TENACITY IS THE QUALITY OF A TENACIOUS LEADER!!!!

In case you're wondering: Tenacious itself is tenacious – at least if we're talking etymology. The word, which has been in use in English since the early 1600s, has clung tightly to its Latin ancestor, tenax, an adjective meaning "tending to hold fast." A strong grip or an unyielding advocate might both be described as tenacious, a word whose synonyms include resolute, firm, and persistent. The word comes from the Latin root tenax, which means "holding fast."

Mental toughness is not a quality you either do or don't have.Sure, some people may have greater self-discipline than you possess. Some people may be better at resisting temptation than you are. But that's probably not because they were born with some certain special something inside of them--instead, they've found ways to develop mental toughness and use it when it really matters.

They're mentally strong because they've learned how to be--and you can too.

Here's how:

Always assume you are in complete control.

There's a quote often credited to Ignatius: "Pray as if God will take care of all; act as if all is up to you." (It's a very cool quote.)

The same premise applies to luck. Many people feel luck has a lot to do with success or failure. If they succeed, luck favored them, and if they fail, luck was against them.

Most successful people do feel good luck played some role in their success. But they don't wait for good luck, or worry about bad luck. They act as if success or failure is totally within their control.

If they succeed, they caused it. If they fail, they caused it.

By not wasting mental energy worrying about what might happen to you, you can put all your effort into making things happen. (And then, if you get lucky, hey, you're even better off.)

You can't control what luck does for you, but you can definitely control what you do for yourself.

Make a lot fewer choices.

We all have a finite store of mental energy for exercising self-control.

The more choices we make during the day, the harder each one is on our brain--and the more we start to look for shortcuts. (When you're tired, you're a lot more likely to say, "Oh, the heck with it.")

Then we get impulsive. Then we get reckless. Then we make decisions we know we shouldn't make, but we just can't seem help ourselves.

In fact, we can't help ourselves: We've run out of the mental energy we need to make smart choices.

That's why the fewer choices we have to make, the smarter choices we can make when we do need to make a decision.

Say you want to drink more water and less soda. Easy: Keep three water bottles on your desk at all times. Then you won't need to go to the refrigerator and make a choice.

Or say you struggle to keep from constantly checking your email. Easy: Turn off all your alerts. Or shut down your email and open it only once an hour. Or take your mail program off your desktop and keep it on a laptop across the room. Make it hard to check, because then you're more likely not to.

Or say you want to make fewer impulse purchases. Easy: Keep your credit card in a drawer. Then you can't make an impulse buy. Or require two sign-offs for all purchases over a certain amount, because you will have to run those decisions by someone else (which probably means you'll think twice and won't even bother).

Choices are the enemy of mental toughness. So are ease and convenience. Think of decisions that require you to be mentally strong, and then take willpower totally out of the equation.

Put aside things you have no ability to impact.

Mental strength is like muscle strength--no one has an unlimited supply. So why waste your power on things you can't control?

For some people, it's politics. For others, it's family. For others, it's global warming. Whatever it is, you care, and you want others to care.

Fine. Do what you can do: Vote. Lend a listening ear. Recycle, and reduce your carbon footprint. Do what you can do. Be your own change--but don't try to make everyone else change.

(They won't.)

See the past as valuable training and nothing more.

The past is valuable. Learn from your mistakes. Learn from the mistakes of others.

Then let it go.

Easier said than done? It depends on your perspective. When something bad happens to you, see it as an opportunity to learn something you didn't know. When another person makes a mistake, don't just learn from it--see it as an opportunity to be kind, forgiving, and understanding.

The past is just training; it doesn't define you. Think about what went wrong but only in terms of how you will make sure that next time, you and the people around you will know how to make sure it goes right.

Actively celebrate the success of others.

Many people--I guarantee you know at least a few--see success as a zero-sum game. To them, there's only so much to go around, so if someone else shines, they think that diminishes the light from their star.

Resentment sucks up a massive amount of mental energy--energy better applied elsewhere.

When a friend does something awesome, that doesn't preclude you from doing something awesome. In fact, where success is concerned, birds of a feather tend to flock together--so draw your successful friends even closer.

