Most leaders climb alone.
The higher you go, the fewer people you trust to tell you the truth. 76% of leaders feel isolated. Are you one of them?
The more you succeed, the more isolated leadership becomes.
You carry the pressure to have all the answers.
You're surrounded by people, but feel like you always need to curate what you say.
That's free soloing your leadership.
Free soloing is when a rock climber climbs a cliff face without a harness, ropes or safety wedges. A safety wedge is lodged in the rock, and if a climber slips, they only fall to the level of the wedge.
Free soloing is thrilling to watch, but most people would never do it themselves as it is too risky.
Yet many of us are free soloing through life, and whether we are leading a business, a church, a non-profit, or even a family, many of us are doing
it alone without the benefit of a trusted person, or people we can trust. Something is missing. We call it:
The Missing Wedge
"I feel comfortable sharing my weaknesses with the people I respect most."
The Missing Wedge Services
Consider
In this short video, lead coach Luke Morgan explains why so many of us find ourselves free soloing. Here's a hint: it begins and ends with curating what we share, and ends with division from each other.
The missing wedge is just the start.
Most organizations do not have an intentional strategy for how to engage people and include them in networks. People are thought of as a resource, and not the "guts" of an organization.
Outer life
The outer life is what people know you, or your organization for. It is the behaviors "outsiders" notice, the experiences you choose to share. In your organization this might be your marketing, or your mission and values statement that you decide to make public.
Inner life
This is the you that goes on behind the scenes. In your organization, this is where your efficiencies or inefficiencies come out. This is where your culture is lived out. Your employees, your family members, or other insiders are aware. This is: "how the sausage is made." Some people and organizations are intentional about this.
Governing ideas
Ideas are what you think are important to you. Governing ideas are different. They are what actually provides the backbone of your culture, thought process, and, between governing ideas and people, is what your inner life and outer life rest upon whether you are aware of them or not. Almost no people or organizations think about this very much, and explains how it is that you can have laudable ideas that fall apart in execution. You have fallen in love with ideas, but they have not transitioned into ideas that have governance over behavior.
