• 8:00 – A team member shares a cancer diagnosis.
• 9:00 – A team member shares pictures of their new baby.
• 10:00 – A critical application goes down, and it’s your team’s fault.
• 11:00 – Celebrate a monumental project success.
• 12:00 – Take a deep breath for a minute.
• 1:00 – Deal with a difficult personnel issue.
• 2:00 – Promote a rising star to a big new role.
• 3:00 – Find out about a coworker who sabotaged you.
• 4:00 – Find out about a coworker who did a major favor for you.
• 5:00 – Hear about a very concerning cyber threat.
• 6:00 – Hear about some positive public recognition of your team.
• 7:00 – Call it a day. Tell your best friend that you “fell off the jetway again.”

Fell off the jetway again

This is a reference to the opening scene of the 1994 film, Dumb and Dumber. Lloyd is a limo driver who drives Mary Swanson to the airport. It was the best day of Lloyd’s life because he met the girl of his dreams. It was also the worst day, because he got in an accident, got fired, and ran off the jetway trying to return her Samsonite briefcase.

Being a leader often feels this way. The most extreme days always bring this scene to my mind.

It’s okay. I’m a limo driver!

It is okay. This is what leaders deal with. This is what we do. We deal with the ups and downs. It’s a key part of the job. I’m going to use the rest of this article to explain how do to it.

Learn from my mistake:

When I was a new leader, I remember a particularly bad mistake I made. I started my day with an argument with my wife over the phone. I can’t remember what we were arguing about, but it got me down. From there, I immediately went into a staff meeting. Without knowing it, I brought the emotions from the argument into the meeting.

Afterward, my team members approached me individually with great concern. Was the company going down in flames? Was my team disappointing me all of a sudden? This couldn’t be further from the truth. It wasn’t anything I said in the staff meeting. It was my emotional demeanor.

Once I figured all of this out, frankly, I was embarrassed. I never walked into a meeting again without first checking my emotional state.

Emotional Intelligence

What I needed to do here was exhibit a little Emotional Intelligence. Most of you have heard of that concept before. It means a lot of things, but in short, it’s the skill of controlling your emotions, rather than letting your emotions control you. On the list of required leadership skills, this is pretty much at the top.

How do you quickly pivot from grieving with a team member facing a cancer diagnosis to exuding joy with another team member who just had a baby? Emotional Intelligence.

This isn’t faking it. It’s being present. It’s putting away distractions and letting things go. It’s being intentional about not thinking about the cancer when you are looking at baby pictures, and not thinking about the baby pictures when you are listening about cancer.

Yes, it’s an emotional rollercoaster, but you don’t need to unpack it all in real-time. Be present in the moment, and then mull it all over on the commute home, or in the gym later that evening if you need to.

Choosing your focus

In my example above, I gave equal time to positive experiences and negative experiences. Some days may be an even split. Some days may be better or worse. That doesn’t matter. What matters is where you dwell your focus. While we all need to deal with the negative events in our day, we don’t need to dwell on them. If you do, you may get cynical, or even depressed. By focusing on the positive, you cultivate gratitude and optimism in your heart.

Optimism

Is your team the worst? Yes. Are they the best? Also yes. You aren’t crazy. You are a leader. Deal with the bad. Dwell on the good. Be present for both every time. Don’t drag the left-over emotions from one moment into another.

A Tale of Two Cities

Even more than Dumb and Dumber, this whole dilemma reminds me of the famous opening of the book, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. I’ll end this article by quoting it:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.

That’s how you deal with the ups and downs of leadership.

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