What’s a Leadership Challenge and What Do I Do with It?

A few years ago I participated in my first webchat with the Kansas Leadership Center. At the time I didn’t know what to expect, but was looking forward to a new experience. About five minutes into the chat, my excitement turned to panic. The facilitator asked everyone to type their leadership challenge into the chat box. Leadership Challenge?!?! What the heck is that?

If you’ve been around me before, you may understand my reaction. I like to know what’s coming so I can be prepared and asking me to define a leadership challenge in a group of strangers with no pre-planning involved…well, let’s just say I wasted a lot of time trying to come up with something important and missed some valuable learning. Hopefully, these tips will help you avoid my initial mistakes.

So, what is a leadership challenge?

Quite simply, it’s something that is important to you and that you want to improve or make progress on in your life. Here are a few things that will help you identify a good challenge –

• It matters to you.
• You care enough about the issue that you are willing to change your behavior to make progress.
• It’s something that you are currently working on or have worked on before.
• You need to engage other people to help make a difference.
• You can define it enough that you can do something specific about it.

As I think about my own challenges, the one common denominator is that they are nagging things that I just haven’t figured out how move forward and they generally involve other people. Don’t worry about what other people think about your challenge. This was a barrier for me initially. I didn’t want to say something stupid or insignificant, but I realized that we all have different experiences and perceptions and my challenge was very real and important to me.

Let’s break it down a bit.

You’ve identified something that is important to you that you want to make progress on. Great! Now, there are four basic steps to framing a leadership challenge. First, identify the background of the problem/challenge/opportunity. Who else is involved? What are key events that have occurred? What are some decisions that you’ve made so far?

Next, define why this is important to you. This should be a pretty easy step. You care about the challenge and want to make a difference going forward. Why?

We’re already halfway to getting your leadership challenge polished up and ready to tackle! Next, think about what actions you’ve taken so far. What do you plan to do in the future? Remember, a good challenge is something that you’re currently working on or have worked on previously. Just outline how you’ve been handling it.

Finally, define some questions focused on your challenge. What do you need help addressing? This is a challenging step for me. Sometimes I’m not sure what questions I have or where exactly I need help. That’s okay! Often when you start discussing your leadership challenge, other people will ask questions to clarify what you’ve described. This can be a great jumping off point for getting feedback on new things to try to make progress on your challenge.

I eventually decided to try the webchats again. I was little anxious, but this time I was ready. I had an issue that was important to me and had a plan for explaining it. When the facilitator asked the participants to type our challenges in the chat box, my fingers flew across the keyboard. I hit the jackpot and actually got a few ideas about things I’d never considered doing before. So, put yourself out there and share what your challenge is. I know it can be uncomfortable, but the risk is worth the reward!