WHICH WAY ARE YOU RUNNING?
I recently had the privilege of sharing the message of Champions 101 with a group of high-level athletic leaders. The message centered around moving “from survival to significance,” and what it takes for each of us to most effectively leverage our influence, so we can most effectively make a difference in the lives of those we lead.
I don’t know the details of where it is you're working to win or who else is a part of your experience, but I am confident that if you’re here reading along today, then you are a leader in one capacity or another. Sometimes we define leadership based on the title we’ve been given or the position of authority we possess, but the truth is that leadership is a lot less about a title or a position, and a lot more about a desire to positively impact the people who are a part of our winning pursuit. If you recognize that responsibility - and that opportunity - to make a difference? Then you are a leader.
You could be a leader at work or at home, on your team or in your school. Where each of us have been called to embrace that leadership role might be different, but why we've chosen to accept that responsibility is the same. We do it because we recognize that if we want to win in any important area of life, what we do and how we do it has an impact on the performance of the people around us, for better or for worse. If we do it right, we help make everyone on our team - including ourselves - more worthy of the success we say we’re after.
While that sounds like fulfilling work - and it is, of course - the truth is that leadership can be exhausting. It can be messy and complicated. Uncomfortable and inconvenient. Even though we know it’s important, it’s not that hard to slowly and gradually start resenting those responsibilities, and even avoiding that important leadership work we know our future success requires us to do. It’s not that hard to convince ourselves to just forget everyone else and worry about ourselves - what we want, what we think we deserve, and what we feel like we are entitled to. It’s not that hard to focus more on the burden of leadership than on the benefits. Maybe, here today, you can relate.
Ultimately, then, each of us has to decide for ourselves how we’ll choose to approach the challenges that come with being a leader. When you boil it down, it really comes down to a simple decision. In leadership, survival is defined by our decision to run away from people and problems. Significance is defined by our decision to run toward them. Stop for a minute and consider the people who’ve played a particularly important role in your life. Who are the leaders who’ve positively impacted you, who’ve elevated your performance, and who’ve helped make you the person winning required you to be? I bet, as you look back on your experience together, you see evidence of their commitment - not to avoiding you and the challenges that were a part of your experience, but to embracing them. I’d bet that working with you was, at some point, probably messy and complicated. Uncomfortable and inconvenient. But instead of running away, those important people chose to step forward. Today might be a good day to reach out and express your appreciation for the difficult decision they chose to make on your behalf.
Today is also a good day to recognize the responsibility - and the opportunity - you’ve been given to play that important role in the lives of those you’re working alongside. There are undoubtedly both people and problems today that are a part of your winning pursuit. So the question is simple: which way are you running? Are you running towards those people and those problems, or are you running away from them? And which option validates that you are worthy of the winning outcome you say you’re after, and that you are a leader worth following? Are you just trying to survive, or have you chosen to embrace the messy and complicated, uncomfortable and inconvenient reality of high level leadership, and in doing so committed today to something more significant?
