“What was the weather like on vacation?” customers often ask when we meet up again after the vacation period. A vacation seems to be especially good when the sun is shining and it’s warm, but not scorching hot. Since I’ve been surfing, I always have to think a little about what the weather was like on a trip.

Did it rain? No idea. It’s wet in the ocean anyway.
Was it warm? I don’t know, I’m wearing a wetsuit in the Atlantic.

Perfect conditions for work

I can’t say what the weather was like on vacation, but I can recall the surfing conditions for each day from memory. My favorite surfing conditions are: shoulder high, 12 seconds, and a light off-shore wind. All clear as mud? That’s okay, but it’s actually quite simple: You probably also have conditions in your professional life under which you work particularly well and enthusiastically. The usual suspects are:

  • challenging, varied, meaningful tasks
  • pleasant customers or colleagues
  • attractive salary
  • a “good” line manager

Leaders (and their development) – complete failure for decades?

It seems to be particularly important to have a good boss. Because employees don’t leave companies, they leave their line managers, as you can read again and again on social media. Leaders who virtually pressure you to resign are incompetent, unappreciative, narcissistic, or even toxic. LinkedIn and the like are full of information on what makes a “good” leader. The list of qualities that a leader should have and develop has changed a little over the last few decades and is getting longer all the time. However, I have yet to meet a leader who permanently fulfills this list. Now, you could say that the incompetence at management level is to my advantage, because it means I will never be out of work as a coach. But if all leaders have been “so-so” for decades, haven’t leadership diagnostics and development failed completely – myself included? That is one scenario.

General conditions for real leaders

What if we said goodbye to the idea of the good or even perfect leader? Just as the ocean is constantly in motion and every wave is different, all people have good and complicated moments that enable them to do a good job to a greater or lesser extent. In other words – there is always something. All conditions are transient. And sometimes life throws you a curveball. Or as Matt Griggs says: “Don’t try and get a perfect life, get a real one.”

My coachees also sometimes work under conditions that don’t make it easier for them to be a “good” leader, such as:

  • A manager whose father died unexpectedly and has to function on the job.
  • A manager who has tried in vain for years to get pregnant through IVF. The last attempt failed with a miscarriage on a business trip abroad.
  • A manager who struggles to sleep because, in addition to the declining company results, he is tormented by his marital crisis at night.
  • A leader working under a highly controlling boss who calls to clarify business issues when my coachee is in hospital preparing for cancer surgery.

How can leaders be expected to function in these situations? The surprising thing is that they do, sometimes better, sometimes worse. In all four of the above cases, these are leaders who received top marks in their annual ratings in the last financial year, even if they were absent-minded, stressed, irritable, emotional, or impatient at times. I don’t know how they manage to keep up the facade on the whole, even if a lot of things are out of balance inside. I’m surprised that not many more leaders crack under the demands they place on themselves and others more often. All four of them told me that our coaching sessions helped them not to go crazy.

Avoid pushing emotions away 

Coaching can be helpful when general conditions are particularly stressful. Many people find it difficult to deal with the uncomfortable emotions that arise under these conditions. This is because they have either not learned to do so or do not take the time and space to do so. Typically, my high-achieving coachees are more practiced at pushing away unpleasant emotions. They don’t realize that when you push emotions into the basement, they discover the fitness room down there, start working with weights, and become stronger. If the pressure becomes too much, the emotions find a way out in a somewhat counter-productive way, in the form of sleeplessness, fretting, irritability, depression, and so on. During the coaching sessions, my coachees practice recognizing and accepting unpleasant inner states.

Making wise decisions

In a next step, they work on focusing on what they can currently control. Eckhart Tolle writes in his bestseller “The Power of Now”: “‘Problem’ means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self.” When nothing feels like it’s working, the one thing you can always control is your next breath. At some point, you feel yourself breathing and living again. This usually feels better than the previous state, lighter and freer. I then recommend asking yourself: what is a wise decision now? Going crazy is certainly not it. I practice this with my coachees.

Again and again. Moment by moment. Breath by breath. It’s a moving experience for me every time.

You don’t always have to be happy – well, yes, but there is no need to be unhappy either

Does that mean the stressful general conditions are gone? Of course not. But mindfulness helps you not to lose your mind and remain able to act. Every moment in which my coachee is able to find peace, lightness, freedom, or even happiness during a stressful phase is a step in the right direction. “But you don’t always have to be happy” is an argument I now come across on social media against mindfulness. I agree with that. You don’t have to. But there is no need to be unhappy, sad, or dissatisfied either. You have no control over the conditions, but you can choose how much and for how long you suffer from them. Always. Letting go of suffering is possible with practice, although not always as quickly as we would like.

Happiness in modest waves

On July 6, 2024, I’m on vacation in Hossegor, the French surf mecca. It’s my birthday and, as so often, a good opportunity to reflect on life. In addition to all the moving moments with my customers, the last 12 months have been touched by the death of my best school friend, Anja, who passed away unexpectedly. Today I am 55, an age that Anja was not allowed to reach. I have been working as a coach for 23 years. Time and again, leaders place their trust in me and find it helpful to work with me. My coachees are not perfect people, but they are genuine and learn. What a privilege to be able to support them.

The Atlantic delivers waist-high “waves” to the birthday girl. The strong on-shore wind blows them into white water rollers. Anything but perfect conditions. These “waves” are actually not surfable. On the last day of my vacation before a three-month break from surfing – how annoying. Plus drizzle and an outside temperature of 22 degrees Celsius.

All the same, I plunge into the waves. What a gift that I’m still physically able to play with the ocean. Who cares about the weather or the conditions? I catch two extremely modest waves and am happy. Why? Because I practice and because I can.

P.S.: Back from my vacation I had the chance to see an absolutely mind-blowing show of the band Lawrence in Cologne. I had their song “The weather”in my head, when I put the english version of this article online.