My twenty-third key to an “A” is achievement. In the end, you must achieve results; if you don’t, your tenure as a leader will be limited. You can possess all attributes of an “A” Leader, but you must deliver results. Hall of Fame coach, Vince Lombardi, is credited with, “Some of us will do our jobs well and some will not, but we will be judged by only one thing-the result.”[i]
Lou Tice notes, “What you achieve is largely a matter of what you believe; in fact, you might say: believe equals achieve.”[ii] He adds, “If we change the belief, the performance follows.”[iii]
Beliefs establish the ceiling for achievements. If you don’t believe you can, you can’t!
What we think shapes our beliefs. Emphasizing the importance of self-talk, Tice observes, “We think and act not in accordance with the real truth, but the truth as we believe it,”[iv] and “Thoughts accumulate to build beliefs.”[v]
Tice emphasizes, “We must keep an open mind and hold the belief: The answers are there. I just don’t see them yet. But I will see them soon. And we must believe that about ourselves and others.”[vi] Also, “The only difference between average and high-performance people—those who constantly get the breaks—is that they see more because they think differently.”[vii]
At Georgia Tech, for several years, administrators engaged in strategic planning seemingly ad nauseum. While serving as the engineering dean, in a meeting with leaders of the various engineering schools, one leader moaned, “I’m tired of doing strategic planning. I’m ready for some strategic doing!” General Tony Zinni agreed: “It is not enough … for a true leader to be a strategic thinker. He must also be a strategic doer.”[viii]
If you possess all attributes of an “A” Leader, I believe results will follow. However, don’t take them for granted. Keep your eye on the scoreboard to ensure results are occurring. If not, you need to act. Even more, you need to achieve. Actions without results are meaningless. As Schneider National’s Chris Lofgren reminded my leadership students, “Effort is appreciated. Results are required.”
In the end, a leader is measured on the achievements of the organization. The proof is in the pudding captures the importance of a leader ensuring results are produced. Results matter!
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The twenty-fourth key to an “A” is adversity. I don’t believe you must experience adversity to be an exemplary leader, but it’s helpful if you have. If nothing else, it develops empathy in a leader. Interestingly, an amazing number of highly effective leaders dealt with adversity either prior to or during their periods of leadership.
Candidly, I didn’t think to include adversity in my list until I read Goodwin’s analysis of four presidents in Leadership in Turbulent Times. Each president she studied had to deal with adversity, albeit in different forms. Lincoln dealt with depression, Theodore Roosevelt with the deaths of his wife and mother, Franklin Roosevelt dealt with polio, and Johnson dealt with losing an election to the United States Senate. She notes, “To draw an analogy between an election loss and the tragic reversals experienced by the others would appear, on the surface, ludicrous; but Lyndon Johnson construed rejection by the people as a judgment upon, and a repudiation of, his deepest self.” Ultimately, adversity visited him in the form of a massive heart attack, causing him to face mortality and change his life.[ix]
The reason adversity is a leadership key is not the adversity you face, but how you respond. Some people let adversity be their excuse for failing to achieve their goals; others use adversity as motivation to achieve them. Generally, it’s a choice people can make. As Motorola Solutions’ Greg Brown put it when meeting with students, “When bad things happen, you have a choice. How you respond to adversity is up to you.” He added, “It’s not about the cards you’re dealt, but how you play the hand. Sometimes you’re dealt the five of clubs. Play the five of clubs to the best of your ability.”
Walmart’s Judith McKenna told leadership students, “When disappointments come, you need to pick yourself up and dust yourself off.” She reminded students, “The only person who can lose your credibility is you.” She said, “You put yourself on a path by choosing how you handle setbacks.”
As a college student, General Mattis was jailed for underage drinking. He recounts, “One inmate, Porter Wagner (not the famous singer), had jumped bail in Maryland. One Saturday night he saw me hoisting myself up to look out the barred window, eager to see what I was missing outside. “‘What do you see, Jimmy:’ he said, lying back on his bunk. ‘A muddy parking lot.’ ‘From down here, I see stars in the night sky,’ he said. ‘It’s your choice. You can look at stars or mud.’ He was in jail, but his spirit wasn’t. From that wayward philosopher, I learned no matter what happened, I wasn’t a victim; I made my own choices how to respond. You don’t always control your circumstances, but you can always control your response.”[x]
Bennis observes, “Most of us are shaped more by negative experiences than by positive ones.”[xi] Adversity can build empathy, if you let it. It can strengthen you as a leader.
Next: Keys to “A”s in Leadership–Part XV (Ability)
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[i] See https://www.keepinspiring.me/vince-lombardi-quotes/.
[ii] Lou Tice, Smart Talk for Achieving Your Potential: 5 Steps to Get You from Here to There, Pacific Institute Publishing, Seattle, WA, 1995, p. 19.
[iii] Ibid, p. 22.
[iv] Ibid, p. 91.
[v] Ibid, p. 97.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Tony Zinni and Tony Koltz, Leading the Charge: Leadership Lessons from the Battlefield to the Boardroom, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY, 2009, p. 223.
[ix] Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership in Turbulent Times, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 2018, p. xiii.
[x] Jim Mattis and Bing West, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead, Penguin Random House LLC, New York, NY, 2019, p. 6.
[xi] Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader, Basic Books, Philadelphia, PA, 2009, p. 110.
