Reluctant leader

Some are born leaders, some work hard to become leaders, and some have leadership thrust upon them.

I don't see myself as a natural leader, at all. I'm most comfortable as an individual contributor. But sometimes I find myself in a position where leadership is called for, and nobody else fits the bill. Sometimes I must step up to ensure things don't fall apart.

This happened to me today, but not in a work context. It happened here at home.

Not many people know this about my home situation, but it's non-traditional. I share a house with nine other people: my domestic partner / long-time girlfriend, her disabled son, her mother (a retired medical worker), my girlfriend's sister, the sister's two young children, a friend of my girlfriend along with her spouse, and a friend of the sister. Four of these people receive disability income, and a couple of others deserve to (and one is working on getting approved). A number of these people ended up here because they had few better options.

Some of these people are in a position to pay a modest monthly rent. Some are not. They are all, as I perceive it, working to improve their situations. I'm someone who likes to distinguish between a hand-up and a hand-out. If I can provide a roof to someone who is working through their problems, as long as they are doing the work, I feel like I'm paying forward some of my own good fortune. This is a lesson I learned from my wife, who passed on a few years ago. If someday, some of these folks are able to help me in return, that's a bonus, not an expectation. Maybe they will help someone else in turn.

It's inevitable that disagreements and tensions will happen in a larger household. Today I had to organize and host a family meeting to work out some issues.

It's relevant here that I'm the only high-income person in this house. The mortgage is under my name alone. That puts me in an unavoidable position of authority. I say "unavoidable" because hosting difficult discussions is, as you can imagine, not how I'd prefer to spend an afternoon. I'd rather just sit quietly in the bedroom and write some code on my laptop. But there's no getting around the fact that if someone here is exhibiting unacceptable behavior, and we can't talk our way to a solution, the decision to kick somebody out begins and ends with me.

Fortunately, it turns out I've learned a few things about how to conduct meetings, from all the successful (and unsuccessful) meetings I've attended in my software career. I used some of those lessons today:

• I prepared an agenda. In fact I wrote out everything I wanted to go over, from start to finish. I apologized in advance for looking down at my laptop while we talked, but explained that I didn't want to forget anything important.
• I secured an agreement from everyone involved as to the time we would start the meeting, and worked to tamp down on distractions so we could focus on the discussion.
• I started the meeting by reminding everyone that I believed we were all doing our best. We all had our challenges and I believed we were all trying to rise to meet them.
• Before I started raising issues, I asked everyone to try to put their ego aside and listen without judgment. I advised them that I might decide to table some topics if they generated too much discussion or heat, and that I'd ask everyone to think about what was discussed after the meeting was over. Sometimes people need time to let emotions cool and to mull things over.
• I pointed out some things I'd noticed that I, myself, had done poorly, apologized, and mentioned what I was doing to improve my own behavior.
• Then I worked through the list, trying to give everyone space to respond and to discuss each one. I took notes when something came up that seemed worthy of a follow-up.
• In a couple of cases I did have to stop the discussion so we could move on to another issue.
• I then took some time to call for expressions of gratitude, starting with my own gratitude for each person's household contributions. I invited them to express their gratitude for each other, and was heartened when they also expressed gratitude to me. I'll try to remember how that felt for the next time I have to do this (...which won't be for a while, I hope).
• Finally I repeated what I'd said at the beginning, that I believed we were all honestly doing our best, and asked that they try to be forgiving of each other and themselves.

Then I retreated to my room for some well-earned quiet time, but first I thought I'd share my experience in case it proves useful to someone else. Wherever we go, people are people. The life we live at work is not lived in isolation from the rest of our lives, and the lessons we learn at work may prove useful in other contexts.