Leading Through Frustration: Know Who are your Allies and Supporters

Frustration always feels more acute when you feel alone: hence the importance of allies and supporters.

When you feel frustrated you can easily feel isolated, misunderstood and alone. That sense of isolation can become more acute as frustration builds up. You may want to hide your frustrations from others and build walls around you. You seek to build these defences to protect yourself but they also have the consequence of inhibiting the scope for building open relationships with allies and supporters.

You always need some trusted individuals to share your frustrations with. Their presence and support is crucial to your wellbeing and equilibrium. Investing time with your allies and supporters working through your frustrations is one of the best investments you can make as it helps minimise the risks of excessive self-analysis, delusion and self-destruction.

Your allies and supporters are those who have an interest in your success. They may have appointed you and, therefore, their credibility is at stake. They may have a mutual interest in the successful outcome of the endeavour in which they also share a part.

In whatever organisation you have a leadership role it is worth mapping out those who have a shared interest. Some may be your competitors, others your allies. Even your apparent competitors may well be your supporters because of respect for your qualities. Where you think there may be a shared interest be explicit in building a joint approach which can reinforce the likelihood of progress. When you are frustrated there is a risk that you can brush aside tentative offers of support from others. Even if your first reaction is not to want the support of others, it is helpful to reflect on your emotional response to see whether there is a mutual interest in joint work which could help reduce your frustrations.

Hazel had built a good relationship with two trustees with whom she felt she could have constructive conversations about the best way of engaging with the Chair. These two individuals gave her constructive insights into how best to work with the Chair. Hazel inherited a team coach who had worked with the senior team for a couple of years. This individual gave her good insights into how the team had evolved and how best she could work with the individuals with whom she had had initial apprehension.

Even though the Chair was causing Hazel some frustrations, she knew that the Chair was committed to her success as she had appointed her. What helped reduce Hazel’s frustration with the Chair was the underlying sense that the Chair wanted the arrangements with the new chief executive to work well and was committed to her success.

In practice

• Be deliberate in cultivating your allies and supporters sharing your thinking with them at a formative stage
• Accept that some of the people who might appear competitors are quite likely to be your supporters too because of mutual respect
• Know who you can talk through your frustrations with in private and trusted conversations
• Test out how substantive your frustrations are with people you trust who have a valued perspective

An extract from ‘100 Great Leading Through Frustration Ideas’ written by Peter Shaw and published by Marshall Cavendish in 2019.