Step Up When Things Feel Hard | Ep 240
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When everything feels like it's falling apart, maybe it's your business struggling to stay afloat, or your team losing focus, or even just the chaos in your personal life. Those are the moments where it feels impossible to lead. But here's the truth. Leadership is not about showing up when it's easy. It's about stepping up when everything feels hard. This isn't just about business, it's about life. Because leadership is universal, and every single one of us is called to it at some point.

So recently my company has been growing really fast and one of the hardest things to manage is actually keeping the culture intact. It is easy for things to slip through the cracks and as leaders we kind of have to step in and address them even when it's really uncomfortable. And so recently I had to have one of those really tough conversations with the department. There was some gossiping, there was some shady behavior, there was some stuff happening in the workplace that was just completely against our culture. And so at first I was like uh how the fuck did we get here? But then

But then I realized it actually made sense because I was like, okay, the team's grown really quickly. I haven't had time to reinforce the values. And that's on me. I had to step up and I had to remind everybody, what do we stand for? I had to make it clear what was acceptable, what was unacceptable. And then I had to explain consequences of what it looks like if those things occur again. What happens is really, I stepped into this department and I said, all right, straight up, you've got a choice. If you want to act that way, that's fine.

But you cannot act that way again and still have a job here. This is an at-will job. This is not a prison. If you're not on board with the culture, if you don't like what I'm saying, if this sounds gross to you, that's your call. But it's also on me to make sure that you understand where I stand on these issues. Here's the thing. I fucking hate these conversations. They are never fun. But what I've learned is this. Avoiding them only makes things worse.

Because if people don't know the expectations or the consequences, how can they change or decide if this is where they want to be? And if you let things slide, you're just creating bigger problems for yourself later. And so with that being said, what I want to do is I want to share with you the three core principles that I use when it feels hard. The first principle is that there are no perfect solutions. Early in my career, I tried to control everything.

I loved control. I just tried to micromanage everything in the company, right? I'd wait for the perfect timing to address an issue or to bring people together. Here's the thing. I used to think that solving problems required finding the perfect solution. And until I had found the perfect solution, I couldn't move on. I couldn't do anything. I needed to find a solution that could fix all of the aspects of every problem. But here's the truth. Waiting for the perfect solution creates more problems.

Leadership is fucking messy and progress almost always comes from taking action despite knowing it's imperfect. Taking action quickly is more valuable than finding the perfect answer because while you're waiting for perfection, here's the thing, new problems are stacking up.

And so leadership is about moving forward even when the path isn't clear. You don't have the luxury of waiting until it's clear when you're a leader because guess what? You have to be two steps ahead of everybody else. When I talk about recognition, reinforcement, and repetition, I do all of those things because there's no perfect solution for this.

It's not like you have some silver bullet. This is how you grow a great culture. It's a lot of volume, a lot of work, a lot of repetition, a lot of redoing things, and a lot of reminding people. So here's what I think you should ask yourself. If you feel like, you know what, Layla, I resonate with you. I am a perfect problem solver. Until the problem is perfectly understood and I have a perfect solution, I don't want to solve it. Ask yourself this. What's a solution that solves 70% of the problem? Okay.

Okay, because you want something that solves more than 50%, but not 100% of the problem. Because often problems require multiple solutions, not just one perfect one. Perfect solutions do not exist. Only unrealistic expectations exist. By the time that you have found the perfect solution, three new problems have already appeared. You know what I always tell myself?

when I'm in these situations where I find myself wanting a perfect solution is this. Champions don't wait for perfect conditions. Champions pursue challenges in the face of imperfect conditions. The second principle is,

is that leadership is tested when things are hard. So when I was working with this team, that I realized that all these problems had occurred and it was completely underwater, right? Performance was down, drama was high, people are uncertain. They're like, what the fuck's going on? Are leaders out now? I remember having a meeting where I was standing in front of them and I had this thought pop up in my head, which was, they're not just looking at the plan, they're looking at me. I did not have all the answers, but I did know that if they saw me hesitate, if they saw me doubt,

then they would crumble. And so I took a deep breath. I spoke with confidence. I kept the energy positive. I only showed certainty. And it was not perfect, but it worked because they saw me as their source of stability. What I've learned is this, how I show up dictates everything. If I'm steady, the team has hope. If I show up with doubt or hesitation, they lose trust and momentum. And so it's in these moments that I remind myself of this one thing. I'm the rock.

