634 | The Cost of Doing It Alone

You're not supposed to lead in isolation, and yet too many leaders do.

Today, we're exposing the hidden costs of trying to go it alone and how building the right support system might be the most strategic move you've ever made. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Today, we are talking about the cost of doing it all alone. Now, there is this idea out there that great leaders figure it out on their own, that leadership means being the strong one.

You know, the one who doesn't need help, the one who carries the burden. But I've seen time and time again that that concept, that idea doesn't lead to strength.

Instead, it leads to burnout. It leads to bottlenecks for your entire team, your entire company, or your family. And it leads to isolation.

So today we're talking about the real cost of doing it alone and how building the right kind of support, yes, support we all need, it can actually multiply your growth and your impact.

Intro: Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (00:01:38)

And to help illustrate this, let's go to some scripture here in Ecclesiastes 4, 9, 10, where Solomon writes, Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.

If either of them falls down, one can help the other up, but pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Folks, that's not just good advice. That's a timeless leadership principle.

All right, let's dive in. First thing you need to know, all you lone wolves out there, and I know I was one of them in my early years. I was somebody who could always go and make things happen and solve things.

And, boy, I'll tell you what, it's a heck of a lot easier to do at 25 than it is 55, I can tell you that. Here's what you need to understand.

Lone-Wolf Leadership Feels Noble… But It’s Rooted in Fear or Pride (00:02:25)

Lone wolf leadership feels noble, but it's actually rooted in fear or pride. Literally, when you think about it, what causes me to be a lone wolf? I got this. I can do this on my own. I don't want anybody else's help.

I want to take the credit. I, I, I, I, I. Many leaders carry the weight alone because they're afraid to burden others or they believe no one can do it like they can.

But here's what we have to understand about that. Both fear and pride lead to exhaustion, not excellence. You're never going to find fear and pride leading you to excellence. Right. Because excellence would recognize that there is strength in numbers.

Excellence would recognize that I'm not the only smart person in the room. Excellence would recognize that I hide. Now, listen, if you're a solopreneur, it's a different kind of a story.

We may have to be looking outside of you to find, you know, maybe you can't look to your team, but the concept that we're talking about today is whether you are a solopreneur or business owner of a thousand people...

When you think that you can do it all on your own, or you think you have to do it all on your own, then what you're doing is you're limiting the success of your business, your project, your team, your family, whatever, to you.

You are the limiting factor because we can't get past you. If we are your team, you're the bottleneck. You're the only level of wisdom. You're not taxing the collective intelligence.

You're. You're not pulling strength from your team members, from, you know, from smart business owners.

We have a phenomenal program with our Mastermind where people are consistently pulling wisdom from other leaders and business owners around them. You can't do it by yourself.

You just can't. I mean, you can. You can try it, but what you've got to understand is it's not going to be excellent. At some point, things are going to start to fall apart.

You will be the bottleneck, and people are going to struggle because, you know, if I'm not worth it to you for you to try and use my intellect, you know, you hired me, but apparently I'm not good enough for you to glean from then.

Well, I guess I don't need to give any advice or any input or any information. I'll just keep doing the, you know, the amount that I need to do to get a paycheck. Right.

What you will find is, is you will also tank morale when you're the one who does everything. So if you've convinced yourself that leading alone is heroic, I'm going to tell you it's not. Nobody thinks it is.

You know, you might convince yourself that people think you are heroic, but really what it is, is it's. It's unsustainable. You're not going to be able to continue this very long.

Isolation Dulls Your Perspective (00:05:26)

Number two, isolation dulls your perspective. Now, I can just leave it right there.

That is plenty of information when you isolate you, but I'm going to keep going because I'm a teacher. Teach. You got to teach when you isolate you.

You are left with only your perspective, folks. You isolate yourself from feedback, you isolate yourself from challenge. You isolate yourself from input.

You isolate yourself from the ability to see clearly. And because you don't see clearly, that's compromising other things. You start leading from assumptions, not awareness.

All of these things I always say, you know, when you isolate you, the only voice you have is yours. And many times that's not a good voice.

Right? It's not the healthiest way to go about it. We've had many business owners that have isolated themselves because of painful, stressful things.

Financial issues, vendor issues, client issues, sales issues, whatever it is that they have isolated themselves as leaders and refusing to share the stress with the leadership team.

Which again, it's not about sharing stress, it's about getting input, getting help, all that kind of fun stuff until they were forced to because they couldn't do it any longer.

Man, decades I've been seeing people do this, where it's like, you have this team that you've built, or at least you've given them titles.

