Change Your Clothes

Elevation Gain | Post 1 of 6 Lessons from the trail that were never really about the trail.

My sister posted a photo of her daughter at bat last week. Within ninety seconds the thread had turned into a confession.

"I always loved playing softball," one sister wrote.

So did I. Right up until there were enough boys at church camp meeting to field their own teams, and the girls came off the field. One of many early lessons in submission.

My oldest sister had her own version. She wasn't allowed to play because of her chest.

Three women. Three stories. Nobody had to think about it.

We grew up in a home with a dress code. We swam in skirts. We hiked in skirts. We did all of it in skirts, which meant we adjusted what we did until it fit what we were wearing.

I said it in the thread as a joke: I had to change my clothes to live the life of my dreams.

Cheeky. Also the most literally true sentence I've written this year. I'm writing it from the Dolomites, in pants.

Most of the leaders I coach were not raised in my church. They still got issued a uniform the day they were promoted.

Be grateful. Don't ask for help; you were hired because you don't need it. Say yes. Figure it out. Never open a sentence with "I don't know."

Nobody hands it over in writing. It arrives the way ours did, in what gets rewarded and what gets a look. The new director learns fast which questions make the CEO's face change, and she stops asking those. She learns that "I need support" reads as "I can't do this," and she stops saying that too.

Then she does what we did in our skirts. She adjusts the job until it fits the uniform. Fewer hard conversations. Fewer decisions escalated, and more quietly absorbed. Longer hours, because that's the one modification the uniform allows.

Watch what she modifies. If the leader is shrinking the role to fit the clothes, the clothes are running your department.

If you run an organization, you are the one issuing them. That's the uncomfortable part of this post and I'm not going to soften it.

You didn't write the dress code on purpose. It's assembled from what you tolerate, what you praise in meetings, and whether anyone on your senior team has ever said "I was wrong about that" out loud and lived. Your newest leader read all of it in her first two weeks.

The good news is that a uniform can be changed by the person who issued it. Ask the last leader you promoted what she's stopped saying since she took the job. If she answers honestly, you'll learn what you handed her along with the badge.

What did your last new director get on her first day, besides the badge?