I am their rock. If I falter, so does the team. Because here's the thing, leadership doesn't count when everything's going well.

It counts when the storm hits, when the performance tanks, when the culture deteriorates, the drama escalates. Leadership is about being calm in the storm. It is not easy. There are days where I feel like crap. Fuck, I felt like crap this morning. Where I'm burned out. Where I would rather do anything but show up that day. But I have learned those are the days where I show myself that I'm worthy of being the leader.

It's not about showing other people all the time. It's also about knowing how you show up when nobody's watching. The days where I lead with unwavering confidence are the days that not only keep the team moving, but also where I earn my own respect. I had to show up confidently for that team because what happened was they had a normalcy, right? There's things that are normal. And then boom, an event occurs. And then all of a sudden it's like, what weighs up? What weighs down? Blah, blah, blah. And it's almost like you think about a kid that falls down.

The kid falls down, they scratch their knee, and then they look to the parent to say, "Is this okay? Should I be hurt? Should I be upset?" And how that parent responds in the moment dictates if that child is a victim, if they're a victor, if they're going to cry, if they're going to get up and brush their knee off. That's who dictates it. And so I look at myself as I determine how they react to the situation. If I am steady, if I am confident, if I am focused on the future,

then they will too. Sort of like, I used to work at a horse camp. And when I worked at this horse camp and you had to learn how to tame these horses, the hardest part about taming the horses is that if you're afraid of the horse, you're gonna look at its feet and you're gonna look at its head. And if you do that, the horse won't go where you want it to go because the horse is watching your eyes.

And so what you have to do is you have to watch the horse's bum. And if you're watching its bum, it will go where you want it to go. But if you take your eyes off because you're scared at where the horse is going, then the horse is going to freak out. It's going to go all different directions. I look at leadership the same way. I have to be so targeted in where I'm looking

I have to be focused on the future, all the things we're going to do next and things we're going to do right. And if I don't focus there, if I focus on the past mistakes, if I focus on what went wrong, if I focus on how I feel that day, if I focus on these problems that are happening that nobody knows about, then other people's attention goes there too. And so the thing is, is that where your attention goes, so will the team's.

And if they're distracted because you show up frazzled, you show up uncertain, you show up lacking confidence, then they will soon show up the same way. I think that being able to lead on days when it feels really hard and you feel really tired and just not like doing it, you have to remember that one, you signed up for this.

This is not something bad that happened to you. This is not something you are a victim of. This is something that you choose to do with your own volition. Like this was a choice that you opted in for. You get to do this. And so in those moments, what I believe you have to remind yourself of is that it is selfish to show up poorly for your team. All these people are relying on you.

You chose to do this and yet you show up poorly for them. And I have had to remind myself of that in the moments where I feel the emotions seeping out of me, right? It's like as best as I try to contain it, it might still be like seeping out little holes. Now I remind myself, I'm like, that's selfish, Layla. All these people are here for you. They trust in you. They're putting their futures in you. You owe them the best of you. And if you know...

that you can show up better, then you fucking better show up better. And that's what I tell myself. So here's the thing. If you find yourself in a time where things feel really hard and you've got to show up for your team, you've got to ask yourself this. Am I showing up in a way that makes me respect myself more or less as a leader? And here's the thing that I always remind myself of, and I think it was one of the best books I ever read, is about anti-fragility. The best leaders are not just resilient. They are anti-fragile.

Okay, resilience is how quickly you can get back to baseline after adversity occurs, right? So it's like, how short is that distance? Or an example would be, if you get broken up with, how long does it take you to emotionally regulate yourself? Does it take you a week, a month?

Three months? Six months? We all know somebody who got back to it the next day. We all know somebody who's still fucked up of a breakup that was 15 years ago. Now, resilience is one thing. Anti-fragility is another. Because anti-fragility means you don't just get back to baseline after adversity, but you get better.

better. Have you ever seen that person? You've got a friend, for example, they get broken up with. Instead of like getting down on themselves and then making it to the point where they don't show up for their job and then they get fired and then they're in fights with their friends and instead of that, they lose weight. They go to the gym.

