Grace Under Fire

 

Leadership is not a title, and it is not only something reserved for your professional life. One thing that has greatly helped me over the years is finding what is the same rather than focusing on why situations are different.

There will always be differences and nuance with whatever you are dealing with, I challenge however, that there is more that is similar or relatable to something else than what is different.

True leadership is about how you react, how you handle the circumstances in front of you. True leadership is also how you carry it. For every decision, position or action that you see publically, there are two to four times more that most people never see.

Professionally or personally we all carry a lot, we are all going through something all the time. Being a leader means that you have to do more. It is your responsibility to still take care of your team, your peers, your friends, your family. You have to be a guiding light, a steady hand, a source of confidence and comfort.

The biggest tests come not when you win, but when you lose. It's easy to lead when things are going well and you are "winning". Leading when you lose is when you will see real leaders from those with title, position or status.

Here are areas that you will face in your journey:

• Working hard and not getting the deal
• Having the best solution and not getting the contract
• Being the best candidate and not getting the role
• Having to accept other people's decisions even though you wish they would have decided differently
• Accepting that you can make all the right moves and still lose

I have recently gotten back into my Stoic reading. It is wild how wisdom from centuries past can feel more relevant now than it was then. I suspect this is because people of those eras had much more time to think, they challenged their own ideas more and had much less access to distraction than we do today.

You may not have chosen the position you are in now, or how things turned out, but they are not yours to change. Focus your energy on accepting the fact that you cannot change it, focus on finding the good in your current reality, and as Ryan Holiday puts it, "The Obstacle is the Way".

Celebrating success is fun and you should ALWAYS celebrate your wins. The biggest lessons and the most growth you will have though will come from your losses. Taking a negative situation and making it positive, teasing out the good and incorporating that so that you have more in your toolbox the next time around.

Maybe something changes, maybe it won't, either way, you will be better tomorrow than you are today.

(Don't forget to also check out my writing on LinkedIn, as well as what I share on Instragram and Twitter [@millennial_john])