I’ve worked with three different groups of leaders in conflict within the last several weeks. The groups were in entirely dissimilar industries and situations, and had a completely divergent composition of members – you probably could not create three more distinctive groups of leaders. However, they all shared one thing in common: there was a dramatic shift in relationships and productivity when they collectively started leaning into the discomfort.

Most of the time, the last thing we want to do is to actually cause our own pain. Our brains are hardwired to reflexively pull away from discomfort. This is especially the case in conflict, when our particular defensiveness and unconscious self-protective reactions occur. Even the most aggressive person in conflict is often in pain-avoidance mode. Yet discomfort is frequently just what is needed in order to create a necessary shift in ourselves or those around us. For leaders, it is often career critical that we understand the difference between pain and harm.

The following is a paragraph from chapter eight of my book, Leaving Prisons: Release Your Trapped Value, where I discuss some facets of this phenomenon from a leadership perspective.

Pain is localized suffering, the occurrence and often the endurance of specific and intense discomfort. Harm, on the other hand, is the infliction of injury or damage. Pain is pain and harm is harm; however overly profound that may be, leaders must fully grasp that the two concepts are not the same. Leaders trap value in themselves and all those around them when they confuse the two words. There is a robust difference between the two words, and their contrasting meanings carry enormous import for leaders. Pain is intensely personal and easily assumes prominence in the present reality and in memories. Many of our formative experiences are imbued with pain, and those experiences tend to have great impact on future behavior. We humans tend to formulate and fiercely cling to strong opinions about pain. The French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans said, “The useless, unjust, incomprehensible, inept abomination that is physical pain” while the American novelist William Faulkner said, “If I were to choose between pain and nothing, I would choose pain.” Neurologist Russell Martin said, “Pain is greedy, boorish, meanly debilitating. It is cruel and calamitous and often constant, and, as its Latin root poena implies, it is the corporeal punishment each of us ultimately suffers for being alive.” In contrast, Dr. Paul Brand, world-renowned hand surgeon and leprosy specialist, regarded pain as “one of the most remarkable design features of the human body, and if I could choose one gift for my leprosy patients it would be the gift of pain.” Regardless of our current opinions and confusions regarding pain and harm, the difference between them is best understood through three short stories: a prison of painlessness, a stunted moth, and an unprotected baby. As leaders, when we confuse the two, we cause both when only one is necessary.

The rest of the chapter illustrates vividly the lackluster alternatives that come from extreme painlessness. In my work lately, the avoidance of discomfort has been picturesquely delineated in group conflict. Inevitably the conflict is anchored in a few of the individuals in the group, and the others present are mostly attempting to be in “observant and supportive mode.” It is important that the conflict actually be permitted to occur – leaders that squelch conflict before it becomes helpful cause harm to the relationships of their groups and organizations by stunting relational maturity. So, if conflict is permitted to be present, the group then starts to share in the discomfort. The critical moment to watch for, is when one of the observant supporters finally has had enough and gives some poignant observations of the conflict. This “leaning into the discomfort” is almost always healing and powerful.

I know a friend who says that dog poop with whipped cream topping is still quite unappealing. He says this to illustrate the truth that uncomfortable situations don’t get better over time or by coating them with cosmetic compliance or coerced commitment. Conflict is present in leadership as on opportunity to deepen relationship. In retail sales, it is often the customer with a problem that becomes the loyal committed customer merely by management handling their problem well. This is the truth for leadership also – leadership is relationship. Flawless leaders encourage and navigate healthy conflicts in order to continually enhance their leadership capacity.

What discomfort do you avoid? What relationship dysfunctions are created by your pain avoidance?

Even though I just came out with a new book, here is a peak into the next volume of The Flawless Leader Papers. It’s about the incredible leadership power that emerges when a leader embraces their irrelevance.

“The truth about our own modest contribution might immobilize us: much easier then, to tell ourselves a story about how much we make our own reality.”

-David Whyte

Gary is a successful President in an insurance company. He was previously known as the “execution guru” because there was just no one better at getting things done than Gary. He had made a name for himself over the years in the industry as he climbed the ladder to President by moving anywhere he was asked, and by fixing all the broken areas in the company quickly and efficiently. If there was a part of the organization that needed to be brought back into line and up to snuff, that was where Gary was headed. He had accomplished much and had much to be proud of, and until recently, that seemed to be enough for Gary. I started working with Gary after his wife of twenty-eight years left him for the landscaper that cut the grass and worked in the gardens of what was now his former home. This shock caused Gary, the ultimate provider, to stop and take a long look at his life. He came face-to-face with his previously unknown reality that the ladder he was so sacrificially climbing through all this accomplishment was leaning on a wall filled with emptiness. Gary had been living with a governing assumption that strenuously surrendering his life to the shallow cause of “getting things done” would eventually give him fulfillment and enjoyment. When he stopped and took stock of his entire life, some rudely painful awakenings happened to surface. He had just lost a twenty-eight year marriage to a great woman, he was virtually estranged from his three wonderful children, he had sacrificed a great deal of his health and well being to excruciating work and travel schedules, and he had managed to alienated himself from everyone at work except his superiors. In the dictionary under self-sabotage, it said to see Gary.

