The Fishbowl

Today's Read Time: 5.3 minutes

When I was in college, I was an RA, which meant I lived in a residence hall, helped students when they needed something and kept the general ruckus from getting completely out of hand. It wasn’t glamorous, but it paid for room and board and gave me a surprising number of lessons in leadership.

One of my Hall Directors was Heather, and she is still the best boss I have ever had. She was transparent, expected a lot from us and gave feedback freely, but what made her exceptional was her ability to leave room for someone to mess it up and make it up. She held people accountable without deciding that their worst day was the most important thing about them.

During one of our one-on-ones, she told me something I have never forgotten: When you accept a leadership position, you agree to live in a fishbowl.

People can observe you from every direction, and there are very few places to hide. Your behavior is on display for people who know the whole story, people who caught five seconds of it and people who weren’t there at all but have heard enough to form a strong opinion. Before you make a choice, you had better be prepared for someone to see it, interpret it and tell other people what they believe it says about you.

Leadership is a lot like that. 

Recently, I was reminded that anyone can observe one decision without context, decide what must have motivated it and carry that version of the story to the internet. They can make wild accusations, build an entire story about your motives, your character and your swim through the tank, and then invite other people to judge a situation they didn’t even observe. 

The most brutal part about living in the fishbowl is discovering that years of showing up honestly do not always protect you from being assigned the ugliest possible motive. You’ll find that the fishbowl starts to feel a lot like catch-and-release fishing. Someone sinks in the hook, yanks you out of the water and makes a spectacle of the struggle before throwing you back into the tank.

If people are free to assume the worst, question your motives and discuss their conclusions publicly, why would anyone sign up to lead?

I suppose everyone has different motives but for me, it’s because leadership gives me the chance to influence something I care about. And influence is important enough to be worth the discomfort of being seen. The mistake is believing that good leadership will earn you a fair audience. 

So how do I survive the fishbowl while being watched, interpreted and occasionally hooked for sport?

1. Make sure your integrity can survive without witnesses.

Integrity is easy when people see the work, understand the sacrifice and thank you for doing it. The test comes when you do the right thing and someone still decides you did it for the wrong reason.

Sometimes, people are unkind. So, I do not answer the idiots on the internet. I also do not argue against every respected person who questions my motives. The assumptions sting, but defending myself to every person who questions me would require an abandonment of the work in order to manage the story.

I know I tell the truth. I know what I am trying to accomplish and whose interests I consider before my own. Other people may still decide I am motivated by attention, ego or money but their certainty does not turn their assumption into truth about my character.

2. Remember what you traded for influence.

When I say leaders live in a fishbowl, I mean leaders live in a fishbowl under a microscope.

People will watch you closely and still know very little about you. They see the decision without the choices that preceded it, the price without the work behind it and your public response without the private conversation that informed it.

Visibility creates an illusion of intimacy. Because people can see you, they begin to believe they know you. Because they know part of the story, they feel entitled to finish writing it.

When you accepted leadership, you traded the peace and comfort of anonymity for influence.

3. Decide whose opinions get a vote.

The danger of the fishbowl is that every voice comes through the same glass. Constructive criticism, cheap shots, hard truth, advice, encouragement and complete nonsense can all sound equally loud if you have not decided who is allowed to influence the way you see yourself. Don’t confuse loud for accurate.

Good leaders look at every criticism. Sometimes the person saying it cruelly is still pointing toward something true, and integrity requires enough humility to look. But be careful to give every voice a vote.

For me, the voices that matter most belong to God, my husband, my family, my team, and the few people who know me well enough to distinguish between a mistake, a hard season and a pattern of behavior. Those people can tell me when I am wrong because they care more about who I am becoming than about winning an argument with me.

If everyone gets a vote on who you are, you will spend your life campaigning for approval instead of leading.

4. If you are going to be on display, give them something to look at.

The fishbowl can make a leader painfully self-conscious. You begin studying every move from the imagined perspective of the people outside the glass. You cannot control who watches or what they decide to think about the way you swim. But you can decide what you will do with their attention.

If people are going to watch, let them watch you advocate for something that matters. Let them see you ask the uncomfortable question, take on the complicated problem and risk being misunderstood in pursuit of something useful. They do not have to like the wiggle of your tail, but be sure you are swimming with purpose.

If you have accepted the cost of being seen, do not waste the opportunity by becoming so focused on your critics that you stop doing anything worth observing. The purpose of leadership is not to look flawless through the glass. It is to move something forward while people are watching.

5. Be a goldfish.

According to Ted Lasso, goldfish are the happiest animals because they have a ten-second memory. I have no idea whether that is scientifically accurate, but it is still useful leadership advice.

Being a goldfish does not mean ignoring what happened or pretending the hook did not hurt. Let the hook teach you something. It may reveal a blind spot, show you who is safe or remind you that your ego has grown bigger than you realized. Learn that part. Then let the pain go before it starts making decisions for you.

Leaders who keep every insult, betrayal and false accusation eventually become shaped by the people who hurt them. They grow suspicious of everyone, protect themselves from every possible risk and start making decisions from fear. At that point, the critics are no longer standing outside the fishbowl. That is how the people outside the glass gain control of what happens inside of it.

The fishbowl is not going away.

If you choose leadership, people will see you clearly at times and misunderstand you completely at others. Some will offer truth that makes you better. Some will tap on the glass because they like watching you flinch.

Your responsibility is to know the difference.

Before you defend yourself, take a hard look at your behavior and ask whether there is something you need to own. Before you accept someone else’s version of you, ask whether it is actually true. Before you swerve to avoid the next hook, remember why you entered the tank in the first place.

Then do the work anyway.

The world does not need leaders who have never been judged. It needs leaders who can be judged, remain honest with themselves and keep swimming toward something that matters.