122. Three Mistakes I’ve Made as a Public Health Leader

Written By Marissa McKool

We all make mistakes, and it doesn’t need to be the end of the world when we do. But it is important we learn from our mistakes, and today you can learn from mine because I look back and share moments in my career when I’ve made mistakes as a leader, manager, and supervisor.

The three big mistakes I’ve made are common and if you are making them too, they are hindering your growth and probably the growth of others on your team. By looking closely and learning from them, we can step into new ways of leading with ease, space, and the ability to share.

This week, discover how to be a leader who builds trust and develops strong skills in others. Develop tools to look critically at your leadership style and methods for understanding the root of your problems as a leader.

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What You Will Discover:

Hey you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.

Welcome everyone, happy Monday if you're listening on the day this episode comes out. And if you're listening on a different day, I hope you're having a great day no matter what you're doing. And if you're new here, if a colleague sent you this podcast or a friend or you found it on LinkedIn, I am so glad you're here. Please consider subscribing so you don't miss any of the future episodes that are going to help you reduce your stress as a public health professional, carve out more time for you, feel better, create a more fulfilled life and get rest.

Now, I'm going to be honest with all of you. I was planning to write and record this episode last week, but last week was a little rocky. And I really had to prioritize my emotions and giving myself space to process, and I moved a couple of things to this week and. And sometimes with podcasts, I have batched enough ahead of time where I really have the space to do that, and that was what was going on this time, which was great. And sometimes I really don't have that time, so it just varies on where I'm at.

But I'm glad I did, because this week has been so much better, partly because at the time I'm recording this, we're wrapping up week one of the Not Your Average Productivity course. And this week I got to coach one-on-one, all the amazing women in the course, women from government to academia, non-profit and anywhere in between and it's been so amazing.

We have been coaching on the struggle that many of you probably can relate to, I certainly can, of getting motivated to get work done when you don't have a deadline. How to take work off your plate without feeling guilty. What to do when you're overwhelmed by your to-do list so much so that you get stuck, you end up not doing anything and so much more.

So if you struggle with any of these things, I want to make sure you're on my email list, because at first I wasn't sure if I was going to offer this course again, but just after week one of seeing the aha moments, seeing how useful this has been for so many of the participants. I am planning to offer it again because I know some of you couldn't make it because you were traveling or kids going back to school.

And I really want you to have the opportunity to learn what these amazing women are learning, how to reduce your overwhelm, how to create motivation, how to get more done, how to have more time for you. So make sure you're on my email list because that's where you will get notified of when the course is offered again. And also I offer early bird discounts just to people on my email list. I don't offer this on the podcast, on LinkedIn, on Instagram, nowhere else, it's only on my email list. So we'll leave a link in the show notes. If you're not on there, get on there.

So this episode is going to be somewhat similar to one I recorded a couple of months ago, it was called I Made a Big Mistake at Work. And I shared past mistakes as an employee, as a staff member. But this episode I'm going to be sharing some mistakes I made as a leader, as a manager, whether it was leading a committee or a project or staff member.

And no matter if you identify as a leader or not, or you've led in formal or informal settings, if you listened to last week's episode with my client, Michelle, we talked about the difference between those two. And if you haven't, I encourage you to go check it out after this, but this episode is going to help you. I'm going to share three mistakes I've made as a public health leader. I’m not holding anything back here, why they were a mistake, what I learned and what you can take from it.

So you can see mistakes are totally normal and they're actually unavoidable. I mean you can learn and avoid some of them but the truth is no one's going to be perfect. You don't have to feel embarrassed when you make a mistake. And then you can learn specifically from my mistakes.

So the first mistake was really taking on too much responsibility, which I know sounds odd. If you're a leader, that's your job to take on responsibility. So when I worked at UC Berkeley, we started a sexual violence, sexual harassment prevention committee for our school for the workforce within our department. And I became the first chair of that committee. I had a lot of experience in sexual violence prevention. It was really my passion area, an area I studied a lot. I did a lot of work over my career in that topic area.

