The Scars You Don’t See: What Leadership Really Costs

Building my career in my 20’s, I would naturally and unquestionably look at my boss and their bosses, thinking they had all the answers. They had more experience after all. Like a student looking at a lecturer who had all the answers, I thought the top leadership of a company had it all figured out. Why else would they be at the very top?

As I aspired to grow into those leadership roles, the more I realized how little I knew about the cost of leadership. The leadership tax, so to speak and what it would take from you. Nobody sets out to be a lousy leader, a bad leader. I don’t believe so. Most aim to be a good leader, being able to positively influence people to jump on the wagon and boldly head towards the vision of the leader.

I wanted to be a good leader. I still work at it every day. A leader who can set a clear direction, align people towards it, get buy-in from his leaders, engage shareholders, connect with stakeholders and manage his own effectiveness.

Sure.

That’s a straightforward framework to follow. However, being “good” is subjective. For me, ‘good’ meant being a leader of character. Someone who lives by a higher standard because they believe there is a call on their life to lead. A higher standard that is made of principles and values that are inherently good and being consistent with it. It is to be held accountable to those standards and to live by that example so that one can teach others to do the same.

To live up to such standards takes a massive toll on the person because you realize that you alone are fully and completely responsible for the atmosphere that surrounds you. I’m talking about the physical and psychological space around you with your subordinates, your peers, your superiors, stakeholders, etc. The sooner we realize this the sooner we can decide if we want to be a good leader in the first place. In my career spanning almost 28 years, I can count the number of such leaders I’ve served under on one hand.

Read: 5 Strategies I Used to Conquer Imposter Syndrome

Circumstances outside your control will happen and sometimes, these situations can be managed by solving the problem with your team but there are times when circumstances are imposed on you by external factors or even by other people that seem unjust, distasteful, or uncalled for. What do you do then? What if your peer needed your help and you extended it but his superior disapproved of the work and your colleague threw you under the bus? What if it happened to your immediate subordinate?  What if you were proactive to ask your boss if they needed help with a presentation and they declined and then asked you to present a deck to a group of stakeholders at the last minute on the day itself? I can go on and there are many more horrifying examples but you get my drift.

The things that people do to others are the ones that hurts the most. The sting. The bite. The chunk of your soul that was sucked out. What do you do as a leader WHEN such circumstances happen, especially when it also hurts your team?

The Goliaths We Face

Many years ago, I stepped into a leadership role at a time when revenues were declining, and the brand image was in quite a fragile state. I oversaw brand, marketing, digital, strategy and comms then. The team was demotivated and to make matters worse, I had a peer who looked after sales who behaved like a boardroom thug. In my first 6 months, I would be attending weekly sales and marketing meetings with him and his team, only to be met by incessant threats and raised voices about my team’s incompetence and our apparent lack of support. It was quite a spectacle, I must say, coming from an MNC culture. Much of the rants and accusations were baseless and intended to spark a reaction from me. His leaders would add on to verbally wear my team down.

In my first 6 months, my initial response started with genuine surprise at such behaviour followed by anger and intense irritation. My first thoughts were, “Someone ought to teach this oversized child a lesson and that person will be me!” followed by thoughts of unleashing the ‘Harvey Specter’ within to put him in his place. As I entertained these thoughts, I would leave the meetings with such a physical strain on my neck and shoulders that I needed physiotherapy.

However, something came alive within me. It was this sense of boldness, and it felt like a calm, steady voice telling me to respond counterintuitively. To stay silent when this colleague shouted and ranted in these meetings. To smile and simply watch him. To listen deeply as he repeated the same narrative. I decided to take responsibility of my response and create my own “atmosphere” of stillness which juxtaposed his behaviour. As I did this week in week out, I could think better and see through this person. I saw fear, insecurity and desperation which helped me frame the situation differently.

