Excellence - Confidence = Mediocrity

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By show of hands (virtually), which one of you astute readers loved algebra in school??Which one of you cheated off the homework completed by the pretty girl/boy sitting to your right? (The one in front of you was prettier, but you couldn’t see his/her paper).?Which one of you loved algebra so much that you completed all your homework before you even left the class for the day??These are the people that will love this analogy that My Great Aunt EDNA will use to illustrate the counterbalance of Excellence and Mediocrity, and the most important variable of Confidence.

As stated previously, the counter-spirit of Excellence is Mediocrity.?However, one can be excellent and still have mediocre results.?How is this possible??It is because one lacks confidence.?A leader that lacks confidence, even though they have studied and practiced being excellent in their craft, is the equivalent of a meticulously designed and crafted gold watch that provides an inaccurate depiction of the time.?It looks good, but it has lost its value and importance in respect to its purpose.

One of the best and worst movies of the 1980’s is The Last Dragon, starring Taimak (Leroy Green), Vanity (Laura Charles), and Julius Carry (Sho’nuff).?I LOVED this movie, and I have probably watched it fifty times.?In full disclosure, forty-nine of those times was because of Vanity.?Damn, she was fine.?But very similar to other events that have occurred in my lifetime, this movie full of bad acting and cheesy graphics taught me a leadership lesson in my youth.

Leroy Green, or Bruce Leroy as he was called in the movie, was desiring to become a Master in the Kung-Fu martial arts discipline.?It was all he did, and all that he loved.?The last “Dragon,” or master of Kung-Fu was identified as Bruce Lee, and Leroy was mimicking him and seeking out knowledge from other elders to learn what he felt was missing from his repertoire to become the Last Dragon.?He worked tirelessly to perfect the art of Kung-Fu and was visibly better than anyone he went up against.?Until he met Sho’nuff, the regional Kung-Fu bully.?Every time Leroy had to fight Sho’nuff, the excellence that he possessed was not enough to defeat his foe.?It was not until Sho’nuff was holding his head under water and death was imminent for Leroy, and Sho’nuff yelling, “Who is the Master?!” that Leroy got the point.?He was the Master, and he had acquired the excellence needed far above anyone else but had not accepted the confidence in his excellence to proclaim and believe his status.?He lifted his head in triumph and added Confidence to his leadership equation and responded, “I am!”

So, if Excellence – Confidence = Mediocrity, let’s do some algebra.?Using the equation at the beginning of this paragraph, let us add Confidence to both sides of the equation.?The new equation will then read, Excellence = Mediocrity + Confidence.?The equation still balances out and creates a new truth utilizing the same variables.?In this new format of the equation, it is stating that someone that is mediocre can add Confidence to their equation and arrive at Excellence.?How many of you can remember a leader that you have had that was mediocre in their knowledge of their industry or organization, yet possessed exuberant confidence that was noticeable to their team and arrived at excellent results??I know of many, and I have been in this situation before.?I was recruited into banking as a Branch Manager with no banking experience.?My team was obviously more knowledgeable than I pertaining to banking principles, yet the confidence that was displayed in leadership rallied my team to perform at a very high level.?The Excellence in banking knowledge arrived later.?Excellence in leadership does not require perfection.?The most important variable is leadership confidence.?

My Great Aunt EDNA is very much like my grandmother, Bertha Mae Young.?My grandmother had nine children that she raised alone due to my grandfather’s early death.?Being the twin of my real great-aunt Edna, they both taught many of the same lessons without any formal education or work knowledge to support their teachings.?However, all children and grandchildren can vouch for the Confidence displayed in the words and life-lessons from “Big Momma,” and my great-aunt Edna.?It is where the confidence in the leadership teachings shared from My Great Aunt EDNA derive from; two Black women born in Mississippi in the 1930’s in the beginning of the Jim Crow era, that exuded Confidence, demanded Excellence, and preached against mediocrity.???

Leadership is not a complex concept.?Yet, many fail at it.?There are leaders that have great confidence, yet they do not possess a spirit of Excellence that they enforce on their teams, therefore producing mediocre results.?There are leaders that have a spirit of Excellence on their teams, but do not display Confidence which causes doubt in the teams’ direction, thus producing mediocre results.?And then, there are leaders that are just mediocre in general, including how they approach their own lives.?None of these leadership scenarios will produce the results reached by nieces and nephews of My Great Aunt EDNA who may have cheated off the paper of the girl/boy to their right but learned and understood the algebraic equation necessary to pass the test of leadership.

The next leadership equation will look like this....do your homework and get ready!

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