What Grinds Your Gears? (And Why That's Your Anchor)

A long time back, I was sitting with someone I think of as a mentor. He stumped me with a question about what was really driving me – why was I in this game we call leadership and what difference did I want to make? I had a crack at it (badly), circling ideas that sounded good in a LinkedIn post but didn't actually mean much to me. 

Then he changed tack. “Forget that,” he said. “What really grinds your gears?” 

Now that, I could answer. Funny how we sometimes have lists longer than our arm for that kind of question. 

He kept going. What links those things? What are they really about? And if you flipped each one into the ‘positive opposite’, the thing that's actually within your control to go and create, what would that be? 

And there it was. Belonging. 

Not a fancy word. Not one I invented. But it's been my Te Punga - my anchor - ever since. It shapes how I think about setting up the environments I lead in, how I share feedback, how I connect with people, when I step forward and when I step back. I don't live it perfectly (nowhere close, some weeks), but it's kept me pointed roughly in the right direction when everything else is getting noisy. 

I think most of us go looking for our leadership purpose in the wrong place. We hunt for some big, bold, inspiring statement. Something that we hope sounds good when said out loud to others.  

But the real gold is often buried in what grinds our gears. Flip that over, and there's a decent chance you'll find your own anchor. The thing that pulls you towards becoming the leader you want to be. 

So, what grinds your gears? And what would it look like if you built your leadership around the positive opposite of that thing?