Read: Warning Signs You Might Have a Toxic Culture and What to Do About It

The Power of Psychological Leverage

I now felt I had leverage. Psychological leverage, specifically. The more I remained silent, the more he looked out of control, unbecoming of a senior executive. In those first 6 months, I ensured my team worked on the low-hanging fruits to create momentum in our marketing and brand efforts to generate strong leads above target. After 6 months, I decided to play a different game, stopping him midway and questioning him on his numbers. “You have X number of leads from marketing, how many of these leads have you engaged? How many staff do you have who are responsible for engaging these number of leads per day? The math shows you have more leads than your team can manage. At best, your team is only able to contact 60% of the leads we generate and you’re bleeding money for the company. Your conversion rates are a dismal X% and yet you demand more leads. Please explain to everyone in this room.”

Other senior executives were present. What happened next was a temper tantrum that I had only seen in movies with screams of, “How dare you question me? What do you know about sales? I’ve been doing this for the past 20 years…blah blah blah.”. One of his leaders got so worked up, he slammed his laptop on the table.

That day, he lost all credibility. Nobody wanted to be seen near him or supporting him. Things didn’t go very well for him after that incident.

I’m sharing this story because at some point in our careers, we will face such Goliaths. You may be facing one or several of them right now. They may be “giants” and will throw their “years of experience” or connections or louder voices at you as a display of strength. I call them “warlords”. An experience like this is very valuable because it tests our character. All your senses are ringing all at once and the more we’re exposed to experiences like this, the more battle-tested we are.

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Your Response Can Change the Atmosphere

What can we do in circumstances like this? I can certainly suggest what you shouldn’t do first - react emotionally. I'd like to say, “Stay calm. Collect your thoughts.”

We are human after all, and the natural instinctive reaction is most often an emotionally led one. To tell ourselves, “Calm your emotions” and have rationality take the lead is a trained pre-determined behaviour (and skill).

It’s easier said than done but mental and emotional preparation before an actual incident is the best approach. Pre-determine and decide now that when you’re faced with such circumstances and Goliaths, your default response is calmness. It may not FEEL natural at that moment, but it IS a STRATEGY. It is a STRATEGY to steer a situation when it seems out of control. By choosing to stay calm, diffuse a heated argument and speak with facts, we’re effectively shifting the atmosphere around us to influence others towards the pace and rhythm that we’re setting. People respond positively to calmness because it makes them feel safe. By managing our response, we have better influence over leading the discussion. It preserves your credibility, reputation and influence.

Furthermore, the “Goliath” in the room would expect an instinctive reaction from you and is prepared. When our response is one of calm, it throws them off. It makes them second guess you and destabilizes their own perceived power. It shifts the balance of the environment over into your control, very subconsciously.

Read: Workplace Communication: Stop Asking “Do You Understand?”

This is a strategy and as long as we remind ourselves that it is a strategy to grow our credibility and influence positively, I hope we remember that we hold a lot of influence whether we know it or not. We will only discover it in situations when a Goliath emerges. David defeated Goliath because of strategy, not just courage or luck. David was already a master marksman with his slingshot. His strategy was to keep a distance from Goliath and play by his own rules of engagement rather than fight the giant in close quarters.

Battle scars in our career are inevitable but I look at my scars knowing that each one tells a story of failure and success. Both are needed in my journey towards becoming a good leader. Without failure, I wouldn’t be grateful for success.

When I go through tough battles and meet Goliaths, the temptation is to run from them or even run towards the fight in full-on confrontation mode but when we realize our actions affect those beyond just ourselves and may impact others’ perception of our team, it’s something worth stopping to think about first. That’s a cost of leadership. Your actions may carry consequences for your team. Sometimes, reacting to an emotional urge to retort is a selfish act.

The Leadership Tax We Choose To Pay

The cost of leadership comes in many forms—some visible, many unseen. But what matters most is how we choose to carry that weight and what we take away from the journey.

At the end of the day, leadership is a choice—a daily, costly, and often unseen one. It’s the decision to hold ourselves to a higher standard when no one else is watching. To bear the weight of the unseen tax that comes with leading well. To recognize that while we may not always get it right, the real measure of leadership is found in the scars we choose to wear with purpose. Because in those scars, we find resilience, wisdom, and the kind of leadership that truly endures.

This article was firstly published on Ben Foo's LinkedIn.

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