Essentially, Gary woke up from his façade dreams of largess (that he assumed to be reality) and found he was actually deliriously and furiously rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship. He had worked so hard to build a life, and in reality he had been destroying it. He discovered that his life had little meaning and his vast conquests had left him with little significance. In fact, he had perfected conquest in the financial world; he, however, failed miserably in contribution to the larger world. His life’s purpose had resided in accomplishment alone; he served the task list; he lived for the execution of initiatives; he was the man who “got it done.” While he felt appreciated by his superiors, he also felt used. Gary had a pile of regrets and “looking himself in the mirror” had become nauseating, at best. Gary had built his identity on the unstable foundation of accomplishment-dependence; he was only good enough if he was accomplishing enough. So, to Gary, when he wasn’t accomplishing, he didn’t exist, and those badlands can get quite scary rather quickly. He bounced back and forth between feeling so good and never feeling good enough, and the definition of enough was never too clear and always out of reach. Somewhere along the way, he exchanged the power to be himself, to love himself, and to love those around him with the almighty adoration of accomplishment. Tasks had become the enemy of those waiting to love him, and Gary had too easily sold out to the enemy. He was a confused double agent and felt estranged from his own heart. He had taken many journeys, but had avoided the requisite flawless leaders’ journey from head to heart.

Gary viewed his stacked “to-do” list as empowering his life, but in reality it served to overpower him. The list was where he did his best work, and the list was where he was most stuck: the list never ended. As soon as one list was completed, another one was created. He was so busy doing; he never got to be. Being had become too difficult; he chose the life of a human doing. He got the tasks done – that is, except the preeminent task of life, the task of meaning and worthy purpose. He was never able to deeply connect with his wife and children because he subjugated them to the task list. His gluttony for accomplishment eclipsed his need for human relationship. His wife and children didn’t disappear; they just eventually faded away, settling for second best because first best was perpetually unavailable. He was left alone to live with the remnants of pain and a more than appropriate level of anguish. Gary lived in the shadow of illusive balance. Those who loved him surrounded him, but he felt so alone. He had gradually and unwittingly chosen exile. He strove to be the provider, but, when he turned around, there was no one left for which to provide. He created the emptiness in which he resided; he manufactured his own misery. He now wanted to repair and restore as much as possible of what he had lost and destroyed. Since Gary was so adept at lists, I asked him to take some time and make a list of a life filled with things that eclipsed accomplishment in importance, essentially what a life built on the economy of meaning, a life of gifts without any expectation of a return. Make the list, amend it, adjust it, edit it, perfect it. Get it done, and then we would discuss it. He later told me that this list was the most difficult and most important work he had ever done in his life. His first item helped form the title for this book.

Gary’s new life list:

- Feel joy and contentment about my insignificance – Embrace my irrelevance

- Connect with people as deeply and quickly as they are able

- Stare into the eyes of my wife; listen to her soul; love her; beg her forgiveness

- Stop everything and watch my children – especially when they say “dad, watch this!”

- Cry with those who are crying

- Listen to my child when she tells me whatever is on her mind at that moment

- Hold someone’s hand when they’re afraid

- Live my life as though it ends too soon

- Free oppressed people

- Feed hungry people

- Shelter homeless people

- Avoid at all costs colluding with exploitation

- Compassionately speak truth

- Live wide open and vulnerably

- Forgive without condition

- Love without reason

- Trust without reservation

- Dance without consideration

A notable thing here is that Gary didn’t quit his job; instead, he took it to another level of excellence. He took a few weeks of vacation to sort things out, but he came back in a more meaningful and powerful way. He learned to find meaning in the mundane, and holiness in the ordinary. He recreated an existence that touched the hearts of people, and instead of Gary working so hard, everyone around him was working much harder than he was. Gary transformed his existence by renewing his mindsets. He still got things done, in many ways better than before, but what changed was that he found an illusive peace that comes from balance, deep relationships, and authentic intensity. He recaptured reason by finding his way to his heart. He discovered resonating meaning and worthy purpose by connecting deeply with others’ hearts. He recovered his authentic identity by living a life founded on the solidity of who he was, not what he did. He rediscovered his true power by sharing it with those around him. He gifted followers with a newfound hope and meaning and that, in turn, energized them to collectively struggle to achieve his directions and dreams. He became the proud owner of that which cannot be bought. He had stumbled onto the path of the flawless leader.

What will you do to restore relationships you have harmed? On what is your self-worth based? What is more important than accomplishment?