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Key Takeaways Being a leader doesn’t mean you are always THE leader. You must learn how to read the room to know who actually owns the situation and step back, supporting rather than controlling.
Ask yourself: Who has the leading role in owning the situation? What are we trying to accomplish? How do I support?
Offer support to the designated leader in a way that keeps the spotlight on them. This can be done by asking questions, reinforcing a decision or offering guidance privately.
I sit on trade association committee meetings with other CEOs and have noticed that sometimes it’s hard to follow the leader when the room is full of them. Everyone is so used to being in charge that collaboration suffers, especially when a consensus is needed within the given time period to allow the committee to move forward with some decisions. In the end, we risk little actually getting accomplished.
Sitting around those tables got me reflecting on how being a leader doesn’t mean you are always the leader. Situations have their own structure where someone else might be the chair, the owner, the one responsible. And if a leader cannot read that — and they walk in assuming their usual role — it creates a problem.
Please don’t equate that with arrogance. The real issue here is identity confusion, where the need to be seen as a leader overrides the need to be useful, because it is expected. As leaders, half the time, we may not even notice we are stepping up when we should be stepping back.
Here is what I have learned about reading the room for who actually owns the situation and what to do instead of defaulting to leadership mode.
Related: To Be a Leader, You Must Know When to Follow
Reading the room
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