I have come to realise that viewing a leader's relationship with others like a rubber band brings an interesting and important perspective.
The concept is that as a leader, someone with the responsibility to lead and grow others, my relationship with everyone else is comparable to a rubber band. As I set goals that move the organisation forward, it indirectly requires that others grow.
Growth or stretching enables someone to be better than before. It benefits them, and it benefits the organisation that they work with. Just as stretching causes tension to a rubber band, stretching someone in their skill development causes tension between the employee and the person, expectation or KPI that is causing the stretching.
When the stretching begins and the tension there are only two possibilities, one is to release the tension and the other is to ignore it. However, in reality, ignoring the tension is actually impossible. The ongoing tension will destroy a relationship and often seek to undermine a leader's position to actually lead.
The only option actually remaining is to release the tension. The tension is related in one of three ways.
1. The person being stretched grows and moves towards the goals and expectations set for them.
2. The leader reconsiders the goal or expectation and removes whatever it is that has established the tension.
3. Both, a hybrid of both points one and two.
So long as the goal or expectation is achievable, there is no reason that the leader should shift. If our purpose as a leader is not to grow others around us, what is it? A quality leader will know those around them and maximise the tension that they can handle in order to grow them at an optimal rate.
A leader who continually removes expectations and goals for development is not a leader. A leader needs to feel the rubber band pull.
The worst way to reduce the tension is to lessen the expectation...the tension is gone, but so is the growth opportunity.
I am grateful to have had leaders in my life who have not released the tension for me by removing the opportunity, rather, they have put support my way to enable the tension to lessen by me moving forward...towards the higher expectation and growth opportunity.
The tension is lessened because I have grown.
The concept of a 'rubber band relationships' also exists with our goals. Sometimes, we set 'easy' goals in order to grow. By setting an 'easy' goal, the rubber band has little tension. However, it provides limited opportunity for growth. Sometimes, the goal is set too big, and the tension is too high, and the rubber band breaks. In this case, the relationship with the goal is broken, and it will not be reached...hence there will be no growth either.
If the analogy stands true, it would appear that without tension, there is no growth. A measure of a leader is to know those who they lead and how much tension each can cope with. We all have a different tension tolerance; however, if we want growth...which is one of our BHAGs, then we need to recognise tension is necessary.
WHAT I AM NOT SAYING!
While tension is important, I do not advocate tension without release. I see this as a place where the rubber band is stretched and released, and then new goals bring more opportunity for growth - the tension is increased, and as the teacher grows, the tension is released again.
Parting thought...is it possible to be a successful leader if those who we are responsible for do not grow?