Thoughts Unlocked – Boundaries? Why?

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Timestamps:
00:00 – Intro
01:16 – The Power of Saying No in Leadership
04:44 – Understanding Boundaries and Their Importance
06:23 – The Impact of Boundaries on Team Dynamics
09:29 – Sustainable Leadership Practices

Skot Waldron (00:05)

I’m Skot Waldron, and when I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the globe, helping leaders and teams communicate better, build trust faster, and actually enjoy working together. I know, who would have thought? I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot, I’ve spoken at national architectural firms, at their sales trainings, off sites for major pharmaceutical companies, and industry associations.

A thousand of attendees who have read my sessions. With 99% of them saying they found the sessions valuable. 97% saying they’d actually attend again. I’ve had caterers come up to me afterwards and thank me because they actually got something they could use when they went home or when they went back to their own jobs. I mean, if every keynote delivered those types of numbers, nobody would secretly be refreshing their email under the table. And let’s be honest, that’s a little bit of my nightmare, maybe a little bit of yours. Yeah, something that keeps me up at night.

If you’re an event planner, looking for a speaker who’s easy to work with and delivers actual value that people can take away and use on Monday. Let’s make your event unforgettable.

Welcome back to Thoughts Unlocked. Today, I’m going to talk about one of the hardest words in leadership for most of you, and that is the word no. The tiny word, but it carries a lot of emotional baggage with it. Some of you just felt a little bit of stress on your shoulders hearing it because somewhere along the way, a lot of leaders started believing that being helpful means always being available, always accommodating, always saying yes. And for a while that works. You’re seen as collaborative. You’re seen as the person that is always there to support other people. And until your calendar looks like a game of Tetris designed by a raccoon and you’re answering emails at 11:47 PM while pretending it’s just busy season. That’s just the way it is right now.

But this is the fifth year in a row that that’s happened. And now you’re starting to see a pattern and everybody else is as well. Well, here’s a problem. A leader without boundaries doesn’t create a healthy culture. They create a culture of access, and everyone eventually pays for that because that is the culture you create. So, if you do it, then I have to do it and I’m expected to do this because I see that and it just depends on what leaders, leaders create culture, sub-leaders create sub-culture and that is what you are building.

There’s a psychological concept called ego depletion. The idea that decision-making and are finite resources. Whether you agree with every part of the research or not, the lived experience actually feels real. The more mentally overloaded people become, the worse their judgment gets. And leaders are especially vulnerable because everyone wants something from them. Am I right? People want your approval on something. They want your feedback on something else. They want a decision made on this thing. Meetings that should only take “15 minutes”, which is corporate code for there goes your afternoon. They oftentimes take a lot longer than that.

Without boundaries, leaders slowly drift from intentional leadership into constant reaction. You become, you just react to everything that’s thrown on your plate and that is not the way we want to live our lives, nor the way we should be leading.

Reactive leaders don’t build healthy teams; they build dependent ones. Okay, do you want a lot of people dependent on you for everything that happens inside your organization? No, probably not. Probably not the most fun. At the beginning, it might be maybe you are the glue that holds everything. Maybe you’re afraid that you won’t be relevant anymore. And maybe you’re afraid that people won’t see you as the person that makes everything happen and the person that gets things done. And maybe that’s what’s driving all this, because, you know, we can link a lot of things to fear. And that fear may be driving a lot of that, hmm, what do you call it? Saying yes to everything, whatever that is, being agreeable.

So, let’s clear something up here. Boundaries are not walls. Everybody. A wall says you can’t come in here. A boundary says here’s how I can sustainably show up. That’s different. A lot of leaders avoid boundaries because they’re afraid of disappointing people. They think saying no damages trust. But the opposite is often true. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Inconsistent availability damages trust far more than honest limits do. Do you hear that? Inconsistent availability damages trust a lot faster. You know what confuses teams? It’s the leader that says yes to everything and on, and then shows up exhausted or resentful or distracted, or maybe they’re late. That’s a problem, y’all.

