Armored Leadership Example

I’d like to take some time to reference Armored Leadership, talk about what armor looks like for a leader when they put it on, and reference how I used it in my own career.

One of my favorite pieces of armor to don was the Perfectionism Armor, and what I mean by armor is whenever I was in fear or afraid of how I was showing up at work. Instead of honoring that, I would go to the closet, grab some armor, and put it on to protect myself because vulnerability was scary for me as a leader. It wasn’t something I knew how to lean into, but I definitely know how to protect myself from anyone hurting me for sure.

There are lots of different pieces of armor that we can choose from our closet, and mine was perfectionism, among many, and Perfectionism Armor for me, the way it looked, was whenever I was afraid and working on something maybe that made me feel proud but I was afraid of how other folks would receive it, I would put on my armor and perfect the work that I was working on so much so that it would sometimes immobilize me.

Sometimes, I would miss deadlines because I was so focused on making sure the work was perfect, but I knew that as long as I perfected whatever I was making, that kept me safe from feedback. So what I mean by that, if you think about that, is that if I perfected my work, there was no way you could come at me If I didn’t do something right because I spent so much time perfecting it, when in reality I knew that the work was good, I wasn’t sure how well it would be received, and if anything I was protecting myself for getting feedback that maybe felt that my work wasn’t good enough.

So what I learned from that experience was not only did I shut myself off from the learning process of something new I was creating, but I was also shutting myself off from others to give me feedback because as long as I was wearing the Perfectionism Armor, there was no way you could come at me, I got everything just right and just perfect.

So now I don’t pick up that piece of armor. I recognize that I am going to make mistakes because I’m human. I do work hard at making sure that there’s value in my work, but I also work hard now at being open to feedback and getting other folk’s points of view.

So that’s a little bit of my experience with wearing armor, and I hope this was helpful to you. If you’d like to read more about leadership, problem-solving, and Dare-To-Lead, among many things, please join our mailing list at the bottom of our website so you won’t miss out on future articles.