Do great leaders know they are great leaders when they are young?
Just a thought I had yesterday as I was on a walk with daisy. I wonder if they just feel like an ok leader or a bumbling brook of mistakes until someone tells them to write a book on leadership. Someday I want to write a book not about the things I did right. But all the things that I didn’t do right. I think there may be more value in that than in the things I have done right.
I read in Marcus Buckingham’s book, “The One Thing you Need to Know…” he says that great leaders know that success is not the opposite of failure. What a statement! Why are we then so afraid of failure? You have to fail in order to have great successes. It is a natural byproduct of doing something worth doing.
I have think that great leaders are born out of great failures. Here is why… first it weeds out the week. If you fail doing something and get back up to do it again that takes a lot of chutzpa (I have always wanted to use that word in a sentence). How many people never get back up? Or they just leave whatever they were working on and go work for someone else were it is “safe”. So it weeds out the weak.
Second if you get up and go forward you are stronger. You know that you can take more than you were just dealt. If you are stronger and less concern about the gravity of the mistake you just made or the failure you just bumbled in then how can you not take greater risk and with greater risk comes greater reward.
This brings me to my third thought… Risk! Name one great bible hero who didn’t risk? Balls out through it all on the table and take the giant leap into the unknown. It is “easier” with God on our side which is the essence of faith. So why isn’t faith a synonym with risk? Maybe easier isn’t the right word… but at least your not alone which is way more fun than being alone.
So I raise my coffee cups to all of us leaders who the jury is still out on whether we will be great…
One more thought… it is ok if you are not a leader. I don’t think we really feel that freedom to not be a leader but if your not your not. It has to do with gifts and calling not job description. I just happen to resonate with leaders and feel called to be one.
Lets God “fail forward” until someone says we can’t do it and then let’s go show them we can!
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