Strong leaders understand something really important. Every yes is a no to something else. Saying yes to another unnecessary meeting, you probably said no to strategic thinking. Yeah, saying yes to solve every problem personally, you probably said no to developing somebody on your team. Saying yes, to constant accessibility, you probably just said no to rest and focus and your family noticing that you even still live there. And your boundaries, well, they disappear. Eventually your leadership, clarity, it all disappears with those boundaries.

So, what do healthy boundaries look like? So, let’s not get robotic, let’s not get defensive. Not per my last email energy, nothing like that. Saying things like, I can help with that, but not by Friday. Ooh, but people might get upset at that, Skot. I know, I know, I get it. I’m not the best person for the decision, you could say. I’m not the best person for this. Ouch, are you just admitting that you’re not competent enough or skilled enough or knowledgeable enough to answer my question? Maybe it looks like that, but that’s not the truth.

How about this one? I need time to think before I respond. Hmm. Are you, are you going to get angry at a teammate that says I need time to think before I respond to that? You might get a little bit annoyed, a little bit impatient, but we can respect it. Right. How about this one? I can give this, 20 minutes of focus time, not too scattered hours. So now you’re setting up a limit, right? A specific, I can give you 20 minutes, not two hours. Right? Okay. Now we’re making some progress. Okay.

So that is what leadership should look like. I just, I know everybody’s like, Skot, come on, man. I’ve heard this before. I get it. But do you? Because I am battling this with a lot of different leaders right now.

Boundaries, they communicate self-awareness. Yes, they do. A lot of people, 95%, actually according to a study I read, claim to be self-aware. 95% of people claim to be self-aware. Now, that’s a bit of an issue because we know that that’s not true. It’s actually about 15%. They tell people you understand your limits. You understand priorities. You understand your role. That’s what boundaries do. They say, I understand what I’m capable of. I understand what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

And ironically, people tend to trust leaders more when they communicate clear limits because they learn to respect that. And then they learn the way they should lead. And that is what we want to do is multiply that thinking on and on and on. And why do they do this? Because clarity feels stable and stable leaders create the lovely phrase of psychological safety.

And here is the trap though, that high-capacity leaders fall into. They think because they could do something they should. No. Okay. That mindset is why some leaders become bottlenecks with good intentions. Okay. They become these bottlenecks. You’re helpful for six months and then burned out for two years. Congratulations everyone, you’ve become the reply all version of leadership everywhere all the time and somehow still exhausting.

The best leaders, they don’t model endless availability. They model sustainable effectiveness. They show their teams how to prioritize. They show them how to protect focus. They show them how to rest without guilt and how to communicate limits with respect because your team is learning a lot from you about boundaries, whether you realize it or not. And if you answer emails at midnight, they notice that. If you never disconnect, they also notice that. If you constantly sacrifice your health for the “team,” eventually they’ll either copy you or resent you. Neither of those outcomes is great. Always tell leaders.

So, you’re working 15 hours a day. Your people are learning that in order to have your job, you have to work 15 hours a day and respond to emails at all, all hours of the night. And you also are burnt out and stressed and walk around looking like, you know, we don’t want to look. And they sit there and go, well, I don’t want that. No, no thanks. And we wonder why, you know, some people in certain generations don’t want to move up. They just, they’re content where they are. They make enough money, they’re good. They have work life, stuff going on, balance and harmony. And then they see you and they’re like, yeah, I don’t want that, okay? Because we’ve taught them that that’s what it requires. And we don’t want that for our people.

I want to ask leaders; do you want this life for everybody else under you? Like, is this fun for you? They often say no. And I’m like, okay, so why are you living it? That’s not good.

Boundaries are not; they’re not a withdrawal from leadership. They’re a requirement, y’all, for leadership. You cannot lead well when your attention, energy, and priorities are constantly fragmented. And saying no doesn’t make you selfish. Sometimes it makes you useful.

So, this week, pay attention to when you’re saying yes out of guilt, fear or pressure. Because you should be saying yes out of purpose. One healthy boundary could change the way you lead, the way you work, the way you live. And I want you to think about that. Why am I saying yes to this thing? And what am I saying no to as a result?

Thanks for listening to Thoughts Unlocked. Share this episode with a leader who desperately needs permission to stop pretending they’re an unlimited resource for everybody in their presence. And until next time, protect what matters, including yourself.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay on Unlocked.