Up to this point in this book, we've made three bold assertions, all supported by research evidence. Everyone, including you, is born with the capacity to lead. Leaders have an enormous impact on the engagement and performance of their constituents. And, you are already leading, just not frequently enough.
Now let's do a reality check. Do you believe these statements? Do you believe deep down that you are capable of becoming a better leader tomorrow than you are today? Alternatively, do you believe that there's not a whole lot you can do to improve? Either you have it, or you don't? These are not trivial questions. They get to the heart of the matter. They get to the very belief that you have about yourself.
Underscoring this same point is an old Native American parable. It conveys the message that who you become is strongly influenced by the image you have of yourself. Those assumptions strongly influence the actions that you take. It goes like this:
One evening, an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”
The grandfather replied, “The one you feed.”
The Buddha echoed pretty much the same sentiment back in the fifth century BC: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think, we become.”1
Learning to lead has very similar roots. It all starts with what you think of yourself and the assumptions you feed.
Learning to lead is about discovering what you value, what inspires you, what challenges you, what gives you energy, and what encourages you. When you discover these things about yourself, you'll also know more about what it takes to lead those qualities out of others. The very best education—whether it's in school or the workplace—is never about thrusting information or skills into people. In the end that just won't work. The best education is about bringing out, sometimes even liberating, what is already there. It's about releasing the potential that exists inside the learner. It's about making choices about which wolf to feed.
Sure, every leader has to learn the fundamentals and the discipline, and there are periods during which you're trying out many things you know nothing about and you have no idea what will work and what won't. There are times when you copy others and absorb a lot of information from the outside. These are necessary stages in your development as a leader. The point is that you can't begin to do any of these things until you truly decide that inside of you is a person who can make a difference and provide leadership.
When we were in New Orleans a couple of years ago for the sixth annual “The Leadership Challenge Forum, ” we happened separately upon an art gallery. In the gallery, there was a Jim Tweedy print of a rather plump cat sitting on a stool at an artist's easel painting a self-portrait.2 With a brush grasped in one paw and the side of the canvas in another, the cat was looking into the mirror and seeing his reflection staring back at him. On the easel, however, was the painting not of a plump cat but of a very fierce tiger. We later discovered that we both bought copies because the print made us laugh aloud at the irony in the drawing.
Some who see this painting comment that the cat is delusional. He's just kidding himself. Clearly, the cat's just a cat and not a tiger. But others view this as an expression of inner potential. They know there's more there than meets the eye. What you see on the outside isn't necessarily what's on the inside. Looks, as the saying goes, can be deceiving.
Both interpretations are possible. What's important is how you see it. When you look in your own mirror, do you see a leader? Do you see someone who on the inside has the potential to become a leader—or be an even better one than you are today—or do you see someone not capable of leading or making any improvements? What do you believe about yourself? These are really important questions. What are your answers?
Jane Blake, a state government administrator, shifted her entire self-concept once she started believing that she could be a leader.3 She told us that she'd been working in state government for about 20 years, that she had two bachelor's degrees, and that she never wanted to appear more than what she was—“a mother, grandmother, and coal miner's daughter.” At the time, she was enrolled in a master's degree program in leadership, and she sometimes struggled with the coursework and felt intimidated by classmates who were military leaders, company supervisors, and government managers. However, Jane explained that reading about leadership in one of our books “opened my eyes that maybe someone like me does have the possibility of being a leader.” That's precisely the point. That's what can happen when you reflect on your life story up to this present moment and appreciate that you, too, have the possibility of being a leader—or, if you are already leading, that you can become an even better leader than you are today.
Over a couple of decades, Jane had created a narrative for her life. She'd told herself a story about who she was and what she was capable of becoming based on being a mother, grandmother, and coal miner's daughter. Like Jane, all people create a narrative about their lives based on their experiences, what others have told them, and what they read and hear in school, in the media, or over dinner with friends. These narratives help you make sense of your life. They help you explain what's happening and why you are where you are and who you are.
But sometimes they become what Michael Hyatt, publishing executive and author, describes as limiting beliefs. These beliefs, Michael says, are invisible barriers. They're not physical barriers that are out there, such as electric fences, but instead, they're barriers people erect in their minds that nonetheless stop them from going beyond the invisible limits. “It's just a way of thinking. We've been trained on it over and over again and it becomes a limiting belief, something that holds us back from having the kind of relationship we want, the kind of health we want, the kind of career we want, the kind of financial success we want.”4 As Jane learned from her own experience, it wasn't something “out there” that held her back. It was a limiting narrative that, once she realized it, she could change.
We heard something very similar from Dan Wong, product manager at computer software company [24]7. Upon reflecting on what he was learning from his and others' Personal-Best Leadership Experiences, Dan said, “You point out a very vital attribute of leaders that I was not aware of: Leaders believe in their abilities to make a difference. The very first step to become a better leader is to acknowledge that I can improve my leadership skills and remind myself that I can make a difference. All I need is a positive mindset to look for opportunities and a willingness to take initiative.”
Jane and Dan both understand that before you can learn to lead, you have to believe you can. This is no trivial matter. No one can make you into a leader. You have to do that all by yourself. Believing in your capabilities to execute on a task is vital in taking the first step to attempt it. If you don't believe you can lead, then you won't even try. As Adlai Stevenson, former governor of Illinois and the fifth U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, once humorously put it, “It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.”