Don't resent awesomeness. Create and celebrate awesomeness, wherever you find it, and in time you'll find even more of it in yourself.

Never allow yourself to complain. Or criticize.

Your words have power, especially over you. Whining about your problems always makes you feel worse, not better.

So if something is wrong, don't waste time complaining. Put that mental energy into making the situation better. (Unless you want to whine about it forever, eventually you'll have to make it better.)

So why waste time? Fix it now. Don't talk about what's wrong. Talk about how you'll make things better, even if that conversation is only with yourself.

And do the same with your friends or colleagues. Don't just serve as a shoulder they can cry on. Friends don't let friends whine; friends help friends make their lives better.

Don't try to impress others; impress yourself instead.

No one likes you for your clothes, your car, your possessions, your title, or your accomplishments. Those are all things. People may like your things--but that doesn't mean they like you.

(Sure, superficially they might seem to like you, but what's superficial is also insubstantial, and a relationship not based on substance is not a real relationship.)

Genuine relationships make you happier, and you'll only form genuine relationships when you stop trying to impress and start trying to just be yourself.

And you'll have a lot more mental energy to spend on the people who really do matter in your life.

Consistently review your long-term goals.

Say you want to build a bigger company; when you're mentally tired, it's easy to rationalize that you'll do your best tomorrow, not today. Say you want to lose weight; when you're mentally tired, it's easy to rationalize that you'll start changing your eating and exercise habits tomorrow, not today. Say you want to better engage with your employees; when you're mentally tired, it's easy to rationalize that you really need to work on some report today; tomorrow you'll worry about your employees.

Mental fatigue makes us take the easy way out--even though the easy way takes us the wrong way. That's why it's so important to maintain tangible reminders to pull you back from the impulse brink.

A friend has a copy of his bank note taped to his computer monitor as a constant reminder of an obligation he must meet. Another keeps a photo of himself on his refrigerator taken when he weighed 250 pounds so he's constantly reminded of the person he never wants to be again. Katheryn Winnick, the star of Vikings, keeps a list of goals on her computer desktop so she's forced to look at them every day. (She's also hosted a vision board party, one of the cooler ideas I've heard in a while.)

Think of moments when you are most likely to give in to impulses that take you further away from your long-term goals. Then use tangible reminders of those long-term goals to interrupt the impulse and keep you on track.

Count your blessings.

Take a second every night before you turn out the light and, in that moment, quit worrying about what you don't have. Quit worrying about what others have that you don't.

Think about what you do have. You have a lot to be thankful for. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?

Be Honest

The moment a team stops believing their leader is telling them the truth, things start to fall apart. Why should workers follow their bosses with any level of confidence if they’ve come to find out their leader has been less than honest?

In the business world, honesty is critically important. When hiring a manager, look for candidates who understand the importance of openness and transparency. Leading by example, honest managers inspire the rest of their teams to be similarly truthful.

 

Possess Good Communication skills

It’s one thing for managers to know what needs to be done. It’s a whole different thing for them to be able to clearly communicate those priorities to each member of their team — all of whom are responsible for different tasks.

Great managers have excellent communication skills. They are able to get their team on the same page so that everyone works toward the same objective — not seven different interpretations of that objective. Managers need to be able to communicate verbally, but the best ones are also able to communicate via the written word just as effectively.

  Be Decisive

Whether they work for themselves or manage enormous departments, in addition to those routine decisions, all managers have to make tough choices regularly. To make your business more efficient, look for candidates who understand that the buck stops at their desk and aren’t afraid to act swiftly when they need to. Strong leaders are able to make difficult decisions quickly, after doing their due diligence and assessing all of their options.

The average person makes as many as 35,000 different decisions each day; managers probably make at least a few more. Select an indecisive manager, and your company moves more slowly — it’s that simple.

 Be Confident

To retain the support of their teams, managers need to be confident that the decisions they’re making are the right ones. After a tough decision is made, managers need to be able to convince their teams to move forward — even the employees who would have made a different choice. Candidates who project confidence are much more likely to inspire all of their workers.

From time to time, all businesses suffer setbacks. A court might rule against you. A new competitor might enter the market and gain traction. A new product release might not be well-received by your customers. In any such situation, managers need to remain confident so they can lead their teams forward.

