The Imitation Game
Leadership can feel like an imitation game when we’re first starting out. There’s plenty to be said about imitation as a normal part of any learning. I notice that as I parent my small children.
Our 2-year-old has begun telling knock-knock jokes. Lest you think she is a comedic genius, let me assure you she’s not! She’s pretty good, however, at mimicking her older brothers. She hears them telling knock-knock jokes ad nauseam and she wants to participate. It’s going to be a long time before she’s writing her own jokes.
And that’s 100% normal. Imitation is a huge part of her development. I’ll be concerned, however, if she never moves beyond repeating her brothers’ jokes. I’ll worry about whether she has access to her own voice and her own sense of humor if that happens.
Full Palette Coaching was conceived in my own experience of feeling like I’d spent longer than I wanted in the imitation stage of leadership development. It’s something I notice in other women leaders around me as well.
Somewhere along the way I internalized a sense there wasn’t room or permission to bring more of myself to my leadership. I didn’t know how to integrate what I saw and admired from other effective leaders with what I knew to be true about me.
And so, I kept mimicking them and ignoring myself.
A few years ago, I was invited to replace a veteran leader and spearhead a training experience for a team of interns. The veteran leader who’d held the role for several years agreed to stay on and coach me as I did the job for the first time.
I was thrilled at the prospect of working with someone I’d admired from a distance who was known for his charismatic and visionary leadership.
But when I got to the other side of the event and the debrief, I couldn’t help but feel as if the whole thing had been more of a loss than a gain, at least for me. I had done everything I’d been asked to do, which amounted to leading a version of his content in an imitation of his style. I felt dissatisfied with the results.
I didn’t feel like I could challenge the method or structure of the training. While the initial invitation felt like a chance to grow, I was left feeling like what was pitched as growth just felt like trying to fit my leadership style into his box.
If I could go back in time and coach that younger version of me, I’d invite her to pay more attention to her discomfort. I’d invite her to do the work to figure out what she wanted out of the experience and why. I’d invite her to bring all of herself - questions, ideas, pushback - to the table.
I’d remind her that a full palette of leadership tools and experiences was inside of her if she wanted to access it.
How about you? How have you experienced the imitation game in leadership? What have you learned from it? Are there aspects of it you’d like to leave behind?