If you don't believe in yourself and in your ideas, then it's difficult to imagine that anyone else would pay attention to you. Leadership has to start with you. Just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, you can't look for someone behind the curtain to solve your problems. The very first voice of doubt is often the one inside of you, and unless you believe in yourself and can deal with that self-doubt, it is unlikely that you'll speak out, stand up, or step forward.
Melissa Poe Hood, as a fourth grader in Nashville, Tennessee, became concerned about the environment, and decided to do something about it. She started a club in 1989 called Kids F.A.C.E. (Kids For A Clean Environment), which is today the world's largest youth environmental organization, with more than 300,000 individual members in 2,000 club chapters located in 15 countries. Looking back on that experience two decades later, Melissa noted that: “Change does not begin with someone else. Change begins in your own backyard, no matter your age or your size. I had no idea that one simple action could change my life so much. Most journeys start this way, with simple motivation and a choice to do something or not. You never know where one step will take you, and you never know where the next one will lead. The difference with being a leader is that you take the step; you take the journey. The greatest obstacle you will ever encounter is yourself.”
Just as Melissa realized, you have to believe in yourself. You have to trust yourself. You have to have confidence in yourself. You have to be convinced deep down that you have as much capacity to lead as anyone else you know. You won't always be right, but you'll become an active learner and more proficient in the process.
But it's not just what you tell yourself that can keep you from exercising leadership. All too often, what others tell you influences you to give up. In fact, one of the most adverse consequences of the talent myth is that, if interpreted rigidly, it inhibits people from attempting to become leaders. Told that leadership is limited to only a few with the special talent for leading, people can conclude that they can't learn it, and so they don't attempt it—or they give up once they find that it's not easy, or they blame it on the lack of talent. Don't let yourself become one of those people who doesn't try. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't lead.
In a series of classic experiments, professors Albert Bandura and Robert Wood documented that self-efficacy—defined as an individual's belief in his or her capacity to produce specific actions—affects people's performance.5 One group of managers was told that decision making was a skill developed through practice: The more one worked at it, the more capable one became. Another group of managers was told that decision making reflected their basic intellectual aptitude—the higher their underlying cognitive capacities, the better their decision-making ability. Working with a simulated organization, both groups of managers dealt with a series of production orders requiring various staffing decisions and establishing different performance targets.
Managers who believed that decision making was a skill that could be acquired set challenging goals for themselves—even in the face of difficult performance standards—used good problem-solving strategies, and fostered organizational productivity. Their counterparts, who didn't believe they had the necessary decision-making ability, lost confidence in themselves as they encountered difficulties. Over multiple trials, they lowered their aspirations for the organization, their problem solving deteriorated, and organizational productivity declined.6
Another important finding from these studies was that the managers who lost confidence in their own judgments dealt with this by finding fault with others. They were quite uncharitable about their employees, regarding them as not capable of being motivated and unworthy of much supervisory effort. If given the option, the managers reported that they would have fired many of these employees.
In another related experiment, one group of managers was told that organizations and people are easily changeable, and another group was told that “work habits of employees are not that easily changeable, even by good guidance. Small changes do not necessarily improve overall outcomes.” Those managers with the belief that they could influence organizational outcomes by their actions maintained a higher level of performance over time than those who felt they could do little to change things. The latter group lost faith in their capabilities, and as their aspirations declined so did organizational performance levels.7
These studies and many others demonstrate why it is essential that you don't let people tell you that you can't lead—or if they do, that you don't believe them. The subjects in these various studies were randomly assigned to the different groups. The difference in their performance was not because one group was inherently better than the other group at decision making. It was because they were told that they had the ability or they didn't. If you happen to fall in the unfortunate group who's told that you can't lead, there's a chance that you'll believe it, and then your performance, and the performance of your group, will decline. Moreover, you're also likely to pass those beliefs on to others.
Of course, everyone has limitations as well as strengths. And learning to lead isn't necessarily easy. In fact, it's hard work but definitely doable. What we are saying is that you shouldn't give in to your limitations or accept them as permanent. When you doubt yourself, confront this feeling, and then do something to acquire the skills needed to handle a similar encounter in the future. That's the essence of learning!
Your default belief needs to be that you can learn to lead. That's the primary belief that will enable you to become a better leader than you are right now.
The key message of this chapter is this: Believing that you can lead is absolutely essential to developing your leadership skills and abilities. It's this belief that provides you the commitment and sustained effort needed to become a better leader over time. No one can put leadership into you. You have to bring it out of yourself. That process begins when you believe that you can.
Ask experienced elite athletes what the difference is between the top performers and the average performers, and they're most likely to tell you that the difference is how athletes play the mental game. In leadership, as in sports, there's a mental side to the endeavor. You saw in your Personal-Best Leadership Experience that you've done it before. You can do it again . . . and again, and again. You have to trust that you can do that.
So here's what you need to do. Every morning as you prepare for your day, tell yourself, “Who I am, what I do, and how I do it make a difference.” And then ask yourself, “Today, what will I do that matters?” Whatever it is, make sure you tell that person in the mirror that you believe you can make a positive difference in the world. Go one step further: Write your answer to this question down, and have it with you on your mobile phone or at your desk as a reminder available throughout your day.