 Take Responsibility

Great managers understand that they’re the ones in charge, meaning they’re responsible for everyone’s performance — the successes and the failures. To this end, they keep tabs on all of their employees to see what they can do to help them become better workers and develop professionally.

According to our 2015 Employee Engagement Report, only 25% of workers feel as though there are ample opportunities for professional development at their organizations. That figure leaves a lot to be desired because many workers place a high value on professional development.

Managers who are invested in their employees and committed to helping them grow professionally will almost assuredly keep their staffs engaged.

 

EMPATHIZE

Back to that stat about people quitting their bosses: if employees are drowning in work — and 70% of them feel like they are, according to our report — managers need to be understanding. They need to be able to put themselves into their staff’s shoes and imagine what it’s like to do their jobs.

Look for managerial candidates who understand the importance of empathy. When managers don’t listen to their employees and understand where they are coming from, bad things can happen.

Be Focused

Any given company has an enormous amount of competing priorities. Many initiatives move forward simultaneously, and there’s a lot to keep up with. For businesses to succeed, managers can’t lose sight of something because they’re too busy dealing with something else.

It goes without saying managers need to be aware of the big picture. But they also need to have a laser-like focus on the smaller things, too. Look for candidates who’ve demonstrated they’re able to wear many hats at once. Great managers have a track record of successfully seeing multiple projects through from conception to completion.

Be Creative

Want to take your company to the next level? Hire a manager who has a knack for thinking outside the box and coming up with amazing ideas.

Decisions aren’t always so black and white. Sometimes, creative solutions are required to solve problems. 

As you search for managerial candidates, look for applicants who have demonstrated their ability to solve complex problems creatively. Great managers tend to be creative people. They are known for thinking about new ways to improve operations and serve customers better while also making their employees happier.

If you consider candidates who have spearheaded projects, helped conceive new products or services, and figured out ways to improve productivity, you’re likely to wind up with a great manager.

Be Optimistic

Everyone can struggle at work from time to time. And in some cases, a majority of workers can struggle at the same time. Just think of a company overhauling its tech infrastructure and all the resulting headaches.

It’s easy to get frustrated at work. When managers openly express their disgust about something when everyone else is struggling, it can bring the team down even more. Great managers understand this, which is why they try their best to remain optimistic and positive at all times.

 Be with total Commitment

Managers who view their roles solely as stepping stones to other, more lucrative positions probably won’t do much to boost the team’s morale when they take another gig in 18 months.

Great leaders tend to stick around — they’re in it for the long haul. Maybe they have their sights set on climbing the ladder. But they’re not looking to land the next job they can find. They’re committed to the cause and are looking to get promoted and move up the ranks.

•  It may be hard to find someone who has all 10 of these traits, but they do exist. Worst case, settle for the candidate who has a majority of them, and you should do just fine.
• Feeling better about yourself is the best way of all to recharge your mental batteries.

We can demonstrate leadership in our lives in several ways. We can demonstrate leadership in the traditional sense when we are elected or hired to lead an organization. We can demonstrate leadership in our professional lives in our day-to-day involvement with coworkers, employees, and employers. We can also demonstrate leadership in our personal lives and the lives of those closest to us, our friends and family. In all of these areas, I believe tenacity for the truth is essential.

Tenacious Leadership

When it comes to organizational leadership, the two biggest barriers to uncovering the truth are politics and egos. Anyone who has tried to get a resolution passed by a state or federal legislative body knows how quickly the truth can get distorted as political parties and special interest groups twist and spin an issue to a point where it is almost unrecognizable. A good leader’s job is to continually refocus the issues back to the truth.

Good leaders are servants of the organization they represent. When leaders let their own egos get in the way, they stop serving the organization and begin serving themselves.

The other egos that get in the way of the truth are the egos of the people surrounding the leader. In many cases, employees, consultants, and lobbyists were hired many years ago when the needs of the organization were quite different. A leader needs to evaluate these groups to make sure that they are working effectively to meet specific goals, hold them accountable, and then react accordingly. This is one of the most difficult things for a leader to do, but also one of the most important.

