So Last Week Happened...

I am here to talk to the business owners and leaders in this country. If at any point you went home and were proud of what was going on in this country last week, I am probably not the consultant to help your business and you need not read the rest of this post. Both sides of the issue came across as hypocritical and, quite frankly, disgraceful. Even in the midst of all of the crazy, I was able to take 2 key lessons away from last week. This isn't a political post and I am not here to take a side; these 2 key lessons are for all who proclaim leadership.

The first lesson I gleaned - all leaders need to understand that the farther you are away from the action, the more consistent and direct your communication needs to be. Some of you talk to your employees directly on a daily basis but as you scale and grow you wont be able to keep that up. The more levels that are in between you and your employees, the more direct you have to be. I am not calling anyone out, but on more than one occasion there should have been instances in which our leaders asked people to stand down directly. Though there were no actual directions pushing people to riot, it was certainly unclear to The Mob Mentality what leadership meant by minimal comments like, "this should be exciting.”

You might be in the crowd who’s opinion says that that comment didn’t incite any rioting. If so, hear me out! Yes, in that statement there was no direct order to riot. However, as a leader that far removed from the crowd, ambiguous communication can never produce something peaceful. Consequently, peoples’ lives are now changed forever and things have been done that cant be undone.

The first business lesson we can glean from all of this mess is as follows: the farther removed a leader is from the people with whom they are trying to communicate, the more direct and clear communication has to be.

The second business lesson that can be learned from what we saw last week is the importance of failing with dignity. As an avid MMA fan and supporter of competitive martial arts in general, it always stands that, after all the trash talk and back-and-forth, someone at the end of the match will have their hand raised and the other person will be declared defeated. There have only been a few competitors in history that have never lost and even some of the best fighters have been caught on the chin. When that happens? You let the other person win and let the ref raise their hand.

In business there are times you are going to fail. In those times, leaders need to learn to fail with dignity. Not only that, leaders need to teach their teams what it is to lose with dignity. How are you or your team ever going to be able to learn this all-important skill of losing gracefully if you create a different narrative than what truthfully happened? Leaders need to learn from the failure. Diagnose what exactly what happened and create a plan that will get you back on track. Don’t go around spreading disinformation or creating stories that keep accountability at bay. It might be hard to hear, but there are times when you as a leader might have failed to perform (that’s hard to hear, I know). What kind of leader would you be, though, if instead of leading by example through failures, you instead tried to come up with excuses that cover your failures? I’ll tell you what kind. The cowardly kind.

Growing up on the wrestling mat, whenever we lost the ref would raise our opponent’s hand while you simply had to stand there in defeat. You would then shake the opponent’s hand as well as the opponent’s coach’s hand in a show of dignified loss. Lastly you would shake your own coach’s hand, accept defeat, and commit to getting better.

The second big lesson from last week’s debacle is this: it is vital to learn to lose with grace. Not only that, lead your teams and employees through such circumstances so that they also learn what it means to lose well.

At this point, we don’t need masses of great leaders, we just need good leaders. People who wake up day in and day out thinking of the people they are going to serve. We don’t need a bunch of heroes out there trying to make it to super-stardom. We need silent warriors who wake up each day to set examples of civility and integrity. Warriors who are focused on making a difference in other peoples lives.

We have enough big egos to last us a lifetime so I’m asking all business owners to take the time to mentor your employees. Learn to communicate with them, teach them how to fail with dignity, and wake up everyday focused on making people proud to be part of this country again.

Enjoy,