Staying In My Lane
When I drive my wife’s car, the car and I end up in an argument. Her car has a system that attempts to push you back into your lane if you are drifting out of it without signaling. The car’s estimation of when I am leaving my lane does not align with mine, and the car is often correcting when I would rather it not. I do not like being pushed back into my lane by anyone, much less by a car I am supposedly “driving.”
“Staying in your lane” means focusing on your own responsibilities or area of expertise and avoiding interfering in matters that don’t concern you. It’s a reminder to mind your own business and stick to what you’re good at. Just like I never appreciate the car telling me to stay in my lane, people often don’t appreciate being told to stay in theirs. Leaders can be especially bad about this.
When I am driving, I believe I am in control of not just the car, but the environment around me. This is not accurate, but it is how I feel. When the car tells me (or in the case of my wife’s car, actually takes over the steering wheel) I’m moving out of my lane, I immediately get defensive and fight back. I have a good reason to be where I am—don’t I? —but the car just doesn’t understand. Leaders tend to see themselves as having clear direction accompanied by mastery of many (if not all) of the disciplines necessary to get where they are going, and they often push back when reminded they have strayed.
The reality is that we all drift from time to time. Everyone. No one is immune to getting distracted and slowly crowding or crossing a line—leading to inefficiency and waste at best, or disaster and ruin at worst. The system in my wife’s car is called “Active Lane Keeping Assist,” and it watches the surroundings (objectively, I might add), first warning the driver, then interfering with one-sided braking to keep the vehicle within the lane. What if we had an “Active Lane Keeping Assist” for our leadership?
Well, we do. The team around us, our family, friends, and mentors can all provide feedback that can keep us from drifting out of our lane and help us avoid many of the negative consequences that result from being out of our lane. The question we must answer is, “Am I willing to have my course corrected?” If the answer is no, then you don’t really need to read any more of this musing. If the answer is yes, then let’s remind ourselves why staying in our lane is a good thing.
Focus. Staying in our lane as leaders means being focused on a few high-level priorities and saving our energy and effort to move those forward. If people in your circle of influence are waiting on you before they can continue moving the needle, you are controlling too many things and not driving a clean line. Leaders who lose focus don’t just get in other people’s way; they sometimes crash and burn. Failure to remain humble, teachable, and transparent is a recipe for beginning to think gravity isn’t a law for you—which has catastrophic outcomes for everyone around you.
Example. When a leader practices staying in their lane, it demonstrates to everyone else what healthy and collaborative effort looks like. When the leader is running around, inserting themselves into everything, others will do the same. Maybe you are capable of F1-level driving (Spoiler: everyone knows you’re not), but if everyone in your organization acts that way, there are going to be a lot of crashes.
Relationship. Leaders who stay in their lane empower others to do what they do best. You must delegate (giving others real authority and responsibility for cool work) or you will be the bottleneck. Delegation encourages others to be at the top of their game, but, more importantly, it gives them a stake in creating the outcome. Your team knows things you never will.
Leaders must actively encourage the people around them to help them stay on course and “in the lane” by communicating clearly what their focus is, demonstrating that they trust and respect the people on their team, and empowering people to do creative work and to call the leader on it when they are over a line (any line). Healthy communities support their members by being honest and kind, but insistent (like my wife’s car) in pushing back when someone, especially the leader, is drifting. Being active lane keeping assistants is one of the ways we show others we care about them, and it is the Bison Way.