Yes. Now what?

I figured I'd start from the beginning...since most of what I'll talk about here will eventually be non-linear (you prefer out-of-order?)

For many, leadership has an outline:

I. Get educated.

A. go to school.

1. take classes.

2. graduate.

3. get a job.

4. become CEO.

5. quit and paint still-life.

For the rest of us, leadership finds its way to us, in a more natural free-flowing form; like a wave we catch while surfing, or a perfect line while snowboarding. No, not skiing, I'm not even sure what you people are doing...

A few days ago I saw an interview with Harrison Ford and he was telling a story where a casting director from Columbia Pictures asked him if he could ride a horse: "Yes sir" and if he could speak Spanish: "Yes sir". He boasted that he could do neither...and it reminded me of how many people find themselves in a similar position in their careers and how those situations are often handled.

Of course, we're not actors. Well, not in the professional sense. But we're acting when we say we can do something and then scramble to learn that task as quickly as possible, in order to make ourselves valuable to the situation.

The end result is hoping that value is seen by the one judging our actions/accomplishments: supervisor/boss, or potentially someone else (another department?) who just sees our hustle and decides they like us for that quality.

Leadership sees its roots here.

Now, I'm not saying you lie about everything and make it work, but in certain situations, you have the capacity and more importantly, the opportunity to see what you're capable of accomplishing.

This is an example of 'running before you learn to walk', and getting lucky. You know what the leader does next? The leader recognizes it was luck. The leader recognizes that they weren't properly prepared, and while it worked out well for them, they don't want to run through their professional days that way.

The leader then seeks out practicing to perfection. While perfection is rarely achieved, it should always be a goal.

The expert mountain climber, Alex Honnold, of FREE SOLO fame, talked about his preparation for climbing "El Capitan" and how a previous climb, which he successfully navigated, just didn't meet his expectations: “I was disappointed in my performance because I knew that I had gotten away with something,” he says. “I didn’t want to be a lucky climber. I wanted to be a great climber.”

I ran a 50 mile race in the mountains of Vermont. It took me 12 hours and I climbed over 8600 feet of elevation that day. Before that day, I had never done that before. I had trained, but never for 50 miles at one time. But, I had run multiple long distance races before that and was able to be better prepared for this race.

The leader recognizes this phenomenon. Some of your very first steps in leadership are recognizing what you do well and what you do not do well. In order to effectively lead you should always attempt and fail at something, and not just say "I can't"

Better to have the experience of failing and knowing that some things are not your best attributes and then when you have the ability or place, hire people who can do those things better than you can.

For everything else. Get good at it. Do all the work. Put in the practice. Want the responsibility and relish both the wins, and the losses. They are both teaching us to lead.

Get a task.

Say you can do it.

Tell yourself failure is not an option.

Be better prepared through training next time.

You're a better person at the end of the day than you were the day before.

That's something.