Lessons in Leadership: Hit The Ground Listening
Somebody lied to you about what it takes to be your best self
This essay is one in a series titled, “Lessons learned in Leadership.” In this series, I will discuss lessons I have learned in my leadership journey. I don’t have all of the answers, and to be honest, I don’t most of the answers, so if you would like to contribute to this series with some of your own lessons, feel free to message me. For last weeks essay, click here.
Also, if you're looking for a good read, check out this feature from my good friend Selena Hill, Digital Director at Black Enterprise. She wrote about “Earn Your Leisure” and how they're helping Black and Brown creators learn about finance.
In my junior year of college, I was elected President of our Student Government Association. Excited about my term in office and motivated to invest in my leadership, the Dean of Students asked me to join the working group assigned to hire a new Vice President of Student Affairs. While in this group, I had to go through resumes of potential candidates, participate in the interview process, and give a final recommendation for the person the school should hire.
During one of those interviews, our Dean asked a candidate what she would do in her first 90 days in the role. This wasn’t a particularly difficult or impressive question; it was just one of the many we had listed within our script, but the candidate’s answer stood out. She stopped for a second to think and then responded, “I would hit the ground listening!”
Her response was so matter of fact and short that it left us confused, wondering what she meant. All of these years later, I finally understand and would like to share with you.
When new leaders step into their roles, there is usually a level of excitement driven by a desire to excel in their new position. This leads to an attempt to “hit the ground running” in a way that validates their hire and has immediate results. Whenever I have started a new role, I have done the same thing: I dive in headfirst and prioritize points on the board over relationships and impact. When your job is to do a specific task, this can be an effective way to make a name for yourself and show others that you are serious. Depending on where you work and what type of manager you have, this can leave a good impression, but it also has its downsides.
When you dive headfirst into the work without understanding the environment, you might find yourself plummeting towards shallow waters. Stated plainly, reacting before you have an analysis can trip you up. Every professional space has an organizational culture, internal and external politics, relationships and dynamics, as well as core values that you should become familiar with. Hitting the ground running sounds good in theory, but it can lead to you unnecessarily ruffling feathers of people whose support you may someday need, or duplicating work that has already been done. As a new leader, even in an organization you have been in for quite some time, this can come across as arrogant and dismissive to the staff teams. For example,
When I received my promotion in 2021, I tried to “hit the ground running” as well. Within a week, I introduced new organizational standards, dived headfirst into projects that others had been working on, and was very liberal with the feedback I gave to our teams about their performance. Two months into the new role, and it was already becoming clear that this approach had done some serious damage to my organizational and political capital. My need to “produce” and “show my worth” was stronger than my ability to be a leader. In order to show up better in the work, I had to look within to figure out why.
The Pressure to Produce Shows up In Leadership, and Manhood:
After months of journaling, reflection and therapy, I realized that I have felt pressure from an early age to produce. That happened because the story that I and little boys all over the country were told was if I wasn’t producing something, I had no right to exist. That pressure defined much of how I viewed myself, and the things I prioritized. I spent many years devaluing my personal feelings, mental health, and well being because I thought they were irrelevant.
I tried to produce good grades in school, people please in my personal relationships in the hopes of “producing happiness”, and climbed the corporate ladder in the hopes that I could prove to an imaginary arbiter that I deserved to exist. And in that pursuit of validation, I ignored my humanity, mental health, personal relationships, and sanity. In the end, I wasn’t just losing myself, I was self-destructing. Once I dealt with that harm, I was able to look at the work in a new way, and I finally understood and could practice the idea of “hitting the ground listening.”
As leaders, we often feel pressure to show our worth and prove that we deserve to be where we are. If you're going to be successful in this role, the first thing you need to understand is that more often than not, that pressure you are feeling is coming from within. If you're in this position, it is because you have proven through your hard work, relationships, and leadership abilities that you deserve to be here. Trust yourself, trust your mentors, and have faith. When we put too much pressure on ourselves, it causes anxiety, and anxiety in the workplace can lead to careless errors and unhealthy practices.
If you want to be effective, you need to understand your new environment, the people in it, and the best approaches for success. The best way to do that is to take time listening to others, asking questions, and figuring out what has been done. Love yourself, and hit the ground listening.
I one thousand percent agree with this. Years ago, a mentor told me that you spend the first six months of a new job listening. I think what is missing from this message is that employers also need to adjust their expectations and welcome that listening period. In my experience, that pressure to perform doesn't only come from within. Having been on both ends of hiring, I've heard organizations say time and again that they want to hire someone to "hit the ground running." We need to give people the space to listen, and learn, and not feel the weight of expectations. We need to give them time to formulate the opinions, plans, and relationships that will benefit both the individual and the organization. We need to resist immediate assessment - which is very contrary to human nature and to capitalism.
"That happened because the story that I and little boys all over the country were told was if I wasn’t producing something, I had no right to exist."
Not a boy but I grew up hearing the same from my father. I'm 47 and still struggle to accept that I have value without a title in my email signature line.