The Mastery Fork in the Leadership Road: Part 2

You're not only not alone on this mastery road, keeping the focus on what you can control.  You're actually in good company.  Very good company.

This is what all the great athletes and teams do. Sure they want to raise cups and trophies and banners, but that is not what they focus on, because those are outcome they don’t fully control.

In his book, The Score Takes Care of Itself, NFL Head Coach Bill Walsh said, “I directed our focus less to the prize of victory than to the process of improving…obsessing, perhaps, about the quality of our execution and the content of our thinking; that is, our actions and attitude. I knew if I did that, winning would take care of itself.”

Sports performance coaches (who in my view Corporate Coaches could learn a lot from) also put the focus squarely on inputs, routines, and daily habits.

And not just the daily practice time on the ice, court or field...all the daily routines and not just the obvious physical ones like stretching, diet, sleep, and recovery.

Those are important, but so to are the mental and emotional ones, like your interactions with others, the way your react when something doesn't go your way, and your self-talk throughout the day.

Brijesh Patel is National Champion Quinnipiac's strength and conditioning coach.  He preaches the concept of a 24-hour athlete to the students.

"Just because you train and work out for two or three hours a day, that’s not the only time you’re an athlete,” Patel says.

"If you're staying up late scrolling or playing games, not eating the right foods, not speaking to yourself in a positive way...you’re not treating yourself with respect and that’s going to directly impact your ability to perform." 

Think this is just a jock thing?  Think again.

Even bottom-line business leaders are starting to make inputs and habits their focus.

In his 2009 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos highlighted Amazon's approach:

“Senior leaders that are new to Amazon are often surprised by how little time we spend discussing actual financial results or debating projected financial outputs.

To be clear, we take these financial outputs seriously, but we believe that focusing our energy on the controllable inputs to our business is the most effective way to maximize financial outputs over time.”

On the Mastery Road, their are a lot of things the coach and the leader each have to do.  It is, after all, a long road.

The coach’s role is to be a container...to see that unfolding leadership potential that their clients can’t yet see, to provide honest feedback about what is working and what is wanting, and to provide a steadfast belief in the clients and in what is becoming... until they can carry their own. 

Job #1 for leaders on the Mastery Road is, quite simply, to not quit. 

If Warren Buffet had retired at 65, he would have been considered an average investor.  But because of the magic of compounding, by staying in the game until his 90s, he became one of the greatest wealth creators of all time.

Don't quit.  Stay in the game long enough for the power of compounding to work it's magic.

Don't quit also means...don't quit on yourself.

Coach Mike Krzyzewski tells a story about the time that Shane Battier was playing for him.  They had a great team one year, but almost the whole team had graduated or went into the NBA draft.

"Shane was going to be the next great player and I needed him to be thinking big...about being the ACC player of the year, about winning another NCAA championship, etc.

Over the summer, I called Shane and asked him, "when you went to bed last night did you think about being ACC player of the year next year?"  Shane said, "No."

I hung up on him.

I called him the next day and ask him, "When you went to bed last night did you think about winning the national championship?"  Shane said, “No."

I hung up on him.

And the third day I called him, and Shane said, "Coach, don't hang up on me."  I said, "I will stop hanging up on you, when you stop hanging up on you. You should be a tree that is free to grow, not one in a box.  And you are putting yourself in a box...it’s a nice box; you're a really good player.  But you have a chance to be great."

Bringing these three articles full circle, the next time someone asks you who your favorite leader is, say, "I am." 

You are your favorite leader not because you are perfect or where you want to be yet, but because you are on the road to finding your voice and mastering your own approach to leading.  You have no intention to quit because you are genuinely curious to see what you can become.

Dennis Adsit, Ph.D. is an executive coach, organization consultant, and designer of The First 100 Days and Beyond, a consulting service that has helped hundreds of newly hired and promoted executives get great starts in challenging new jobs.