When I was chair of the school I had to confront an administrator who was not working toward the goal . She was one of my closest friends. It ended badly for me personally because I lost my friend, but it was the right move . It was also my job, and if I had taken the easy route and let this issue go, I would have betrayed the trust of the people who elected me. It is absolutely critical for any leader to make sure that employees and outside vendors are evaluated regularly, held accountable for meeting specific goals, and changed if necessary.

When it comes to professional leadership and working with those around us, the same concepts apply. Passive-aggressive and manipulative behavior, which most people learn in middle school, can destroy a workplace. It is essential to clearly delineate acceptable behavior in the office setting, carefully explain the concept of positive conflict resolution, and hold every member of the team accountable for their behavior. Learning how to achieve and maintain a positive working environment is one of the best things you can do for yourself, your coworkers, and your patients.

That leadership can no longer embody the status quo.

Whether or not song lyrics and journalism qualify as literature isn't the point. The point is that leadership is about embracing change. Constantly.

Whether you're an artist, a scientist, a politician or a corporate executive, being a leader in today's 24/7 culture requires flexibility, tenacity and a willingness to explore the unknown. This means that what got you where you are today won't get you where you want to go.

Speaking of where you are today, chances are you're a leader due to one of two scenarios:

1. You were a superstar individual contributor, so, to engage you, you were promoted to manager. But you haven't had much formal leadership training.
2. You set out to be a leader and you've been managing people for years. The leadership development courses you've taken have been instrumental in your success.

But regardless of which leader you are – and even if you're a senior executive – you have one thing in common: Your employees rely on you for coaching.

And as management trends move from command-and-control to servant leadership, from "telling" to coaching, tackling tough situations with aplomb is now more dynamic than static.

Here are three ways you can keep pace with change as you coach your team.

Feedback: The good, the bad and the ugly

A former boss of mine used to say that feedback was a gift – as long as she was the one giving it.

Kidding aside, effective feedback is essential to coaching like a pro, but it can be the trickiest aspect of the game.

Communicating negative messages toward a positive outcome takes practice and preparation. Remember to be timely with your feedback, but resist the temptation to lash out in the moment or to criticize in front of others. When you do coach on weak areas, heading out of the office for a change of scene can defuse some of the personal emotion.

Unsure about whether to involve HR in a sticky performance conversation? Ask. A good HR business partner will know from experience when they need to step in, and they can roleplay with you as part of your prep work.

On the flip side, be just as mindful of how you deliver positive strokes. If you decide to praise one employee verbally in front of others, make sure it isn't creating another performance problem for you by alienating a different team member. If you're praising an employee in writing, make sure you have all your facts straight.

Positive or negative, don't put it off. Strike while the iron's hot.

Growth: What goes around comes around

According to Gallup, the global employee engagement statistic is hovering at a shockingly low 13 percent. Providing career growth options to your team can hugely impact how much skin they have in the game. But it's also hard work. So, why aren't you spending more time, money and energy providing growth opportunities for your team?

These are the most common excuses:

• I really want to, but my team is too busy with their day-to-day work.
• Our training budget was sucked up by operational costs.
• Oh, and did I mention how busy I am?

Lack of time is the worst excuse imaginable when your employees are looking to grow. Not defending your training budget to the leaders above you is a close second. Consider that there will be much less time to spend on employee development when people start leaving for other opportunities. Take their development seriously now or regret it later.

Finding growth opportunities for your people doesn't have to be costly, and the outcomes can be of tremendous value to your business. But remember, your employees are unique. Developing their skills can't be a one-size-fits-all approach.

Word to the wise: as their coach, keep your needs out of it. Their growth should not be about making you look good (more on that later). Take the time to learn about their strengths, weaknesses, dreams, desires and passions.

The simple truth about coaching is that it doesn't have to be fancy, but it does need to be consistent. If you're not already, incorporate career growth discussions into your regular one-on-one meetings with your direct reports. Once you know what makes them tick, you can sync up their aspirations with projects that will give them a chance to shine.

Side benefit? Even though you did it for them, it's good for you. Your reputation as a leader will soar, as will your team's.

Side effect? You may realize that your manager needs to give your career aspirations some love and attention. A new Gallup poll shows that only 35 percent of managers are engaged. Ask for what you need. You deserve it.

