I recently delivered my Developing the Leader Within You keynote as the opening session of a conference. Afterward, one attendee offered this feedback:
“More info specific to this field. How do you lead when there’s a lack of staff, people going to the hospital, incidents, people are having behaviors, etc.? How do you manage/effectively lead?”
At first, I found myself thinking, But that was the point. Then I realized the comment highlighted something much bigger and something I see frequently in my work with leaders.
We tend to believe our leadership challenges are unique because our circumstances are unique. We tell ourselves, “This industry is different,” or “You don’t understand our staffing challenges.” We point to the employees, customers, regulations, pressures, or operational realities that make our environment unlike everyone else’s.
And certainly, industries are different. The work is different. Regulations are different. Customers are different. The consequences of mistakes can differ dramatically.
But leadership? Not nearly as much as we sometimes want to believe.
The Situation Changes The Leadership Principles Don’t
Consider the challenges in that attendee’s comment. You’re short-staffed, and your people are stretched thin. Someone has an emergency, and suddenly you have to adjust priorities while supporting the individual and keeping the operation moving. An incident occurs, requiring you to remain calm, communicate clearly, and make decisions with incomplete information. An employee is demonstrating difficult behaviors, and you need to address them, set expectations, provide feedback, and hold that person accountable.
Those may sound like industry-specific situations, but the leadership required to navigate them isn’t industry-specific.
I’ve worked with leaders in banking, manufacturing, construction, healthcare, professional services, sales organizations, and other environments. Their day-to-day realities can look remarkably different. Yet beneath the surface, their leadership challenges begin to sound remarkably similar.
They want to know how to build trust, communicate expectations clearly, hold people accountable without destroying engagement, develop people instead of simply telling them what to do, make good decisions under pressure, delegate effectively, handle conflict, create ownership, and keep people focused when everything around them seems to be changing.
Those questions don’t belong to an industry. They belong to leadership.
Leadership Isn’t About Having the Right Scenario
Sometimes, when people attend leadership training, they wait for the facilitator to describe their exact situation and tell them exactly what to do when it happens. That’s understandable. Specific answers feel useful because they provide an immediate solution to an immediate problem.
But there is a danger in becoming too dependent on scenarios because tomorrow’s problem probably won’t look exactly like today’s problem. A leader who only knows how to respond to situations they’ve already been taught how to handle isn’t really developing the ability to lead; they’re learning to follow a script.
Leadership development should do something much more important. It should build a leader’s capacity to respond when there’s no script.
That’s why principles matter. If I understand accountability, I can apply it whether I’m managing a bank branch, a construction project, a manufacturing operation, or a human-services team. If I understand how to coach someone, the conversation will change depending on the employee and the work, but the underlying leadership skills remain the same.
When I know how to set expectations, communicate clearly, build trust, manage conflict, create accountability, and make decisions, I have tools I can carry into situations I haven’t even encountered yet. That’s the difference between learning what to do and learning how to lead.
Your Industry Provides the Context You Provide the Leadership
Leadership is always difficult for some reason. Organizations will face staffing shortages, unexpected emergencies, challenging employees, changing customer expectations, financial pressures, operational problems, and competing priorities. Those challenges may look different from one workplace to another, but they aren’t interruptions to leadership. Those are the moments leadership is for.
In fact, the real test of leadership isn’t what happens when the schedule is full, everyone shows up, customers are happy, employees are performing, and nothing unexpected happens. You don’t need much leadership when everything is going according to plan. Leadership becomes visible when the plan starts falling apart.
That’s when people look to their leader. They want to know: Are we going to panic, or are we going to prioritize? Are expectations still clear? Does someone have our back? Will we address the problem or avoid it? Can we adapt without losing sight of what matters? Can I trust the person leading me through this?
None of those questions are unique to healthcare, banking, manufacturing, construction, human services, or any other field. They are fundamentally human questions, which is why leadership principles travel so well across industries.
So perhaps the better question isn’t, “How do I lead in my industry?”
Perhaps it’s, “What kind of leader will I be when my industry throws everything it has at me?”
Because the circumstances will change. The pressures, problems, and people will change. Today’s challenge will eventually be replaced by one you haven’t anticipated yet.
The leader, however, still has to lead.
And that’s precisely why developing the leader within you matters.
Lynette Hoy
Founder and CEO
Full-Service Public Relations and Marketing Firm
Mobile and Office: (415) 694-3004
@FiretalkerPR
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