Why aren't you bringing this information to the leadership team and gaining perspective and gaining insight and gaining a view that is so outside of the stress that you're carrying? Right?

All of these things can help you make better decisions, but when you don't do that, you take on all of that stress.

Do you think a leader who's carrying that much stress, do you think their home life is solid? Of course not. Their home life is painful. Home life is difficult. Why?

Because they are doing it all alone and then they're taking it home, and then it's affecting their spouse and it's affecting their kids, it's affecting their family, their friends. Folks, you can't solve the things that you're unwilling to talk about.

If you're not willing to seek help and do something about it, you're not going to be able to solve it. You can believe that you're going to solve it on your own.

And you know, I could be wrong. Maybe you will solve it, but how much better would it be if you taxed the collective intelligence and you got solid people on your side and you solved it with a multitude of advisors?

Going Alone Slows Your Growth (00:08:32)

Number three, going alone slows your growth. Now, leaders who isolate, they often carry massively unnecessary responsibilities simply because they just haven't built or they haven't created the trust in the right people around them.

So what tends to happen here? We have folks that will hire people, they'll put them in place, but for some reason, they are not looking at these people as folks that they could delegate responsibility to delegate task due, delegate projects to get things off of their plate.

What they do is they hire people to do tasks and that's it.

And they give them the tasks, do this task here, do this task here, and, and the responsibility just isn't, you know, passed on.

Or they pass on responsibility of completing the task, but they don't give them the authority to work through processes and, and new processes and new ways and new ideas, all that kind of stuff.

Instead, what happens is, is all the, the major responsibility is put on that leader who's isolating themselves. And then you have people that are working for them that are in the dark.

They're like, I guess I'm just doing this thing. I just make this thing happen. I don't know. So we've been blessed with so many leaders that have come to this realization as they've worked with us and, you know, been able to have a different perspective.

They've had this great realization that by taking all that responsibility, they've stopped developing their team. They're holding their team back. They're not growing the team.

And when they realize that, they realize they're creating their own ceiling. Like, my team can't go past this. You know, John Maxwell, back in the 80s 90s used to call it the law of the lid.

A great example of this is, let's say you take some fleas, you put some fleas in a jar, and you close the jar with the lid, the flea is going to bang against that, that lid as many times as it possibly can.

And until it realizes, hey, this hurts a lot, and then it'll keep jumping up, but it'll stop right before where the lid is. If you take that lid off, that's as far as that flea will go.

They know that anything past that point is pain. That lid keeps your people stuck in place, even to the point that when you finally remove the lid, they don't realize there's more growth. You become that lid for your people.

You become, when you're not growing, when you're not doing better, when you're isolating, when you're taking all the responsibility, you're not growing, you slow you down, which means that your team can't grow past you, which means that you're slowing their growth down.

Folks, this is affecting your team and your business. This is affecting your profit. This is, this is affecting your sanity.

This is affecting your peace at home. You have to realize that you have to start developing others by allowing yourself to be supported. If you can't allow yourself to be supported, you're never going to choose to develop other people.

The sooner you start developing other people, the sooner you can start accomplishing things at a much greater rate. You can start taking a lot of that responsibility off of you.

You can help other people to grow. So just think about it this way. You're paying these people on your team.

You're paying them to do stuff. But if you're the one who's holding them back and not developing them, then you're spending all this money for people to stay the same. Think about that.

Do you want to keep spending money for people to not grow? I'm going to suggest.

No. I'm going to tell you, I love growing my team. I love developing my team. I love making them stronger, better, faster, more productive.

You know, the team that we have is just so ridiculously solid and so incredible that we get way more done with a smaller team because we're so efficient and so effective.

And the communication is incredible and the accountability is. Is just easy. Right? So understand if you're going to try and do all this stuff by yourself, you're going to slow down the growth of you.

You're going to slow down the growth of your team. All of that's going to be affected.

The Right Support System Challenges and Sharpens You (00:13:18)

Number four, the right support system challenges and sharpens you. Here's the deal. You don't need cheerleaders. You need truth tellers.

You need people who know what your mission is, that they believe in you, they speak truth to you, and with love.

It is important to surround yourself with people who are healthy, who are positive, who care about you, who know what you need, who know how to tell you the truth.

Not people who are going to be fake. Not people who are trying to blow sunshine up your skirt. Not people who are trying to people please and make you happy.

You need people who can be honest. You need people who can when they. When. If they know how to. When to press on you and when to hold your arms up. Right?

I'll never forget a buddy of mine who came through the very beginning of our Mastermind program, Josh Gettig.

