The mark of a good leader is learning and growing, writes Dorie Clark, executive education professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Our concept of leadership is fundamentally flawed, argues author and organisational consultant Steven Snyder.
“There is myth…that it’s possible to be a perfect leader. We compare ourselves against an impossible standard, and when we fall short, we conclude that there is something wrong with us.”
The truth, as he discovered in the course of researching his book Leadership and the Art of Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow Through Challenge and Adversity, is that “every leader faces intense difficulties at some point in their career.”
The mark of a good leader isn’t avoiding trying times; that’s simply not realistic. Instead, “what differentiated extraordinary leaders was how they learned and grew from their ordeal,” he concluded.
Snyder cites as one example Pentair CEO Randy Hogan, who “learned that one of his key lieutenants had acted unethically. Even worse, he discovered that many within the company were aware of the unethical conduct and believed that Hogan had actually sanctioned it.
Hogan was crushed. Of course he fired the individual. But he went further, apologising to his employees, telling them he would rather lose in the ‘right’ way, than win in the ‘wrong’ way. ‘Winning right’ became a company mantra, allowing Hogan to break down old impediments to growth. During Hogan’s tenure, the company has significantly outperformed the S&P index.”
For one thing, says Snyder, “our culture tends to cast struggle in a negative light — a sign of weakness or incompetence. Thus, we are reluctant to talk openly about it, or even acknowledge it is going on.
This taboo tends to be exacerbated in organisational settings, where there is an incessant drive for good news, and talking about difficulties is frowned upon.” Since we don’t hear about other leaders’ problems, we assume (erroneously) that they don’t have any.
For leaders who are willing to dive deep and embrace the art of struggle it all starts with adopting a growth mindset, according to Snyder; the belief that our abilities are not fixed and innate, but rather acquired over time.
“Individuals in a growth mindset are poised for learning and growth because they see their challenges not as a measure of who they are today, but instead as an opportunity for future learning and growth,” he explains. ‘…In the immortal words of my friend and former Microsoft CFO, Frank Gaudette, ‘I reserve the right to wake up smarter every day.’”
A growth mindset allows leaders to develop what Snyder calls “adaptive energy”. This, in turn, enables us to harness the resilience to pick ourselves up when we fall down, and the agility to learn and discover new things.