The Person In Front Of You

Leadership is boring and frustrating. Do it anyway.

One of our strongest leaders came to me recently frustrated with a government partner we've been working to bring along.

I share her frustration.

She is usually well-measured. She has a significantly higher EQ than me. She is patient in ways that have taught me a lot over the years. So when she came in to the meeting swinging, I noticed.

And then I realized I was right there with her. I rolled my eyes and shook my head in disgust.

The phrases came fast.

"Not again."

"They always do this."

"We can't go down this road again."

I was on a roll.

She wasn't wrong in her assessment and our frustration made complete sense. It was real and raw. Like always, she was right about almost everything.

But somewhere in that conversation we were both applying the weight of a hundred hard meetings with previous leaders to a new leader who was only on round one.

We were feeding off each other. And that wasn't fair.

Here is what I know about the work we do at The Hope Effect. We are trying to move children out of orphanages and into families. We will not rest until every child has a family.

It sounds simple. It is not. The resistance we face is real, layered, and deeply human. Fear of failure. Job security. Control. The leaders who run the broken system we are trying to change are not villains. These are people navigating something unfamiliar and costly. And the changes we are pushing for don't happen in months. Sometimes not even in years.

Whatever you are trying to solve, chances are high it is not a quick fix either.

Remembering The Advice Of A Great Leader

Somewhere in the middle of our spiral, the words of my first senior leader showed up in my head.

Early in my leadership career I was complaining to Bob Thune about my team. I had told them about a new initiative. Multiple times. And they were still acting like they hadn't heard it yet. I was frustrated and it showed.

Bob looked at me and said something I have never forgotten. "Joe, leadership is boring. You have to say the same things over and over again with such passion that you get sick of hearing it. But you need to remember that the people you are saying it to are just hearing it for the first time. So do whatever you have to do to remind yourself that the person in front of you is worthy of your best version of you and your mission."

His words echoed in my head and I pumped the brakes.

Shared the story.

She heard it.

We both softened.

We were still just as fired up about the mission. Just a lot more clear-eyed about the person in front of us.

We talked about the long game and what it actually means to bring a leader along instead of dragging them or leaving them behind. We cracked a few jokes about "here we go again." And we got back to work.

The Take Away

Here is what I want you to take from this.

If you have been doing this long enough, you have history. Hard-won experience. Pattern recognition that is genuinely valuable. But that same experience can quietly become a weight you place on someone who doesn't deserve it yet. Someone who is walking their first mile of a road you have walked a hundred times.

The person in front of you is not every person who came before.

Remember, we are not planting vegetable gardens that will give us a reward this fall. We are planting trees. The fruit might take years or even decades. And the only way to stay in it that long is to keep showing up with fresh eyes for the person standing in front of you today.

Before your next hard conversation, pause and ask yourself one honest question: am I responding to this person, or am I responding to everyone who came before them?

The answer might surprise you. And it might change everything.

I'm cheering for you.