He was in a. One of the calls. They, they meet with these owners and business leaders every week.

And he was in one of the sessions and he was struggling with something and, and another one of the other business owners just pushed on him, said, hey, what about this?

Or what are you doing here or something? Just. Just a push. It was the right push. Well, Josh was pissed.

He was upset and he got off the call and he was upset and he was like, who was that guy? And this is somebody he'd spent a good amount of time with. Who is he to, to talk to me that way?

And he sent me the greatest text. He's like, dude, I just got pushed on. And it was by Brent. I just got pushed on by Brent. And, man, it's exactly what I was so upset that he pushed on me.

And then five minutes later, I was like, that is exactly what I needed. I needed somebody to call me out on something so I could go make a different decision so I could fix this problem instead of just talking about this thing, right?

When you have strong support people, healthy support people, their goal isn't to take you down. Their goal isn't to treat you like crap. Their goal isn't to tell you that you're a failure.

Their goal isn't to, you know, control or manipulate you. When you are in a support system that challenges you, then it sharpens you because the challenges are healthy.

They are things that help you to grow. And I'm going to tell you right now, way too many folks out there actually believe that that's not what you want. Way too many people think, I don't want that kind of support system.

I don't need people telling me what to do. I don't know. You're right. You don't just need people telling you what to do.

You need other folks who actually understand what you're experiencing and, and what's happening and how to help you grow that can push on you when you need to be pushed on and lift up your arms when you need your arms lifted up. Right?

That is power, folks. That is amazing. When you have that type of support system, you don't need cheerleaders. Oh, you're so amazing. Oh, you do such a good job. Oh, you're the best boss ever.

You don't need cheerleaders. You need truth tellers. And you need to get yourself, get your butt into a place where you can receive that. Because until you do, all you're getting is fluff. You're not getting the best information.

You're not probably making the best decisions as well. So understand this. In accountability, growth thrives when you surround yourself with solid people, not your super controlling brother, sister, cousin, friend.

Healthy people put healthy people the right support system challenges and sharpens you.

Vulnerability Builds Strength (00:17:40)

Number five, vulnerability builds strength. Guys. Get to a point where you can admit that you need help. A bunch of you just recoiled. Some of you are driving and you just like the car just jerked to the right there.

Admitting that you need help is not weakness, it's wisdom. Let me say that again. Admitting that you need help isn't weakness, it's wisdom.

Vulnerability is the door to deeper connection, to better decision making, to stronger teams. We talk about this a lot in our events.

That vulnerability is what creates and drives something that's vulnerable, vitally important for a leadership team. Unity. You are not going to get complete unity, the best unity, if you don't have vulnerability.

Oh, Chris, what are you talking about? All that mushy stuff. I got to share my feelings. I got to be personal with people to an extent. But it's not about you, you know, dumping your emotional drawer on the table.

Instead, it's being able to admit that you've screwed up. It's being able to admit that you're wrong. It's being able to. And again, let me give my caveats as I do.

Be vulnerable to the extent that you can based on the health of the people that you're being vulnerable to. What do I mean by that?

Okay, if you do have controlling brother, controlling mom, dad, sister, friend, uncle, you know, business partner, whatever it is, if you got somebody who just wants to control you and take you down, then those aren't the people you need to be vulnerable with, right?

Those are the people you probably need to put some distance in. So I'm not saying be vulnerable with people who are going to hurt you. What's the biggest fear of being vulnerable?

That we're going to get hurt. Somebody's going to take advantage of our vulnerability, use it against us and hurt us with it. Don't do that. Here's what I am saying.

If you're building a leadership team and you are trying to create the strongest team possible, don't create silos.

Silos are going to eventually just destroy so much of your effort. You don't want silos. Trust me on this. We fix so many companies that have leadership teams that have silos.

We help them to fix it. Let me say it that way. Here's what you need to understand. If you want the strongest leadership team, if you want the best decision making group, if you want them to run better teams that they lead, you need to get vulnerable.

So we had a business owner who opened up to their team about what was keeping them up at night, what they were struggling with, when they were able to share this stuff.

And if you're thinking, you know, there's probably so many of you right now going, I bet he's talking about me, that's because there's so many that have experienced this that once they got vulnerable with their team and just shared, hey, here's what I'm struggling with.

Here's what I'm expecting from you. Here's what's going wrong in the business that's keeping me up at night. Here's the struggle that I see with your team.

Here's, you know, whatever it is, that vulnerability of being able to go, I'm struggling here. This is stressing me out. This is keeping me up at night. When a leader is able to do that, it is amazing, like so many of these leaders, that the team rallies like they never have.

