Tina Fey: Never Tell a Crazy Person He’s Crazy

Posted on by theageofthediary

I am currently reading Bossypants by Tina Fey because I’m into improv nowadays, I love humor, and I want to learn lessons from a female leader. In the book, Tina talks about the leadership lessons she learned from Lorne Michaels, who was running Saturday Night Live (SNL). The one that stood out for me was: Never tell a crazy person he’s crazy.

That is such great advice. I mean, if I’m on edge and agitated, I wouldn’t want people to be shitty to me about it. That would just make me more defensive. If I’m being defensive, I won’t listen. If I won’t listen, I won’t learn. If I am closed off from learning, I’ll just continue to be in that destructive phase. Then again, it’s easy to want the right treatment to be done to you, but it’s so hard to hold yourself back from blowing up at another person. You just want to say it straight–you’re being a fucking asshole! It’s difficult to deny yourself from the satisfaction of a Visuvious explosion.

I guess that’s why being a leader is hard. You always have to remember that it’s not about you–it’s about the people you’re taking care of, it’s about how you can create a space for them to thrive, it’s about how you can help others become fully who they are so that they can achieve their dreams. You can never be a leader by desiring to be important and engineering your importance. What you must do is to truly, truly care for others, to selflessly love, to be there for the ones who need you. Someday, I know, I will be that kind of leader.

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