The Leader’s To-Do List, Circa Late 2009
- Continue to do more with less.
- Respond to on-going adversity and seemingly overwhelming odds with steely determination visible to all.
- Fire a few more good people. People that I hand picked. Hope that this is the last of that.
- Search for and celebrate signs of improvement.
- Search for opportunities to improve, renew and reinvent.
- Get everyone focused on improving, renewing and reinventing.
- Wonder whether this is the new normal?
- Remind myself not to feel sorry for myself. This is what I’m here for.
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Trust me, there’s nothing about the above list or this post that is meant to sound like whining, complaining or self-pity.
And yet, there is an undeniable dark reality here. These are tough times to lead. The times and tasks can sap the energy and spirit out of the strongest of us.
The times choose the leaders. It doesn’t work the other way.
If you’ve been around the block for a few decades as a leader, this To-Do list doesn’t feel as good as the one you had for most of the 90’s and the middle of this decade. However, the benefit of your experience is that you know that we’ll find our way through this fog of uncertainty and fear and doubt. It doesn’t matter that you don’t know the absolute path.
- You know that recovery and renewal are outcomes of a process of discovery.
- You know that the faster you get people focused on searching for answers instead of looking for monsters, the faster the process generates results.
- Younger leaders survive on the optimism of youth. Veteran leaders survive on wisdom born of time and experience.
The leaders in times of prosperity are rarely the leaders that poured the foundation of prosperity. They take the credit and that’s OK. Real leaders don’t thrive on credit.
History Provides Powerful Examples to Learn From:
The American revolution very likely should have failed. The first time. Perhaps the outcome was inevitable given size and distance, but we in America owe an unending debt to the unflagging spirits of a few that stood strong in the face of overwhelming odds and grossly insufficient resources. Franklin in my opinion was the designer…the architect of the nation. He provided the quiet leadership that allowed the right things to happen. But Washington was undeniably the soul and spirit that carried the hopes of the people and a rag tag band of farmers and merchants on his shoulders.
Lincoln. A lesser person might have capitulated and allowed two countries to form instead of sending tens of thousands to their deaths. Popular opinion almost always encourages compromise over more pain. Right was so much harder in this case than settling for an easier wrong. That formula generally holds true.
Normandy was the crowning moment of a generation. Freedom was secured inch by inch by a relative few that understood that the process required facing near-certain death.
History provides the grand examples of leadership and leaders as larger than life heroes. It also provides valuable context and instruction. In spite of their now mythical status, the reality is that none of Washington, Franklin, Lincoln and Roosevelt, Churchill or Eisenhower and his generals knew whether they would succeed, much less how to pull it off.
What they understood was that victory was an outcome of a process that took fear and uncertainty and distilled it into focus on smaller goals and actions to reach those goals. They learned from failures, changed approaches and learned some more, eventually getting it right.
So just when things seem overwhelming…when the numbers are heading in the wrong direction and when your team is looking to you for a sign of hope and for guidance, take solace in knowing that the times have selected you to lead.
It’s time to remember why you are here and get on with the process.
There’s a great point in here, Art. When we look back at the heroes of history or the history of business, things look nice and neat. We have a tendency to believe that, somehow, their time wasn’t as messy or uncertain as our own or that they had powers of prediction far more potent than ours. Reality is different.
When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he didn’t know how things would turn out. That’s why the line that’s attributed to him then is significant, “Let the dice fly high.” It’s a gamble, my friends. Let’s hope fortune is kind.
The best you can do is the best you can do. To quote Damon Runyon, “The race may not be to the swift, nor victory to the strong, but that’s the way you bet.”
Wally, you have a wonderful skill for extracting key points much more eloquently and concisely than I am able to make them in the first place!
You are right…the lens of history masks the reality that the great leaders dealt with the same complexities and the same level of ambiguity, and yet they found a way through the darkness.
Wonderful adds with the quotes!!
Thanks as always for sharing your wisdom. -Art
Thank you Art for this blog, as a young leader I find myself faced everyday with the fear that I don’t measure up to the leader before me, that I don’t have what it takes to lead…
I got three points from your blog that really struck me and knocked some sense into me- jump starts to my day and hopefully to being productve and productive:
1. Stop looking for someone to blame- look for resolution, be proactive, be creative. There are no monsters under my bed holding me back.
2. TRY! How in the heck will I know if I can do something or succeed at an idea unless I try. That is what truly made the leaders you mentioned. men that had the strength to try, where others turn and ran or gave up.
3. Remember your inner strength! Instead of focusing on my weaknesses, I need to focus on the inner leadership strengths that got in my position in the first place.
Thank you for a great jump start to my week- a week where I am going to have to defend my ability to lead during these times- and for myself I need to reconnect with what makes me the person to lead, because if I don’t know, how can I show it to others.
This is right on, Art! And at the same time, the things that made the leaders of the past great can still hold true. Today I blogged about a great man on the 36th anniversary of his passing and if we look at his guiding principles of course they express the times he lived in, but they are also in many ways timeless. The art of the leader is what to learn from the past and how to use it in the current context. I always leave your posts feeling the caffeine in my veins and energized to think the subject over. Thank you, Art!
Alicia, wow, thanks for sharing what you gained from the post. I gained a lot just from reading your comments!
Monica, thanks for sharing. I agree that there is much to be gained from past leaders, and I am glad that I leave you energized and thinking! Your comments do the same for me.
Best, Art
I really enjoyed this post Art. Your to-do list is honest, applicable, and realistic given the challenges we currently face. I have found the current, “do more with less,” challenges we face to be a true differentiator for leaders. Those that look out the front windshield, as opposed to the rear view mirror, are able to communicate hope in the future through their vision. Those that remain stuck staring at the rear view mirror simply crash. One key to leadership is to know when to glance at the rear view mirror to merely gain insight.
…”Washington, Franklin, Lincoln and Roosevelt, Churchill or Eisenhower and his generals knew whether they would succeed, much less how to pull it off.”
This statement was powerful to me. It is one thing to study the results of their leadership, but their success takes on a whole new meaning when you envision them in their struggles to succeed. I grew up in The Land of Lincoln, and so I think this quote is fitting. “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.” Abraham Lincoln
Garrick, well-said with the windshield metaphor! Thanks as well for catching the view that I was after…great leaders in the midst of their struggles. As much as we provide them mythical and all-knowing status, they were simple humans with fears, concerns, doubts and of course, remarkable tenacity. Love the quote!!! Thanks for adding your always thoughtful comments. -Art
Great job Art,
As leaders, we need to do what General Patton did, identify the roadblocks, shoot the jack ass, and throw it off the bridge to keep our teams on our flight plan to success.
Mark Allen Roberts
http://www.nosmokeandmirorrs.com
Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/09/23/92309-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx
Wally Bock
Art,
Great article, I was particularly touched by “What they understood was that victory was an outcome of a process that took fear and uncertainty and distilled it into focus on smaller goals and actions to reach those goals”. So important for a leader to keep the end goal in mind and then to break down the big goal into small goals that are achieved through perseverence and hardwork. Along the way comes a great deal of risk-taking, shortage of resources, budget cuts, and all the other challenges of managing day-to-day work. When employees are taking pay-cuts and jobs disappear around you, it is so difficult to inspire and promise the rest of us that victory and success is within sight and very much achievable. And once one battle is won, there is the next one to fight. As leaders, that’s what we work for and we need to remind and convince ourselves every morning when getting out of bed.
Thank you for your inspiring article.
Sudhir