We hear a lot about leadership in terms of the knowledge or skills we need to become more competent, most of which can be developed with training or coaching. However, one big part of becoming a successful leader is very difficult to develop: that’s the need for a leader to persevere, especially in the face of obstacles, large and small. Perseverance can be the key to leadership success, especially when things do not go quite as anticipated (consequently we need to focus more on this aspect of leadership).
What do we mean when we talk about perseverance?
Perseverance is a steady persistence in a chosen course of action in spite of difficulties, obstacles or discouragement from one or more people.
What this means for a leader is that he or she does not easily or quickly give in when confronted with an obstacle or when faced with something unexpected that threatens a push towards an ultimate goal. This is not just about being a good decision-maker around so-called ‘hard’ issues like finding more people or resources. It includes ‘softer’ issues such as dealing with low team morale or a poorly motivated individual, for example.
Any leader who is faced with unexpected difficulties, obstacles or situations, which threaten to prevent them or their team from reaching their goals, will need to demonstrate a range of skills to deal with the situation. It will also require perseverance to get to a better place. A really good leader will examine the underlying causes of the difficulty to identify potential solutions and set about implementing methods to allow themselves or their team to persevere through the obstacle. If a leader does not have the ability to persevere when confronted with difficulties, the team’s chances of accomplishing its goals are much diminished.
So what can we do to build leadership skills in the area of perseverance? According to leadership writer John Maxwell, we should focus on eliminating the following five inhibitors to success:
1. Adopting an attitude that it’s OK to give up
Clearly, giving up or taking the less complex path is the easy thing to do in many situations (and is a natural human reaction in many cases). However, we must fight this urge and start to practise not giving up or learn to take the difficult and ultimately the more profitable path. This takes focus and practice but the more a leader does this the more the perseverance “muscle” strengthens.
2. Accepting the belief that ‘life should be easy’
It’s common to expect that life should “roll along” easily and not present us with obstacles most of the time. However, we all know that these expectations are not realistic. It is therefore better to mentally plan for or expect obstacles and even think about what they may be. Then we can better deal with them when they do occur and be pleasantly surprised when they don’t.
3. Fostering the belief that success is ‘a destination’
Success is often described in future terms and as a specific destination. For example, we may say: ‘This individual or team will be successful when it has reached this place. However, individuals or teams may not be successful when they reach this goal and success may rest on many other more complex factors. What this means in practice is that the path to ‘relative success’ is a journey not a destination, and the best we can do is to persevere towards a milestone and then recalibrate. We can then press on to the next milestone. We can also celebrate smaller ‘wins’ along the way.
4. Displaying low personal resiliency
When leaders have low personal resilience they experience high levels of frustration and disappointment when setbacks occur. This is a poor role model for team members. Leaders therefore cannot allow discouraging obstacles to visibly shake them and must instead try to ‘thicken’ their resiliency muscle. This is not easy and may need a “fake it till you make it” approach at first. Once again, practice helps builds this considerably over time.
5. Allowing a lack of ‘vision’ to continue
A personal vision of what the future can look like not only inspires team members (if well crafted of course), but can help people ‘push through’ when obstacles or setbacks occur. In other words, a strong long-term vision helps leaders and their team to maintain a ‘bigger-picture’ perspective and thereby see a setback as smaller and easier to deal with in the wider context.
In summary then, much of the above is fundamentally about an attitude shift in which leaders take the time to think through which of the above is most holding back their ability to persevere.
Dr. Jon Warner is a prolific author, management consultant and executive coach with over 25 years experience. He has an MBA and a PhD in Organizational Psychology. Jon can be reached at OptimalJon@gmail.com
Colin is the Director of ResourceZone International. He has 30 years of ministry experience as a pastor, college lecturer and consultant/coach to consultants, denominational leaders and local church pastors. He can be reached at info@resourcezoneinternational.com
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