Have you ever slept upside down? I’d venture to say 99.9% of you that read this blog would say no. Heck, for most of us nationwide, we sleep the same way every night. For 365 days, we crawl into bed and lay our head at the top of the bed and our feet at the bottom. This has become the norm, our routine.
The other day after a long day at work, I was so exhausted that I laid on my bed upside down. My head was where my feet would normally be and my feet where my head would normally rest. As I laid there with my cats crying for attention, I thought for a moment what it would be like to sleep upside down. Weird thought right? I laid there asking myself why, even though I was on my bed and nothing was different about the way I was laying, my perspective had changed. My view was different. My equilibrium, for whatever reason seemed to be out of whack.
I began to wonder if I could force myself to sleep upside down for one night. Oddly, it was quite difficult to convince myself of such an act. Almost immediately, I began to rationalize reasons why not to sleep upside down. First, why in the world would I do that? Second, the light from the windows would hit me earlier in the morning. Next, the pillows for my head would fall off with no headboard to save them. Finally, it would just be different waking up. It would just be…unusual.
For whatever reason, my mind shifted to relating sleeping upside down to leadership. Specifically, two aspects of leadership: perspective and comfort zone. I’ll start with the latter first.
Much like the way we sleep in our beds, leaders tend to get stuck in a comfort zone. Once we find aspects of leadership that work for a particular group of people, we tend to rely on those techniques too much. We become fixated on the notion that what worked in the past with others will work for your current team. As generational differences have taught us, this is not the case. We need to constantly adapt to our working environment, our audience, and the groups we oversee.
In much the same way as if you sleep in the same spot in your bed every night, you develop a little nook that over time, is a detriment to your body. You wake up sore and eventually, need to rotate and/or flip your mattress. The same is true for getting out of your leadership comfort zone. Eventually, your comfort zone “nook” becomes overused and the groups or individuals you work with become disengaged with your leadership endeavors. So, it is important to be comfortable with leaving your leadership comfort zone, changing how you’ve always done things, and as a leader, adapting to the people and talents around you.
Adapting to others can be challenging and often requires a leader to modify their perspective. Lying upside down in my bed not only took me out of my comfort zone in a physical sense but it changed my vantage point for awhile. I saw things differently even though nothing in my bedroom had changed. I began to wonder how often we as leaders, change our perspective? Do we do it enough? From a Greek perspective, why don’t we focus more time asking non-members why they aren’t joining our fraternities and sororities? From an executive or director level perspective, why is it that the new employees feel disengaged or unhappy? From an alumni perspective, why is it that undergraduate only call when they want money? From an advisor perspective, why aren’t the students seeing the vision that I am envisioning?
Too often as leaders I think we get caught up in our own perspective, we lose the backing of our fellow workers. If the people who work for you never have a voice, what buy in will they have to the perspective and goals you are trying to complete? If you are a chapter president and don’t consider the thoughts of your peers, do you think they will stand beside you if what you are trying to accomplish falters? I doubt it. We as leaders must do a better job of seeing things from a different perspective.
Overall, we as leaders we need to sleep upside down more. I should make it clear that I’m not saying to sleep upside down every night because that would defeat the purpose. However, I’d challenge you sleep upside down once in the next week. See what happens.
Here is the true mind blowing thought of this blog entry that I want you to think about for a moment. For those of you that just thought about sleeping upside down and chuckled at the idea, what does that say about your ability to step out of your comfort zone and change your perspective? If you are unwilling to sleep upside down for ONE night, my inclination is that you are the type of leader that is unwilling to step out of your comfort zone. Sure, that is a wild accusation but if it got your blood boiling a little bit, is there some truth to it?
I really do believe the true innovators in this world (I’m seeing Steve Jobs in my head) are those that are comfortable with the thought of sleeping upside down. There is a reason leaders like Jobs become renowned innovators because they are willing to step outside their comfort zone. They are able to see things differently and from different vantage points. In the end, they develop an idea, a product that becomes transformative. Life changing. Generation defining.
I believe every leader has the ability to do great things. Yet, it is those leaders who are willing to sleep upside down who will truly leave a lasting mark.
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