Stride consists of long decisive steps in a specified direction. Effective execution consists of overcoming hurdles without breaking stride.
If you have followed my work you will recognize the following graphic, which depicts a simplistic journey. Rare does a journey not have hurdles that need to be overcome. Unfortunately, many people allow hurdles to become insurmountable obstacles, which not only impede their progress, but divert them from their destination, or cause them to stop.
Standing still does not negate the reality you are on a journey, it just represents a lack of progress.
Great leaders learn to take whatever hurdles life throws at them while maintaining stride. They do that by:
Developing a good stride before hurdles present themselves
Recognizing the difference between real and perceived hurdles
Not shying away from hurdles when they come, but seeing them as a challenge or opportunity to become even better
Refining their stride with smaller hurdles as they come
Continuing to run hard regardless of the hurdles
Your role as a leader is to invite others on a journey and develop stride so that you can effectively navigate the path as a team, regardless of the hurdles that present along the way, to get to your destination together.
Brene Brown brings a great twist on kindness, in her book Dare To Lead, when she suggests that, “clear is kind and unclear is unkind.” In other words, as a leader it is not only our responsibility, but an act of kindness, to provide our team with clarity.
There’s no question providing clarity can be difficult at times. We may think we are making others feel good by sparing them details, but the truth is, more times than not, we are trying to make ourselves feel better by [wussing out] only giving half truths and/or feeding BS and in the process Brown suggests we are being unkind.
It can also require courage to clearly lay-out expectations with people up-front and deal with things head-on. Withholding clarity of expectations, yet holding people accountable to or blaming them for not achieving expected outcomes is unkind.
Talking behind peoples’ backs is unkind, while addressing people directly is kind.
Leadership requires courage to speak the truth and provide clarity regardless of how difficult it may be to do so. To withhold clarity is not only unkind, but causes us to withdraw from the very people we need to stay close with.
Great leaders are kind by courageously providing clarity.
Reputation is like a trend. If you are consistent you will earn an accurate reputation.
No individual is perfectly consistent, whether that behavior is positive or negative. We all behave in ways that don’t represent our true selves. We all suffer negative incidences, which should not define us provided there are enough positive incidences to establish a positive trend.
The good scientist knows it takes more than one data point to establish a trend. Further to good scientist takes all the data from their research, plots it on a graph, and then draws a line through the data points in order to determine the trend.
In the same manner great leaders look at all of the behaviors and decisions of others as data points to asses the ultimate value and contribution of an individual.
I am reminded of a story that took place at IBM many years ago under the leadership of founder Tom Watson, Sr. in which a young aspiring executive made a decision that cost the company $10 million.
When Mr. Watson heard of the error he called the young executive to his office. Upon arriving at Mr. Watson’s office the young executive promptly apologized for the error and offered his resignation. To the young executive’s surprise Mr. Watson exclaimed, “Why would I want your resignation when we just spent $10 million educating you?”
Mr. Watson looked at the trend of this young executive’s career and would not allow that one incident to define the young man.
When things go wrong a great leader applies three principles:
There is no failure, just learning [resulting in an ever increasing trend]
Is there more than one incident from which to extrapolate a trend?
Is the current failure an incident, and opportunity for learning, or sign of a poor trend [inability to learn from one’s mistakes]?
“It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it that matters,” said Epictetus, one of Rome’s greatest philosophers some 2,000 years ago.
In the same way, Admiral James B. Stockdale—a student of ancient philosophers, including Epictetus—lived the wisdom as well. It is reported that Stockdale mused to himself as he parachuted from his mortally wounded plane [over Vietnam in 1965], “I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.”
Admiral Stockdale was a prisoner of war for more than seven years, lived in a 3-foot-wide solitary confinement cell for four years, and was tortured more than 19 times, amongst other things. Yet he survived the horrific event by maintaining an uncommon perspective that has become known as the Stockdale Paradox.
The paradox, which consists of simultaneously maintaining two seemingly contradictory ideas was leveraged by Stockdale to great advantage for the sake of himself and his men during their dire ordeal.
On the one hand, Stockdale stated, “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” In other words, Stockdale held the faith that he would not only survive, but would eventually thrive, despite obstacles and hardships.
On the other hand, Stockdale also talked about the necessity of “the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
According to Jim Collins, author of “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t,” and others who interviewed Stockdale years after imprisonment, the Admiral insisted that those who didn’t make it out of those tragic, horrific prisoner-of-war camps were the optimists. More than holding a generally positive view, the optimists Stockdale referred to were the “blind” optimists—those who hoped that rescue was right around the corner, ignoring the harsh current realities of their circumstances. Such wishful thinking, according to Stockdale, not only did not serve survival, it actually short-circuited it.
Stockdale asserted that, “you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.
Stockdale talked about how the optimists suggested their stay at the Hanoi Hilton would be short-lived and that they would be rescued by Thanksgiving. When Thanksgiving came and went without a rescue they talked about being rescued by Christmas. But Christmas came and went as well. Then it was Easter, but it also came and went. The optimists hoped on the future and did not make the best of their current situation and eventually got so discouraged with disappointment that they lost all hope.
Instead those that not only survived, but emerged from the ordeal mentally stronger, were those that confronted the brutal reality with a positive perspective and made the best of their dire situation.
Jim Collins found evidence of the Stockdale Paradox amongst the executives of the Good-to-Great companies they studied.
So, the question all great leaders need to ask is what perspective am I going to embrace and hold on to during challenging times, let alone a crisis?
Remember, as a leader, others depend on you for their survival, development, and enriching.
