When it comes to choosing attributes beginning with the letter M that are essential for exemplary leaders, AI software identified several candidates: magnetic, masterful, mature, mediator, measured, mentoring, methodical, meticulous, mindful, modest, moral, and motivational, among others. However, I believe the most important M-word is one that AI didn’t include: mettle. (As with all but one letter in the alphabet, there wasn’t a winning entry.)
Oxford English Dictionary defines mettle as “a person’s ability to cope well with difficulties or to face a demanding situation in a spirited and resilient way.” Leadership is not for the weak or the timid. “Difficulties” and “demanding situations” occur frequently. Leaders soon learn—leadership is hard work. Heifetz reflects this in Leadership Without Easy Answers[i]; he reinforces the difficulty in his follow-on book with Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change[ii].
Drucker rightly states, “Leadership is a foul-weather job.”[iii] Carville and Begala note, “There are no shortcuts. … Napoleon once said that God is on the side of the big battalions. He was right. In the nonmilitary context, God is on the side of the hard workers.”[iv] They point out, “Hard work can make up for a lot—lack of innate genius, grating interpersonal skills, even ugly scars and tattoos. But without a strong work ethic, even the geniuses, the charmers and the folks with flawless skin wind up losers.”[v] So, if you aren’t prepared to work hard, avoid being a leader. Not only is leadership hard work, but it’s also needed most when a crisis occurs.
In Why It Matters, I asked, “Do you really want to be a leader? If so, why?”[vi] When I posed the questions, Theodore Roosevelt’s speech, popularly titled “The Man in the Arena” came to mind:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”[vii]
As I point out in Why It Matters, “Leadership is a contact sport and a team sport. It’s not a popularity contest. It requires enduring criticism, possibly being the subject of attacks by the press, peers, followers and competitors, biting your lip, and staying the course.”[viii] It requires mettle.
Carville and Begala emphasize, “Don’t quit. Don’t ever quit.”[ix] As Churchill said, “Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.”[x]
In Sample’s The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, Chapter 10 is titled, “Being President Versus Doing President.” He presents pros and cons of holding the “top leadership position” in an organization.[xi] In Why It Matters I observe, “Many people think they want to be president, but very few want to do president. The former think it’s easy to be and do president. They’re mistaken. They think the position is glamorous, just as those who don’t travel frequently believe airplane travel, staying in hotels, and living out of suitcases are glamorous. People who want to be not do president are attracted by the title, the accompanying aura, perks, power, and prestige of the position—all of which vanish or lose their significance all too soon.”[xii] The same observations apply to every leadership position. Be sure you want to be a leader for the right reasons and arm yourself with mettle (as well as metal in some situations).
Next: Leadership ABCs—N
Rules for the game to receive a signed copy of Why It Matters: 1) limited to U.S.A. mailing addresses; 2) limited to a single selection for the word; 3) cannot submit entry sooner than one week before the blog is posted on LinkedIn; 4) be the first correct entry I receive; and 5) send entries to me at johnaustinwhitejr@gmail.com. The earliest you can submit your N-word entry is 12:00 am, EDT, January 28, 2026; the latest time is 12:00 am, EDT, February 4, 2026.
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[i] Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994.
[ii] Ronald A. Heifetz and Martin Linsky, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Change, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, MA, 2017.
[iii] Peter F. Drucker, Managing the Non-Profit Organization, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1990, p. 9.
[iv] James Carville and Paul Begala, Buck Up, Suck Up … And Come Back When You Foul Up: 12 Winning Secrets from the War Room, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2002, p. 131.
[v] Ibid, p. 146.
[vi] John A. White, Why It Matters: Reflections on Practical Leadership, Greenleaf Book Group Press, Austin, TX, 2022, p. 47.
[vii] See https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7-it-is-not-the-critic-who-counts-not-the-man.
[viii] White, p. 47.
[ix] James Carville and Paul Begala, p. 19.
[x] See https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/winston-churchill-quotes.
[xi] Steven B. Sample, The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, 2002, pp. 159-170.
[xii] White, pp. 45-46.