And the beginning of this committee, it was brand new and it was kind of the first of its kind across the whole campus. So there was a lot of figuring out what are our goals, our objectives, what are we going to do, so many other things. And my mistake of actually taking on too much responsibility myself stemmed from making so many assumptions and these assumptions a lot of them were wrong.

I thought because I was one of the few, if not, the only person with a really strong sexual violence prevention background on the committee that I really had to do a lot of the heavy lifting or the work wouldn't be sufficient or it wouldn't be accurate. I thought because everyone on the committee, which was volunteer, by the way, no one got paid extra, were already overworking in their full-time job in the school that I couldn't ask them to do more.

I thought a lot of the people on the committee were just on there because they felt bad or felt obligated or wanted it on their resumé and I didn't believe in their commitment and this was wrong, wrong, wrong. As a result, I ended up being the one who typed up all the meeting notes, did all the facilitation, did the follow-up activities, did the work in between. I didn't ask for volunteers. I didn't delegate. It took up so much time on my plate. And it didn't only impact me. The members on the committee didn't learn because they didn't have the opportunity to, I didn't give it to them.

They weren't contributing because I didn't make space for it. And I'm kind of guessing here, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of them didn't feel like I trusted them or felt like it was a waste of their time or something else because I was kind of hoarding all the responsibility. Here's what I learned. As a leader, it is not my responsibility to do all the work, which logically I knew and I'll come back to this in a second because logically many of you know this too. But just because you know it intellectually, doesn't mean you're implementing it.

Because as a leader it was my job to empower and encourage others to contribute on the committee. It was my job to create an environment and structure that allowed others to use their strengths to participate and to have opportunity to learn and build new skills. It was my job to trust the people who had volunteered to be on this committee and trust that they were going to follow through and that they were invested.

So even though logically, many of us know that as a leader that is your job, putting it into practice is easier said than done. And for me looking back, here's what I figured out was in the way of me doing that. Fear, I was afraid of what everyone on the committee would think of me if I asked them to do more work. I was afraid of what the school would think if our output was not high quality. I was afraid of what I would think about myself if the sexual violence piece of it was not exemplary because I was the ‘expert’ in that topic area.

That fear, which I didn't really recognize at the time was even happening, let alone preventing me from leading, was getting in the way of showing up as the amazing leader I know I can. Be so here's what I want you to take away from this mistake I made. Ask yourself what emotion am I allowing to hold me back from showing up as an amazing leader? What emotion is preventing me from trusting myself as a leader, from trusting others, whether it's a committee member or one of my directs or even a colleague, from trusting the process of what I am leading?

Okay, second mistake, not being clear enough. Now, this example again is from my time at UC Berkeley. And during that time I supervised a variety of folks from students to staff, everything in between. Some of these supervision roles were formal, I was their manager on paper. And sometimes you're kind of managing someone who isn't your direct. So if you're familiar with academia, you'll get this but a lot of times the staff, their faculty they work with, we kind of have to manage them.

I don't tell them, “Hey, you can't take time off.” Not that kind of management but like, “Hey, reminder, you need to do this”, kind of thing. So if you're not in academia, don't worry about it. Anyways, this example is from when I supervised a staff member. So I was their direct supervisor manager, all that good stuff. And they did amazing work, but their work and what they were executing was different than mine, their skill set was different than mine.

And they had a different style of communication, not just how they communicated with me, but how they understood what I was communicating with them. And actually the real mistake was beyond not being clear enough. The real mistake was that I did not realize I was the problem. My brain wanted to make the fact that the communication wasn't clear, my direct fault, my staffs’ fault. My brain wanted to blame them for the fact that they didn't understand what I was asking for or they continued to do something a certain way after I said to change it or they didn't take more initiative or a number of other things.