They start making more money. They start upgrading their friend groups. And they start being a better version of themselves. That is anti-fragility. And the best leaders are not even just resilient. They're anti-fragile. It is hard because it is unfamiliar. Not because you're incapable.

Just remember, they're called growing pains, not growing joys for a reason, okay? And your opportunity in business lies in the hard work that everybody else avoids. And the third principle is that the only way to embrace growth is to let go of control. I used to think that leadership was about control. It's about managing every detail and preventing all the mistakes.

But then one day I realized that my desire for control was actually stifling growth. Because here's the thing, you can have control and you can have growth, but you can't have both at the same time. And I think that the natural inclination that I had early in my career and that I think a lot of people have when you're going through a hard time is to exert more control. But what I've learned is that it's not about exerting more control. It's about leaning into the fact that you can't control it.

It's about accepting uncertainty. It's about being okay with the mess, being okay with the chaos, and showing people that you're okay with it and they can be okay with it too. And that you can't control everything that's going to happen. You can't control every little thing and what way it's going to go, but you can control how you respond to it.

And I really think that it's being able to have a healthy relationship with ambiguity, a healthy relationship with uncertainty, and a healthy relationship with the fact that you don't know what the fuck is going to happen tomorrow. And if you can't have that, getting through a hard time is incredibly difficult because the reality is that you can create the illusion of control, but you don't actually control everything.

You might have influence, but you can't control people. You can't control what they do. You can't control the economy. You can't control the market. You can't control politics. You can try. See, I think of it like this, right? I think of culture like a diet.

It's easy to lose weight when you have total control. Eating at home, no junk food, no social events, literally no life. But life doesn't work that way and neither does leadership. People can't control everything. People are unpredictable and chaos is inevitable. And so your job isn't to eliminate the chaos and the uncertainty, it's to wrangle it.

The biggest challenge that you're gonna have in going through hard times and facing ambiguity and uncertainty is how you manage yourself. Just like I said, we have to reinforce the culture. We've gotta constantly repeat the culture.

What do I do every morning? I constantly remind and repeat to myself, what is my goal? What is my mission? Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up for my team? And I have to remind myself of that every day in order to remind other people of it. And so amidst all of this, when all of this is happening, you have to stay grounded in who you are and who you know you want to be. The first thing I do when I wake up is,

think about it, remind myself of it, and think about how can I do something 1% better today than I did yesterday. And I focus on what I can do better, not what I did wrong. Addressing the issue will always make things worse in the short term. And it will always, in the short term, make it seem like the team is weaker. But here's the thing. You have to stick it out. It takes time.

Six months minimum. When you make a change, it's a lot of chaos for at least three months. And then what you really start to see is that like month four and month five, the team can become stronger than they ever were. Because think about this, who are you closer to? Somebody that you went through a really hard time with or somebody that you've never been through a hard time with? And so the thing is this, in the short term, it's going to be really hard. But

You have to stick it out and you have to have faith long enough to show your team that when you get to the other side, it's actually even better than it was before. One of the best things that ever happened in my last company was COVID. In the moment, I wouldn't have known what a blessing it was until I had gone through the entire thing. But I watched it change our culture to be so much stronger. I would say it was three times stronger coming out of COVID than it was going in because we had to do things together. We went through things together. We went through hard times together that we would not have gone through had that not happened.

And in the moment, I didn't know. It just felt like this undue stress and this anxiety and this uncertainty. But on the other side, we came out as comrades that went to battle together, that knew how to fight with each other, that knew how to fight for each other, that knew how to deal with uncertainty with each other, that knew how to go through things together and how to support each other to come out better.

up better. And so the positive that you see is you teach the team that they are resilient, that the relationships are resilient, and that things can actually be better if you are patient. And so what I would suggest is that you ask yourself this, what problems are persisting in your business because you are resisting them? You want to control everything, right? And so you resist the problems that are occurring rather than just saying, what are the problems in my business?

Because every moment you spend in resistance is a moment that you steal from progress. The only thing that alleviates fear is taking action, identifying problems, taking action, and the anxiety will dissipate. A leader's greatest opportunity to build culture is during crisis. And culture is not what you say you are. Culture is what you show you are.