A thought by John C. Maxwell from his
book, Leadershift (p. 63). HarperCollins Leadership. Kindle Edition. (Click
on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)
That is so important to learn in life.
John says, “Max De Pree, CEO of the
furniture giant Herman Miller, said, ‘The first responsibility of a leader is
to define reality.’ Let me define the reality of your leadership potential:
it’s uphill all the way. No one ever coasted to success. No successful person
has ever experienced accidental achievements. Nothing of genuine value is easy,
quick, and downhill. All the precious things in life require that we pay a
price. Contrary to the line in the old song, the best things in life are not
free. Or as someone told me once during a break in one of my speeches, ‘If it
doesn’t suck, it’s not worth doing.’”
John goes on, “There’s a lot of
difference between what we can’t do and what we won’t do. What we won’t
do will keep us from being successful a lot more than what we can’t
do. Poor choices, not lack of talent and ability, are the greatest hindrances
to most people’s success. If we want to succeed in leadership, we must do what
we don’t want to do, so we can do what we need to do. We must be willing to pay
the price. Early American missionary Adoniram Judson is rumored to have said, ‘There
is no success without sacrifice. If you succeed without sacrifice it is because
someone has suffered before you. If you sacrifice without success it is because
someone will succeed after.’
John later shares, “As I prepare to
lead, I think of hope and hard. These words help me personally to handle the very
different expectations needed for leadership. Hope empowers me to
believe that I can make the climb. It fuels me with energy to continue when I
get tired. And it enables me to speak hope into the lives of the people who are
journeying with me. I cannot give hope to others if I do not possess it myself.
It must come from a place of authenticity because you can’t fake hope. As you
encourage yourself, your people feel that encouragement too. As you encourage
them, you also become encouraged. It creates a positive cycle that keeps
everyone moving forward.
“While I love the encouragement of hope,
I also value the level-setting word hard. It balances my expectations and prevents me from
being naively optimistic. I remind myself that the leadership journey is often
difficult. Much of success lies in possessing right expectations.”
So let's lead with hope understanding that it will be hard. Let's possess right expectations, Ok?
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