My brain wanted to blame, blame, blame everything on them and then used that to tell myself I can't delegate more to them because they would have done it wrong. It would have taken too much time to explain or give feedback or correct mistakes. So I kept so much more work on my plate than I needed to and I was overworking. This wasn't just bad for me, this was not good for my directs. It didn't help them grow or learn or feel trusted or gain more responsibility or gain more skills or have a collaborative leader and probably a lot more.

And it wasn't good for the work either, the output of the work, but I was the problem. I wasn't figuring out how I could best communicate with them. I wasn't taking time to check in and find the broken lines of communication and fix them. I wasn't collaborating with them to assign work to help them grow or use their strengths. I wasn't patient or willing to do the work of really leading them. So here's what I learned.

The best thing you can do as a leader is when there is a problem’ always figure out how you've contributed to the problem or caused the problem. Now, I'm going to say that again. The best thing you can do as a leader when there is a problem, figure out how you've contributed to the problem or how you've caused the problem.

Never make the assumption it has nothing to do with you, because I have yet to find that is true. Doesn't mean there aren't situations where other people involved contributed to an issue. But when you are a leader and something isn't going right, there is always something that you have contributed to that outcome and that is a fucking hard pill to swallow. I know, it's a big pill. Your ego wants to react, your shame brain wants to react, your brain wants to blame and everything else.

But when you accept that, it actually removes so much of the drama, unnecessary stress, wasted time from the process of solving a problem and being a good leader. It creates so much more opportunity for you to learn, your team to learn, to improve, for the experience of your staff or the people you're leading to improve, for the work to improve. And only from that place where you accept responsibility for where you had a role to play in creating that problem, only from that place can you make change, true authentic change.

And by doing that, you create trust and accountability with yourself and the people you are leading. You learn how to champion and support the people you are leading, rather than pit them against you. And ultimately as a result the work is so much better, the output is so much better. The environment is so much better for everyone on the team or the committee or the project, but it starts with you humbling yourself enough to swallow that big ass pill that you are part of the problem.

So here's what I want you to take from this. Ask yourself right now, where are you part of the problem? Where are you unwilling to admit you are part of the problem? How can you start to accept it instead? And by doing that, what positive outcomes will be the result?

Okay, mistake number three, holding on too long. So many of you are doing this, even if you're not a leader, you're doing this with work on your plate. So whether or not you are leading a committee or a project, this specific mistake will resonate because so many of us in public health hold on to our work for far too fucking long.

So this example is from when I was at the CDC and myself and four other fellows started an initiative to provide professional development opportunities for other fellows across the agency. So we saw that there was a big gap in professional development for fellows specifically. If you're not familiar with CDC or other federal governments that have a similar model, there is a lot of fellows who work there and it's usually postgrad, post MPH or PhD or something for a couple of years.

And they can be really great positions in a lot of ways and sometimes it depends on your department and your team and all that, but fellows are not full-time employees. We are not full-time government/federal government employees. So there are some opportunities that we are not allowed to take advantage of that are only for full-time employees. And then when there were opportunities like panels or events we could participate in, a lot of the content wasn't geared towards our specific needs.

For example, they would talk about how to advance in CDC, but they would leave out how to transition from a fellow to an FT. So really would be geared towards folks who are already FTs and want to move up, that's just one example. So me and some of my colleagues decided to create a collective that filled that gap. Now, let me tell you, creating this collective had so many challenges, we do not have time to go through them all today. This was one of the most challenging things I've done in my career and one of the most rewarding.

Over the course of about two years, we built this collective from almost a grassroots point of view or approach I should say, against all odds. There were so many people who were telling us it wasn't possible, and there were so many people who were actively trying to prevent us from doing this and we had to find our champions. We had to be strategic. We had to have a strong connection and relationship with this initiative to really move through all of those challenges.

