Grateful For Boundaries
On Thursday, many of us will celebrate by eating ourselves into a tryptophan induced nap. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it is about gratefulness. It is also about food, so that’s awesome too. This week, I’ve had several opportunities to be reminded of many things I am grateful for, but one that rose to the top recently was boundaries.
Boundaries are the limits and rules we set for ourselves within relationships. A person with healthy boundaries can say “no” to others when they want to, but they are also comfortable opening themselves up to intimacy and close relationships.
Early this week, I took a Zoom call from someone that was upset. They had refused to talk to the person who had the responsibility and authority to handle the situation. The call started calmly enough, but quickly progressed to this person being angry and inappropriate (which they had already demonstrated with other members of our team). So, I ended the call by telling them I had heard them and would need time to consider what they had said.
What I didn’t do was defend, argue, return accusation for accusation, or really engage in the emotion-driven behavior in any way. After the call, I let the person responsible for that part of the business know I would support them in no longer doing business with this person or their company, regardless of the cost or difficulty it might cause.
Having healthy boundaries allows us to say no to being exposed to people who choose to act in devaluing or harmful ways. We often think of boundaries as personal, in that they are about our one-on-one interactions with others. However, as leaders, our willingness to set and maintain healthy boundaries has a significant impact on the people we serve. A leader must be willing to sacrifice business for the health and wellbeing of their team.
The things we will allow ourselves to be subjected to will become things we will subject our people to. This does require a high degree of discernment. Having healthy boundaries does not mean throwing up a barrier every time someone becomes a little agitated or defensive. However, when it becomes evident that the other person is committed to winning at the personal expense of you or your team, it might be time to draw the line.
Another way healthy boundaries were reinforced for me was at an event where I was speaking. My father always says that when we share our successes we build walls, but when we share our failures, we build bridges. A person approached me after the event and said my story had given him the freedom to acknowledge he had many of the same issues. He wanted to know if we could talk more because he wanted to be a healthy person and a healthy leader.
You may be thinking, “How is sharing the difficult and embarrassing things from your life having boundaries?” The sharing isn’t the boundary; the way I view myself is. When I see myself as the sum of my capability and success, it becomes very difficult to be transparent. Allowing people to see my uncertainty and missteps would erode my value. However, when we don’t allow other people’s opinion of us to establish who we are (a boundary), we are freed to acknowledge our human imperfection and allow people to know us.
Boundaries are also just as applicable for a community or organization as they are for an individual. Both the ability to say no and the willingness to be vulnerable are rooted in the same underlying component that exists in an individual and in a community: identity.
The ability to say no—no to being devalued, no to being harmed, no to being used—stems from a stable and solid identity. Knowing who we are and what our values and mission are gives us the freedom to walk away from things that are counter to those values, even if it costs us something. This is true for an organization also. When we are able to say no to what is harmful, we build trust. We can trust ourselves, and the people on our team are able to trust us.
The freedom to be transparent also stems from our identity. When we believe that our value is intrinsic, we can be honest with ourselves and others about our uncertainty and mistakes. No one is perfect, and claiming to be is a signal to others that you can’t be trusted.
Ironically, we sometimes think people will question our leadership if they learn we don’t have all the answers. The opposite is true. People can’t trust you if you are not real. For an organization, honest and appropriate transparency leads to greater trust and closer relationships with those outside the organization (think customers, suppliers, the community).
To be healthy people and healthy leaders, we must have a healthy identity and boundaries. We must say no to people and things that harm us to protect and value the people we serve. We must be honest and open about our imperfections and failures to open the door to closer relationships and better communication. I’m grateful for being part of a community that supports and encourages me to be the best version of myself. I am grateful for boundaries that protect and connect and help us live the Bison Way.