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Even leaders fall apart — and that’s ok
I was talking to a friend today, someone who is a leader in her local business community. As she began talking about how hard she was working to hold the people in that community together, she began to cry, tears streaming down her face despite her best efforts to stop them.
I was reminded of water pushing through cracks in concrete. And then I thought of one of my favorite Leonard Cohen lyrics:
“Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
If you’re putting pressure on yourself right now to hold it together, to get it right, because other people are counting on you, I invite you to give yourself some grace.
The mere fact that you are committed to coming through for other people shows me that you’re a leader. You don’t need to prove it. You just need to be you.
You are the perfect offering.
Yesterday a high-level manager at a tech company began our Zoom meeting by sharing how she and her husband were struggling: the non-profit he runs is on the brink of closure, he’s scrambling overtime to save it, she’s worried about her own job security, and meanwhile, they are taking care of their toddler and kindergartener.