And when you create an initiative like this or champion a new committee or work on a project you care so much about, not only do you do the work because of your passion because you really care. But then you develop so much pride in your participation, in the initiative or the project or the event or whatever it may be. So letting go, whether it's passing the baton to someone else or letting it die out or just taking it off your plate and stepping back can be really fucking hard.

And this actually came up this week in the Not Your Average Productivity course with one of the folks I was coaching. So many of us experience this. And when I left CDC, I ended up continuing to volunteer as an advisor to the committee, the new committee that was running in this collective. I truly do not know how helpful I was looking back. If you asked me back then, I probably would have said, “They need me. They can't do this without me. I would be letting them down if I just stepped away.”

Now looking back, I think I hindered more of their progress than helped. I don't know what they would say, but that's my perspective. Sure, I could answer questions about what worked or what we had tried and all that stuff, but I probably was more like that college student that comes back to their hometown and goes to high school parties.

And again, this resulted in me having more work on my plate while I was working a full-time job somewhere else. And it probably wasn't great to them, to the new committee members, not able to kind of take the initiative that they really had big ideas for or just learn to figure it the fuck out for themselves or anything else. So here's what I learned. Holding on to your role as a leader can be selfish.

When you are a leader, it's not about you, it's about the work or the team or the mission or something else. Letting go can be the most helpful thing you can do as a leader but it's hard as fuck. But when you do it, it helps support the work and other people and the mission. And listen, there can be many reasons why it's hard to let go as a leader. Maybe you're sad to let go. Maybe you're attaching your identity to this work. Maybe you're worried they'll fail if you're not there or something else.

But when you let go, you're also creating space for something else, not just for the organization or project to have new leadership, new energy of that new leadership, new ideas, new innovation. But for you to have space to rest or to have time or take something else on, that you've been interested in or get back to a hobby or anything else. Here's what I want you to take away from this. Why are you being selfish as a leader right now?

Why are you hoarding your leadership role or responsibility when it would be beneficial to you, to the work, and probably to someone else to let it go and pass it on? What if, on the other side of letting go and moving on is everything you've been saying you want, more time, an opportunity to get back into working out or to apply for a new job or take on a new role? What if that letting go of a current leadership role or responsibility is the thing that opens that door, why aren't you doing it?

So those are my three mistakes, what I learned, what I want you to take from it. And I want you to think right now of a work bestie you have, a best friend at work or a really good friend at work, that one you go to their desk and vent or you go to lunch and you both just talk about all the challenges. Whether it's someone you currently work with or a past colleague who is leading a team or supervising a staff member or a chair of a committee or is leading a project.

And I want you to send them this podcast episode, tell them to listen to it, share my mistakes with them so they can learn from them, so they can reduce their workload. So they don't have to feel so alone in the challenges of leadership. Think of that person right now, send them a text with this episode.

And before we go, I’m about to wrap up. I want to thank all of you so much from the bottom of my heart who have taken time out to write a review on Apple Podcasts for this Redefining Rest podcast. It means so, so much, you have no idea on the back end of things having you all review helps so much with getting this podcast out there, having people who stumble upon it feel like it's going to be worth their time and have the trust to subscribe or hit play.

In the next couple of weeks I'm going to be sharing some of the reviews you all have written right here on the podcast to say thank you. So you know it matters so much to me and everyone else who works behind the scenes on this podcast.

So this week I want to share a review from Courtney Rose P, that says, “Love how she speaks to us like a friend and colleague who understands what we might have gone through or are going through in the field of public health. She hits all the points home.” Thank you so much, Courtney, for sharing those kind words. I'm so glad this has been helpful. I also think of you all as a friend too and I hope we can all meet and hang out in person one day.

So with that, thank you all so much for tuning in. Make sure you've hit that subscribe button and I will see you next week. We're going to be talking about why you should ditch your mentors. I know, shocking, public health promotes mentorship left and right. I'm going to tell you a different story. See you then.

If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.

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Marissa McKool
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