Motivate your stars – and your understudies

Keeping your lead players passionate used to entail putting them in the "upper L" of your nine-box grid at year's end for the 6 percent raise versus the 4 percent everyone else is getting. (I'm bored just thinking about it.) With many HR departments trending away from traditional performance evaluations, it's time to start looking for creative ways to reward key talent.

What about a high-potential program, you ask? Not all are created equally. Proceed with caution.

Shoehorning your stars into a program that rests upon a narrow or vague definition of potential is nearly played out. Just as HIPO programs are walking hand in hand into the sunset with annual evaluations, the Harvard Business Review is marching in like the cavalry with a cover story titled "Let Your Workers Rebel." The premise: encourage your best people to break the rules and watch their potential transform. Francesca Gino, Harvard professor and author of the story, asks us to look deeply at our inner rebel. These innovative approaches are the future of star talent retention.

The challenge of this type of self-taught approach is that it oftentimes lacks the structure and clear learning objectives that more formal programs provide. With this in mind, self-taught leaders will do well to examine the following four key pre-war leadership legacies because they shape and inform contemporary twenty-first-century leadership:

Leadership is homogenous.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries had very fixed scientific views of management and leadership. This is the era of Max Weber’s bureaucratic management theory and Frederick Taylor′s Principles of Scientific Management, both commentators posited standardized procedures and a clear chain of command. Modern leadership is more situational — Warren Bennis and Burt Namus see it as a “deeply human process, full of trial and error, victories and defeats, timing and happenstance, intuition and insight.” Modern leaders are attuned to the business climate and changing customer need and are able to adjust their leadership style to motivate their teams.

Leadership is innate.

The idea of a natural born leader was a commonly held belief in the 19th century leading to elitist assumptions of a divine right to lead which influenced natural succession and reinforced directive leadership attitudes and behaviors. Modern leadership commentators have dispelled the idea of hereditary in favor of the principle of leadership as a learned set of behaviors. Modern leaders have what Japanese philosophy terms kaizen, meaning improvement (often linked to continuous improvement). They have the desire and mindset to learn new things and thrive on self-renewal and see mistakes in themselves and others as learning opportunities.

Leadership is about positional power.

Positional power was very important in per-war organizations with its emphasis on hierarchy and status. The assumption in the industrial age was that leaders drove production. This mindset has been debunked in recent times. The rise of the knowledge worker begat various shared forms of leadership (stewardship, servant leader, empowerment, participate leader and more recently, theocracy) that is shifting emphasis away from the type of structured management control that defined per-war leadership. Modern leaders deliver results through others and influence and motivate without recourse to positional power.

Leaders have all the expertise and ideas.

This certainly was the mindset in the 19th century where aspiring leaders focused on technical skills to make it to the top; and vision, strategy and decision-making were hatched in closed board rooms and disseminated down the organization. Modern leaders coach rather than instruct and openly encourage diversity of thought and ideas and collaboratively build shared vision.

Leadership has transitioned from past legacies of driving production using fixed and directive behaviors to modern leadership principles of working with and through others using adaptive, learner-centric, enabling and collaborative behaviors. What this teaches us is that there is a strong correlation between business context and effective leadership — leadership approaches that were apposite in pre-war assembly-line environments are not effectual in a post-war knowledge economy. As leaders we need to draw a line under obsolete pre-war legacies of natural succession, status, positional power and autocracy that strangles innovation, motivation, decision-making and leads to employee fear and talent drain when applied to the modern workplace.

Margaret Wheatly wrote in “Leadership and the New Science”, “we need the courage to let go of all the old world, to relinquish most of what we have cherished… to see the world anew.” Taking a historical perspective can inspire us to create a leadership approach that befits the 21st century and to let go of pervading legacies that are holding us back.

And finally, what about your low performers? Is it really all their fault? If you haven't already exhausted their development possibilities, consider applying steps one and two as an experiment before you throw in the towel.

Above all, don't ignore the problem. Great coaches don't allow issues to fester. And they always take accountability.

While we're on the topic, I'll leave you with this insight..."It ain't the heat, it's the humility." to be a tenacious leader.