Leadership and Endurance

“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge

Productive leaders have the cognitive and emotional ability to deal with uncertain scenarios that break the boundaries of their “comfort zones.” A productive leadership style demands that leaders are able to endure setbacks in their work. Like endurance athletes, they face changing environments and circumstances that do not always resemble the setting in which they have trained, thus requiring agility and the ability to quickly adapt.

In a productive leadership style, leaders are able to maximize people’s development and organizational growth. As I have stated in previous posts, in order to do that, they need to have stamina. Sustaining the pace in the effort to build conditions to get things done, amid ambiguities and complexities, requires a huge amount of endurance.

Take Martin Luther King, Jr., for example. He had a clear purpose in his struggle to achieve equality and civil rights for the African American communities. Every day in his life was a very different journey than the day before. One day he would get the good news that more people were joining his efforts, and the next day he would learn the unfortunate news that one of his fellow activists was lynched and burned by racists. But every day, even in the midst of the most appalling, uncertain and complex circumstances, Dr. King would get up in the morning to fight another battle. He said that “the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” His call was for endurance in the most difficult moments.

Similar to Martin Luther King, Jr., productive leaders need to understand that their purpose is worth the efforts they undertake, regardless of failures and setbacks experienced along the way. They know that that purpose brings together a coalition of individuals who strive as hard as they do to achieve what they set out to do, be that the civil rights movement, a company seeking to lead a market, a startup initiative, or simply family  staying together in difficult circumstances.

Productive leaders prepare people to thrive, adapt, change, create knowledge, learn and meet the goals on the way to the purpose. And they themselves are engaged in a process that requires a constant injection of energy in order to endure potential failures. For these endurance leaders, it is necessary to convey a message of faith, hope and conviction. They need to have confidence in their ability to lead the organization through steady times, and even promote productive conflict to shake the organization’s basic assumptions. They also must have the ability to move forward in times of crisis when their full capacities and energy are needed the most by their people and the organizations they lead.

In times of uncertainty, productive leaders acknowledge the potential for fear of change. They are open to understanding that to reach the highest levels of productivity, these changes and uncertainties become their best chance to learn how to better address the existing and future challenges. And the most important lessons is that in doing so they have to learn to muster all their resources in order to endure what potentially is about to come: conflicts, tension, failures, etc.

 Questions

1. What are the challenges that you, your organization and colleagues are facing? Identify the most important challenges that your team has at the moment. Make a quick list of the things you have on your mind: competition, attracting great talent, retaining people, etc.
2. What are the resources you have available to respond to those challenges? Make a list of the resources that you have available at the moment, those that you could have access that could be accessed in times of difficulties.
3. Pick one of the most important challenges, and define a strategy to tackle it, using the resources available, and the potential ones (even if they are currently unavailable)
4. How are you yourself getting better prepared to endure challenges? What are you learning, reading or doing that builds your abilities to face uncertainty and complexities?

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 About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an HR Professional at the Inter-American Development Bank. He is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique researches and writes about leadership and HR and seeks to explore the overlaps of productivity and leadership in the business and non-profit world. Enrique is also a competitive ultrarunner.

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