused on direction and for personal growth and professional growth. Accountability is a matter of integrity for every leader.
If things are going well, you can lead from cruise control and get away with it for a while. The fact is, when things are going well, it is easy to forget or not realize you are in cruise control. It is ok to be content with where you are if you are doing everything you should be doing to accomplish the four things above, it is ok to be content, but don’t ever become satisfied. What I mean by that is don’t settle for what is but keep striving for what could be.
Working with you or your whole team, coaching can make a real difference in a team’s culture and help increase the capacity and performance of the team. Working with a coach will help you get there faster than you thought possible. Put feet on your dreams and desires, email me at info@davidthecoach.com and let’s have a conversation. I would love to explore a potential coaching relationship with you.
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