Why You Are A Super Hero
I was driving my adopted son, Izaiah, home from school last week. He loves Spiderman. He said, "When I grow up, I'm going to be Spiderman."
I said, "That's great. Go for it!"
He quickly replied, "Who's your favorite superhero?"
I thought for a moment and answered, "Captain America."
"Oooh..." came the reply. "Is that who you want to be when you grow up?"
At 57 years old, I couldn't stop myself from laughing, but I agreed, "Yep. That's who I want to be when I grow up."
Who do you want to be when you grow up? Is it the same leader you are today?
You and the leaders of your company have some things in common with superheroes. At times you are:
- Expected to do things no one else can do
- Taken for granted
- Too quickly judged negatively
- Appreciated solely based on your performance
- Doing your best to work in your world yet think like you are from a different world
If you could... would you like to be a superhero boss when you grow up?
Does that mean you feel like you have some "Bad Boss" attributes today?
If so, then maybe it's time to grow up. Leadership requires us to be superheroes at times, so why not develop our superpowers now?
To start, our LEADERSHIP Essentials and All-In programs can help.
The topic of superheroes can be a very fun meeting agenda. Here are some ideas on how to challenge your people to become the leaders they were designed to be:
- Favorites: Ask everyone to confidentially bring a printed image of their favorite superhero - the person they might want to be when they grow up someday. Remind them to not reveal the identity of their favorite superhero.
- Guess: Everyone sits with the image of their superhero face down on the table. Go around the table and have others guess each person's favorite superhero. The identity can be revealed when guessed or if people give up.
- Similarities: Discuss the similarities between superheroes and leaders. Go beyond my list above.
- Pros and Cons: Ask everyone to participate in an exercise that lists the positives and negatives about each individual's superhero. Make the point that even imaginary superheroes are not perfect.
- Grow Up: Have an open discussion of what it might be like in your company, or for each individual in the meeting, to focus their first efforts each workday on becoming a better leader. Other priorities could be done afterwards.
Great leaders are mature and experienced, and behave like it.
Why postpone becoming an "adult" in our leadership skills when acting like a child is comparably so unproductive?