Leadership is rarely about taking your company from a garage to a
£2-billion valuation in two years. It is rarely about riding a tsunami
of change, laying waste to your competitors in your wake. It is also
probably not about dragging your company along on the coattails of your
brilliance, no matter how brilliant you might be….
Leadership (for mere mortals) is nurturing your business, having a long-term plan, and manoeuvring all the pieces into place to make this happen, while reacting to the changing external circumstances. This does not happen overnight – and it often takes a lot longer than you would hope.
Being patient, when required, is crucial for any leader.
All businesses experience ups and downs, mostly linked to the cyclical nature of the business cycle. The best-laid plans can be spoilt overnight, and sometimes you will have to start all over again. The rollercoaster of hopes and disappointments is the reality for the modern business leader. Not everything that you touch will turn to gold, and not every plan will come to fruition. This is where patience comes in.
Sometimes the best plans take time to become reality. Just because they fail the first time doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a bad plan. The approach may need tweaking, it may not be the right time, different people may need to be involved, but plans should rarely be abandoned at the first sign of difficulties. As the saying goes “the going gets tough and the tough get going.”
The patient leader has experienced these feelings many times before. They are thirsty for success, and they want to move on to the next priority, but they understand that fine-tuning the machine is far more likely to bring success than breaking it up and starting again. Every new iteration of a solution is more likely to bring about it successful resolution. A leader with an attitude of “ok, never mind, let’s go again” is someone that people are going to want to work for.
Failure in business shouldn’t be seen as an absolute. Finishing close to the line is seen by too many as not counting for anything, but in reality, with a few tweaks here and there, next time you will cross the line with ease. If leaders create a culture of patient self-improvement, many of these failures will have every chance of becoming a success the next time around.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, famously took a while to perfect his invention: "I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work." Without patience, he would not have got far.
So, on those days when it seem that everything is against you, when your plans lie in tatters and your team has abandoned all hope, just remember that sometimes things simply take time. It might be infuriatingly frustrating, but sometimes waiting is the best option.
Leadership (for mere mortals) is nurturing your business, having a long-term plan, and manoeuvring all the pieces into place to make this happen, while reacting to the changing external circumstances. This does not happen overnight – and it often takes a lot longer than you would hope.
Being patient, when required, is crucial for any leader.
All businesses experience ups and downs, mostly linked to the cyclical nature of the business cycle. The best-laid plans can be spoilt overnight, and sometimes you will have to start all over again. The rollercoaster of hopes and disappointments is the reality for the modern business leader. Not everything that you touch will turn to gold, and not every plan will come to fruition. This is where patience comes in.
Sometimes the best plans take time to become reality. Just because they fail the first time doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a bad plan. The approach may need tweaking, it may not be the right time, different people may need to be involved, but plans should rarely be abandoned at the first sign of difficulties. As the saying goes “the going gets tough and the tough get going.”
The patient leader has experienced these feelings many times before. They are thirsty for success, and they want to move on to the next priority, but they understand that fine-tuning the machine is far more likely to bring success than breaking it up and starting again. Every new iteration of a solution is more likely to bring about it successful resolution. A leader with an attitude of “ok, never mind, let’s go again” is someone that people are going to want to work for.
Failure in business shouldn’t be seen as an absolute. Finishing close to the line is seen by too many as not counting for anything, but in reality, with a few tweaks here and there, next time you will cross the line with ease. If leaders create a culture of patient self-improvement, many of these failures will have every chance of becoming a success the next time around.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, famously took a while to perfect his invention: "I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work." Without patience, he would not have got far.
So, on those days when it seem that everything is against you, when your plans lie in tatters and your team has abandoned all hope, just remember that sometimes things simply take time. It might be infuriatingly frustrating, but sometimes waiting is the best option.
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