Being Too Seen at Work

An Idea for Consideration

Three weekends ago, I was preparing dinner for my son and myself. After heating up the food, I attempted to eat it before it cooled enough. Just as the burning sensation in my mouth hit, I noticed that Big Time was staring right at me. 

Because I so often tell him that it’s possible to separate your physical sensations from your emotional reactions, I had to suck up the pain. I said simply, “It’s too hot.”

I walked away reminded that Big Time is always watching my actions, which made me think of hearing a talk by former Intel CEO Paul Otellini when I was in business school. During the Q&A, someone asked if there were downsides to being a CEO. He gave some lighthearted responses before sharing that when he was still the COO, he could have a meal at a Palo Alto cafe in peace. 

But when he became CEO, so many more people knew what Otellini looked like that he couldn’t walk around without being noticed. He had to learn to be comfortable with the fact that people were always watching.

A more recent example of this lesson occurred during last week’s Super Bowl when Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce aggressively bumped his coach, Andy Reid, while yelling about getting back into the game. On his podcast, Kelce described that he knew his actions were wrong and expected Reid to give him a “f****** a** chewing and for him to just tell me to f****** be better.” 

But instead of yelling at Kelce, Reid chose to say, “I love your passion,” and turned it into a teaching moment. Reid reminded Kelce that because of all the cameras on him, Kelce needed to be even more mindful of how he came across. 

That was true six months ago when Kelce was only a future Hall of Famer, host of a top podcast, and the second most prominent person on the team. But like Otellini rising to the CEO position, there was a step change in Kelce’s visibility once he started dating Taylor Swift.

Now, most of us are not running a company or dating the world’s biggest pop star—I left that lifestyle in the past—but anyone in a leadership (or parenting) position has to learn to reckon with the visibility tax. Indeed, it is critical to the ability to show up with enough authenticity and be centered in the experience.

Leadership Wisdom

Patrick Mahomes, by winning his third career Super Bowl, is now in the conversation about the best quarterbacks in NFL history. In one post-game interview, he explained why Andy Reid’s leadership style was great for Mahomes and for the team:

“I think the biggest thing with Coach Reid is he lets me be me. I could have [gone] to a lot of different organizations [in the NFL draft], and I think they would have tried to make me play the quarterback position in a different type of way. And I think he [Reid] just let me be me out there on the football field. [...] I think that's why we can have such personalities on this team. But whenever we’re in the building, we're all about winning and however it takes to win, and I think that speaks to coach Reid and the culture that he’s built.”