One fact I know about you is that you will go through adversity.
You’re going to face some difficult times in your leadership journey.
It may be a personal difficulty or an organizational difficulty. It may even be an environmental difficulty like being in the middle of a recession while facing an economic crisis and public health pandemic.
You’re going to face adversity but what’s important for you to understand as a leader is how to deal with it. Don’t just go through it, grow through it.
It doesn’t happen in a day.
It happens every day.
We’ll never be the leader today that we were yesterday.
We’ll never be the leader tomorrow that we are today.
Leadership is a process.
Growth is an important part of every leader’s journey.
If you want to become an admired executive that makes the biggest difference in people’s lives, you have to grow through adversity.
You’ve got to find a way to learn from every difficult circumstance. You’ve got to invest mental energy to determine the lesson in the middle of the process.
I lost a younger brother in a terrorist attack when he was just 22 years old. He was killed by two Al Qaeda suicide bombers.
This happened 20 years ago but it was one of the greatest moments of adversity in my life.
I wanted to give up on everything, my friends and my family.
I thought there was no point in trying to do good, be a leader and save the world if I couldn’t even save my own family.
It was easy to let that adversity get the best of me. However, I didn’t give up. I did the complete opposite.
I started to grow up.
I found a way to invest in other people and help them when they were in the middle of adversity.
That’s embodying growth.
When other people are feeling pain, they need somebody to stand with them.
They need someone to help them navigate their path, be a listening ear and show them that there is light at the end of this tunnel.
If you want to be an admired executive, you’ve got to find a way to help others grow through adversity.
So the question is: As you face adversity as a leader, what are you going to do to make sure that YOU grow through it?
What are you going to do to make sure that YOU learn in the process?
To help your organization grow through adversity YOU need to stand up and show them.
As the great John Maxwell says in his book “Sometimes you win — Sometimes you learn “ is that sometimes you win, sometimes you learn, but what you never do is lose.
Adversity is not a loss.
It’s a learning opportunity.
How are you preparing yourself and planning to grow through adversity?
That’s the question that I want you to ponder on.
Think about what you can do to make sure that you’re growing when you face your difficult circumstances.
