Find Your Tribe

I shared previously about running at midnight and the lessons I took from that about leading during COVID-19. I thought back to those solitary runs this morning, as I was running in the early morning gloom with 16 other runners in our weekly Wednesday morning running group.

I was running at the back of the pack and ensuring we all stayed together on the busy streets as we headed toward one of our local neighborhood hills for some sprint repeats. As my headlamp shone on the backs of my fellow runners ahead, I realized I didn't need to think about the route we were taking because I could just follow their blinking lights & reflective vests, even though I was officially the leader of this morning's run. I'd shared our planned route in Slack the evening before, so we all knew the destination we were headed for.

Likewise, as a leader it's good for me to find those times when I can follow the lead of colleagues in my own organization or at partner organizations when they have better experience, more or different perspective, or are ready to lead in that situation. I can turn some of my efforts toward other strategic areas, or I can take the opportunity to mentally & physically recover to gear up for the next big endeavor to lead on.

And so it went this morning, as we arrived at the base of the hill for our sprint repeats. I selected this route because the running app Strava had a segment there - a designated route where Strava tracks your performance over time and your performance compared to other runners. We were all striving for Personal Records (PRs) today, so we were no longer together as a pack after we reached the hill. We were each at max effort sprinting up the hill at our own fastest pace (none faster than the 14 year old who'd led our pack en route to this location earlier) and competing to beat the runner next to us, our own previous best time, or someone else who'd registered a faster time than us in some previous run. This was a time for individual effort, yet the collective effort & performance of the others inspired the best out of each of us.

Four of us recorded PRs on the hill today, and then we got back together as a pack for the slow cool-down mile back to our cars. COVID-19 has changed many things for all of us, but it hasn't changed the need to sometimes charge ahead at the front of the pack in pursuit of a strategic goal, and the equally critical need to sometimes find a more sustainable pace alongside trusted partners in order to prepare for even bigger goals in the future.

Postscript: I moved up the overall leaderboard from 44th to 16th on this segment this morning, and now I need to get 13 seconds faster to move into the top ten, if all else stays the same. But those targets never stay the same, since others are gunning for the top spots too - maybe another article for another time.