image of a coffee cupPatience is the most important attribute necessary for effective leadership that we rarely talk about.

6 Reasons Why Patience (at the right time) is an Effective Leader’s Best Choice:

1. Too much beating the drum for speed, speed, speed ensures that the drum just becomes background noise to everyone. People and teams like athletes and artists cycle through periods of great productivity and periods of recovery. Good leaders understand that recovery time is essential for speed in the next sprint, and they manage the pace and rhythm of their teams accordingly.

2. Developing people takes time, deliberate effort, and yes a great deal of patience. While you as the leader might see pure raw potential in a team member, people develop at their speed, not yours. Your encouragement is appreciated, but display impatience and you risk derailing and demoralizing the individual.

3. People process change at different rates of speed. Some are quick to dive into waters they don’t yet understand, however, many others prefer to process on and internalize the issues around change at their own pace. Fail to show patience with those who are in mid-process, and you risk losing them.

4. Sometimes, speed kills. Speed might feel right in the face of competitive pressure, however, poorly planned charges up hills in the face of competitor fire predictably result in disaster. Teach your team to rein in the adrenaline and think through their moves before charging blindly into unknown terrain.

5. Some organizational processes simply resist speed. Maddening as it is to those of us who like to jump through walls in pursuit of our objectives, big machines work at the pace of big machines. While not excusing poor and inefficient processes, it’s important for those who must work within the machine to apply finesse and show patience in circumstances where our gut instinct is to launch.

6. Our gut instincts are capable of misleading uswhen it comes to talent assessment. Many a newly appointed team leader has used gut instinct to assess and shift talent on a team, without the benefit of multiple exposures over time.  The rush to judgment can cost you some remarkable talent. Instead, take the time to listen, observe and process long enough to make the right call.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Most effective leaders I know are impatient by nature. They are excited about helping drive a team towards a destination and they often see the gap between today’s situation and tomorrow’s idealized state. They also understand that by displaying patience for all of the aforementioned reasons, they can help everyone get there faster.

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More Professional Development Reads from Art Petty:

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