The team will come forward offering incredible, real solutions to, to the struggle that the owner is experiencing.

I can't tell you how many times sitting at a StratPlan table with different companies, there is this divide between, like an owner in at least one team member, if not a few team members.

And as we dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, we get in there, what we discover is there are these confused ideas about each other.

The owner has certain expectations that they've not clearly communicated to a team member or many team members. The team members think that they're doing a phenomenal job, but just seem to be getting pushed on like crazy by the owner.

And when you dig in and help them to become vulnerable in front of each other, what happens is all of a sudden they realize, oh, my gosh, I was thinking this about you.

I was thinking this about you. And it helps them to solve those confusions, those conflicts.

And especially, like I say, when it's like a business, a team leader or business owner that shares with their team, then what you find is the care and concern from that team becomes strong.

They want to help out as much as possible. They will come up with phenomenal solutions that that leader probably is not experiencing.

So when you stop pretending to be unshakable, we're all shakable to some extent. When you start pretending to be unshakable, your team finally knows how to support you.

When they can see your vulnerability, guess what that's going to lead to next? Their ability to be vulnerable with each other.

One of the biggest issues that I help people leadership teams solve at the StratPlan table over and over and over again, all these different companies is that we have these leaders who think they're being vulnerable but are holding back so much.

And it's holding back the unity of the team. They believe they're unified. There's many teams that come to the table, and it's like, oh, man, I'd take a bullet for everybody here.

Yes, you would. But would you bring to the table the mistakes you've been making? Would you help somebody else in their area who's making mistakes? That has nothing to do with you, or at least you think it doesn't.

There's all these things that we hit that helps people to go, oh, my gosh, I never realized this is what I'm doing or this is what I'm not doing.

When you stop pretending, then you help all the other folks around you grow in their vulnerability.

When, which helps us grow in our unity, which helps us solve at much greater rates, much bigger, better decision making, much bigger and better problem solving.

Everything, communication, accountability, everything increases.

Action Items (00:24:39)

So here's some things that I want you to start doing today. First thing is I want you to identify at least one area where you've been carrying all the weight alone. Right? Find one thing.

Now you might be saying, well, Chris, I'm not as struggling, I'm not struggling in my business as much as I am my marriage. And I'm carrying this weight, but I can't talk to my spouse about it.

Okay, who can you talk to? I don't want to go to one of those shrinks. Listen, here's what I will tell you. Being able to.

You don't have to go to her shrink, but being able to talk to somebody healthy about what you're experiencing just may be the thing that gives you some perspective, that helps you to get rid of carrying this stress, this weight all alone.

You know, look at your business, look at your life as well.

Identify at least one area. Second thing is, I want you to ask yourself, is this rooted in fear? Is it rooted in pride? Is it rooted in a lack of trust? What is this thing rooted in? Why am I carrying this weight?

Third thing. Choose one person that you can bring into that space this week. Whether it's to share the burden, whether it's to ask for help, whether it's to invite feedback.

But understand they may have feedback that you didn't want to hear, and yet it's the right thing that you need to hear. So choose.

Choose somebody who's healthy that you can invite into your space today, this week and share information, share that burden with them.

Additional Resources (00:26:25)

Additional resource that we have for you is episode 564, which is the CEO's quiet battle combating isolation at the top.

Did you know that half of all CEOs feel lonely with 61% believing it hinders their performance in that episode?

We get real about that quiet battle that is being combated by so many leaders today.

Virtual Team Training (00:26:50)

Now, here's what I want you to imagine. I want you to imagine your team transforming your leadership style without ever leaving your office.

Our virtual team trainings deliver tools, accountability and insights that you can apply immediately on your schedule. So go to the team training link that is in the notes and just get information about it.

Check it out. You will be blown away at how much this can massively impact your team and your business.

Conclusion (00:27:24)

Folks, you were never meant to to lead alone. And the longer you try, the more it costs. It costs your clarity, it costs your energy, even your team's growth.

Build support around you. Let people, healthy people in. Find a support group of business leaders, business owners who understand what you're going through.

Don't put people around you in areas that they just don't understand. You know, if your, your cousin, you know, Johnny over there is telling you all the things you need to do in your leadership, but Johnny's never let anything look for solid folks. Right.

Next week we are flipping the script from reactive manager to intentional coach because firefighting isn't the future of your leadership now, folks. That's all the time that we have for today.

We hope this has helped you immensely. As always, take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life. And join us on the next episode.