Leadership is a little bit like chess... It's complicated.

A few years back, my oldest son Jake asked me: "Dad, have you ever played chess before?" My response was, "Sure Jake... I used to play some chess back in the day..." This conversation has resulted in a healthy competition between Jake and myself as distance has separated us. Over the last couple of years, we have connected over hundreds of games on Chess.com and it has been a great way to stay connected.

Now, I will take a moment to brag about Jake... in my eyes - he is brilliant. He is a High School Science teacher and he amazes me on his ability to grasp scientific theories and concepts. As a matter of fact... during Jake's senior year of college, he was taking an online Genetics course and procrastinated starting the course until two weeks before he was supposed to graduate. Jake proceeded to complete an ENTIRE semester (16 week) Genetics course in two weeks and earn a "B+". This feat was nothing short of amazing in my book... cool under pressure and also an indication of his brilliance. (I might suggest that waiting until two weeks before you graduate to begin a Genetics course is not particularly smart... but if anyone could pull it off... Jake would be your guy.)

So after that story, hopefully I have established the credibility of Jake's brilliance...

Now. Back to Chess...

Over the past 2 years, I have recorded 72 wins, 2 ties, and 5 losses against my "brilliant boy." As I have "whooped up" on the young chap... his response has been: "Dad... what in the world? You said you used to play some chess back in the day... you're really good."

Question: If a person beats a brilliant person in chess - over and over and over again - does this make that person brilliant as well? (Asking for a friend.) ??

Anyway... enough with the stories...

I love chess... it is a game of strategy and anticipation - and it's complicated. The challenge of trying to anticipate what your opponent will throw at you is nothing short of... brain racking.

As I was walking to work this morning, I was thinking about the game of chess... I was contemplating about the many correlations that can be made between chess and leadership. Now if you have never played chess before, here are just a handful of the factors that you need to consider as you attempt to succeed at chess:

• Do I have a solid handle on the situation?
• Am I controlling the middle of the board?
• Am I set up for success?
• Are all of my pieces protected?
• Is it okay to sacrifice a piece at this point in the game to gain an advantage of winning the game?

As it is with chess, leadership also requires the skills of strategizing and anticipating what challenges might cross our paths and to prepare for these uncertainties. In chess and leadership alike - it is important to be forward thinking... sometimes - attempting to plan three moves ahead of your current move.

I am no expert, but I love the game. There are books, upon books, regarding the theories of winning at chess. The approaches to winning at chess are seemingly endless. (And just when you think you have a solid handle on the game, a grand master like Magnus Carlsen comes up with a new opening.) Likewise, there are books, upon books, regarding succeeding in leadership.

In chess, similarly as in my experiences with leading people, I make mistakes... when I make a mistake on the chess board, depending on the size of the mistake, I have a decision to make: do I concede victory by resigning - or... do I persevere and play on... hoping that I can overcome the monumental blunder of hanging my Queen? (Big mistake for all you non-chess players.) In leadership... sometimes our mistakes are small... but sometimes we make Big mistakes; regardless, perseverance is always a must.

So I guess the question that I pose to you is... what do you do when leadership gets complicated? Do you throw in the towel and resign or do you stay the course and play on...?

Something to think about...

In my opinion, the similarities between chess and leadership are sort of like two sides of the same coin... You are never going to have all the answers, you are going to make mistakes, you are going to have to formulate a new plan - when things don't go exactly how you had anticipated, you might even have to endure some "challenging situations." There will be some successes, as well as setbacks and failures... but in the end... although leadership can be complicated - our pursuit of excellence in leadership will always be worth the effort. With this dedication to the pursuit of excellence - our leadership skills will improve little by little.

- Your chess game may even improve a bit as well.

Case in point?

Jake beat me 3 times last night - He is definitely getting better. ??

Note: If my articles resonate, feel free to share with your network. If my article has, serendipitously, crossed your feed - and you like what you see; feel free to follow me. There are surely more articles to come... (Comments are always welcome too.)

** If you are a chess player... my username on chess.com is coolbeard99 - feel free to challenge me. ??