5 Leadership Fails that Erode Your Leadership Integrity: #2 Glorifying Grit.

I know I will catch some heat for this…but let’s be honest.We over-glorify grit.

Now, I’ll admit: Grit gets work done.

Grit is great when you have sales deadlines.

Grit is great when you are starting a business, and you MUST put in the time.

Grit is great for survival! Or when you are in crisis!

But do you want to always be practicing survival?

Do you always want to be in crisis mode?

Do you want your teams making important decisions being led by the emotions that go with crisis?

That paints a very different picture, doesn’t it?

When the research on grit first came out, it was an executive leader’s dream. It was a research-backed rationale for demanding extremely hard work and expecting their teams to withstand chaotic work environments.

Grit, they said, was the key to success.

But grit can also keep you from adapting.

Keep you from changing.

Keep you from growing.

Grit will help you deal with hardships…it won’t help you foresee them, or avoid them.

Grit and resilience are, no doubt, great attributes...

For crises situations.

But most of your work isn’t a crisis.

(If it is, you need to ask what you are doing to sustain the crisis.)

Crisis means you’ve lost control. That you are reactive.

Your work is more strategic than it is crisis.

It is more focused than it is desperate.

It is more intentional than it is grave.

If grit is reactive, adaptability is proactive.

Strategy, focus, and intention doesn’t call for grit.

It calls for collaboration, vision, and goal orientation.

It calls for proactive vision, forethought, and responsiveness to your environment.

It calls for making changes in advance, so your team can avoid the crisis ahead.

If you are driving on the road to a destination and run across road construction, grit helps you figure out how to get around it, over it, and through it.

Adaptability checked the GPS and knew where the road construction was in advance, so it changed your route before even saw the orange cones.Stop demanding grit…start honing adaptability.

Train your teams to think ahead.

To foresee outcomes.

To anticipate consequences.

Prepare your teams for flexibility over rigidity, and to value changing-course as a success rather than a failure.

Profound Leaders aren’t out there pushing their people to the limits. They are strategically getting the best out of their people.

Grit pushes their limits.

Adaptability gets them (and you) long term results.

Go. Be. Profound.

G