Leadership Salt

I love sweets. 

I always have.

I have a bias towards sweet things over savory.

My mom is a pretty legit cake baker, and so I think it just comes with the territory of being a baker’s son. 

Growing up I remember her making cakes for everything. Cakes for all 6 of her kids' birthdays, then eventually the 13 grandkids and even the 2 great grands. A cake for every graduation, and wedding, and on and on. Basically, if there was a reason to celebrate, it was accompanied by cake.

Coincidentally I had to buy clothes in the ‘husky’ section of JC. Penny. I hadn’t put those 2 things together until just now, ha!

I eventually escaped my ‘husky’ label jeans, but my love for sweets remained. 

Over the years my tastes have changed.

They’ve evolved, matured, and become a little more complex as I’ve gotten older.

My favorite dessert is still cake. 

It’s J. Alexander’s carrot cake. 

The cake has lots of complexities. It has ginger, pineapple, coconut, carrots, nuts, and THE best cream cheese icing. It’s not sweet for sweet’s sake. It’s more sophisticated than that. It has a lot going on but it finishes perfectly, and if there’s any left, it doubles as a healthy breakfast!

Most of the sweets I like these days have some of that sophistication.

Some of my other favorite treats are the ones that mix in a little bit of saltiness.

I won’t make a long list, but to make the point…

Chocolate chip cookie dough (don’t bother cooking it, and it better have some salt in it).

Maple bacon anything.

Saltine caramel chocolate bark.

Dark chocolate w/ sea salt.

Man, this is making me hungry…

My bias towards sweets hasn't changed. 

It’s just evolved and enhanced by mixing in its opposite.

I think the same is true in leadership.

You have a “go to” leadership style.

You have a leadership bias. 

And for most of your career your leadership bias has probably served you well.

You may have been hired for it.

You may have been promoted because of it.

Your team and your leader have come to expect it, maybe depend on it.

You may have even built a staff or volunteer team to compliment your bias.

So, I would never say to abandon your leadership bias.

But I would say life and maturity demands that it become more complex.

It’s often the opposite of our leadership bias that brings out the best in both styles.

Just like the right kind of salty compliments a more mature sweet treat, adding in a different flavor of leadership bias can enhance your overall leadership.

If you’re a tough and driven leader, choose to mix in time to slow down and let the results take a backseat with a direct report. Choose to see people over results.

If you’re the empathetic, nurturing leader, find your inner coach for a one-on-one. Step up your intensity and see if you can challenge your teams to reach bigger goals and achieve a greater impact. 

If you’re an action-biased leader, make it a discipline to listen more and see who else around you might make an impact.

If you’re a consensus leader, be decisive and make a call and see what happens.

If you’re autocratic, bring more people in on a decision.

If you’re fast, pick a project or a problem and go slow.

If you’re deliberate, decide to decide and pick up the pace.

If you’re a hands-on leader, try developing someone.

If you’re a loner leader, take people to lunch.

If you’re a social leader, choose times for solitude.

You may never change your leadership bias, but you can absolutely enhance it.

Life and leadership are complicated. The longer you lead, the more complex things tend to get.

Be willing to develop a complicated and sophisticated leadership response. Find your leadership salt.