My twenty-fifth and final key to an “A” is ability. Many would make it the first Key to an “A.” However, I believe leadership ability is over-emphasized. Why? Because too many people think you have to be born with it. It can be learned.
My father gave me wise advice over the years, including advice on what I needed to do to be a better writer and speaker. He said, “Those who write well, write a lot; those who speak well, speak a lot.” Both require practice. The same applies to leadership. You have to work at it and strive to improve continuously.
Practice makes perfect is an adage repeated over and over to children. However, in Talent is Overrated, Geoff Colvin refutes the adage. As he documents, practice doesn’t turn people into world-class performers, it’s deliberate practice. You must practice the right things and you must do so the right way, and you must do so over and over again—10,000 times. Discipline is required.
Colvin notes, “… what we have discovered so far is not what makes some people excel best rather what doesn’t.” He cites the following: it isn’t experience; it isn’t specific inborn abilities; and it isn’t general abilities such as intelligence and memory. So, to those who believe you must be born a great leader in order to be one, Colvin would say, “Bunk!” Likewise, to those who claim leadership ability is highly correlated with a person’s IQ level, as noted when addressing acumen, Doris Kearns Goodwin would say, “Bunk!”
Angela Duckworth, in Grit, drew a similar conclusion. Drawing on studies by cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson, she notes, “The really crucial insight of Ericsson’s research … is not that experts log more hours of practice. Rather, it’s that experts practice differently. Unlike most of us, experts are logging thousands upon thousands of hours of what Ericsson calls deliberate practice.”
Importantly, remember something Coach John Wooden said, “Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.” The philosopher Virgil claimed, “They are able because they think they are able.” This reminds me of something Henry T. Ford said, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” It comes down to attitude. We’ve come full circle and are back to the first leadership key.
In this series of blog posts, we considered twenty-five keys to “A”s in achieving exemplary leadership: attitude, alignment, acumen, aspiration, ambition, availability, accountability, allocation, affirmation, anticipation, awareness, attentiveness, alertness, assertiveness, ambiguity, accuracy, adaptability, accommodation, association, arbitrariness, authenticity, acting, achievement, adversity, and ability. Clearly, many keys to “A”s in leadership don’t begin with the letter “A”. Also, I could’ve included other keys that begin with the letter “A”. My intent wasn’t to provide an exhaustive set of keys, although my journey through Keys to “A”s in Leadership might have been exhausting. Instead, I wanted to demonstrate that many keys are required to unlock the door to exemplary leadership.
Next: Let’s Play the Alphabet Game!
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[1] Geoff Colvin, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performance from Everybody Else, Penguin Books, Ltd, London, England, 2010, pp. 50-51. [1] Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Scribner, New York, NY, 2016, pp. 119-120. [1] John Wooden and Steve Jamison, Wooden on Leadership, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 2005, p. 43. [1] See https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/virgil_378723.[1] See https://www.challengeachieved.com/quote/whether-you-think-you-can-or-you-think-y-5adf47589f09ee01e64cb44f.
