The BENCH: PAIN

Often, I am surprised as I mentor executives that they seem to not understand that parts of leadership in fact means having PAIN. The BENCH, has seen its fair share of my pain. Injuries that seem to literally tear at my body, torn Rotator cuffs, torn biceps, torn ligaments in elbows, etc. This pain is something you need to embrace, overcome and fight through to be a leader.

Failures can be seen as part of this process, the PAIN of failing, fighting back, learning and using that PAIN, to get smarter and better.

PAIN: when people you actually like as friends or just humans fail and the PAIN of doing what you must do in business , remove that person and the pain is real as we are all human.

Learning from pain is a key to being a strong, resilient leader. If everything was always perfect, we need no leaders,but the PAIN that is often there is part of the role. There are some leaders that avoid this, it destroys morale as the best see this as a weakness, a pleaser personality, never wanting to be "unpopular" or be seen as the bad person, but leadership is respect. People respect you when you make the tough calls, the PAIN. RESPECT is mush more critical to leadership than popularity, unless perhaps you are in politics? or entertainment? But business leaders need to endure PAIN as part fo the role and gain respect as such. EMBRACE the PAIN but know those that are great will see that pain, respect that and follow you to success.