The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
—Anne Frank
Leadership involves far more than garnering a following. It isn’t merely getting people to do as you please. Leadership, at its best, is the ability to inspire others to move toward personal maturity so that they may make a positive wake in the world. Leadership is the ability to impart the courage necessary to deal with life honestly and the fortitude to grow beyond limitations. Good leaders force us to face ourselves, believe in ourselves, and, when necessary, change ourselves.
Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.”1 The challenge is that many people aren’t capable of facing life honestly. Pretense, posturing, and self-protection obscure the path toward growth. As long as someone is trying to promote themselves as being flaw-free, there is little room for growth. Of course, few would willingly acknowledge they are spinning their image in such a way, but their actions defy their false humility. A person who acts defensively and deflects responsibility is trying to mask and cover.
The Four Steps of Growth
It has often been said that growth begins with self-awareness. The ability to either honestly self-assess or have the openness to seriously consider the assessment of another is the beginning of self-knowledge. But growth requires more than simply knowing your strengths, weaknesses, and what you need to work on.
Growth, to be complete, is a four-step process. Good leaders know this and provide the resources necessary for those they lead to experience each step. Let me innumerate these four steps, as set forth by Dr. Robert Hartman, the modern father of axiology.2
1. Know Yourself
It may seem obvious that in order to grow, you need to know yourself. You need to know what makes you tick. You need to be aware of the people and circumstances that energize you and those that drain you. You need to know how to leverage your strengths and mitigate your weaknesses. You certainly benefit from understanding your emotional constitution—comprehending what inspires you to perform at your peak and when you are vulnerable. Based on these statements, you might assume people have a reasonable grasp on the motivational forces that compel them to take the actions they do. You may also assume others have the emotional intelligence to harness and maximize their emotional fluctuations. Both assumptions would be grossly mistaken.
I would venture to say that most people live unexamined lives. Most spend little time in self-reflection or introspection. They do not ask themselves the hard questions regarding the motivations behind their behavior or wrestle long enough with their personal demons to drag them into the daylight. Personal growth is sacrificed on the altar of rationalization. A spirit of defensiveness often deludes developmental fodder. As long as life is working, most never stop to address their hypocrisy. So they limp along, partially paralyzed, leaning on the crutch of self-justification.
José Emilio Pacheco, the great Mexican poet, writes, “We are all hypocrites. We cannot see ourselves or judge ourselves the way we see and judge others.”3 We all have blind spots that prevent us from seeing ourselves objectively. That is why we need to be involved in healthy relationships with people who know us well and are bold enough to provide insights. An insight is an understanding that sheds light or helps solve a problem. An insight may also reveal the source of emotional difficulty or provide a glimpse into the motivational forces behind someone’s actions, thoughts, or behavior. Insights lead to self-knowledge.
Without honest feedback from others, many will simply continue to live in a self-created delusion, unaware of the negative ways in which they are impacting those around them. While profiles and assessments can provide helpful insights, nothing is as beneficial as real-time feedback from those who are closest to you. The key to gleaning transformative insight that leads to personal maturity is one’s openness to receiving the feedback offered.
There is a proverb that says, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend who corrects out of love and concern, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful because they serve his hidden agenda.” To have a friend who is so vested in your growth that they would risk the relationship to bring something to your attention is rare. Those who have a relationship of that depth, with even a few people, are truly fortunate. This type of friend truly has your best interest at heart and, at the same time, has your back. They are willing to tell it as they see it when it comes to your character development. But, as I said, this kind of deep friendship is a rare gift. More often than not, you must invite this kind of candid, critical feedback.
The question is, Who in your life has the code to your garage? Who knows where all your emotional junk is neatly stowed away? Who do you allow to rummage around in your trash? Who are you open, authentic, and vulnerable with? Who do you give permission to call your bluff when you are full of yourself? Many people go an entire lifetime without having that type of relationship with anyone. But those who do are among the most self-aware people I know.
If you truly want to experience an exercise in self-knowledge, then work hard to cultivate a few high-trust, totally transparent relationships. Give each of those individuals carte blanche to be completely candid with you when they see you acting in ways that may be harmful to yourself and others. Give them free rein to address the issues without invitation. At first you may have to ask them to give you the last 10 percent, the down-and-dirty feedback that is sometimes hard to deliver. Ask them not to hold back. Invite them to be on your Personal Development Board of Trustees. Trustees are those entrusted with the responsibility to supervise the affairs of an organization. Or call them your coaches, counselors, mentors, or BFFs. The point is that you meet with them regularly and reveal the real you in an effort to seek the insight necessary to lead you to growth and maturity.
Remember, relational maturity is marked by how well you relate to others. And the only way you will truly be able to assess how well you are doing is to see yourself the way others do. You have to seek objective outside input to gain the insight necessary to grow up.
2. Choose Yourself
Choosing one’s self may sound like a strange concept. But let me unpack the idea. All of us have people in our lives whom we admire and respect. We may even attempt to emulate them. That is a good thing. However, for many this can easily morph into envy and covetousness. When this happens, a person may feel discontent when they compare their own life to someone else’s advantages, successes, possessions, and relationships.
The truth is that many people have an inordinate infatuation with the lives of others, particularly celebrities and athletes. That’s why tabloids are so abundant at the grocery store checkout lanes. Print media and reality shows play off this intrigue about the experiences of others. Social media allows us to track the lives of those with whom we have a friendship or a fascination. And if we are not careful, we can find ourselves wasting time wishing we were in their situations rather than focusing on making our own situation better. You’ve probably been on a social media site and found yourself thinking, Wow, that’s nice! I wish I could do that, or have that, or experience that.
Living life vicariously through others is unfulfilling. It will leave you feeling hollow and discontent. Rather than wasting time wishing you were in someone else’s shoes, why not cobble a better pair for yourself? Don’t long for the life of another. Instead, choose to spend your time and energy to build a better you. As I have told all of my four children, “Choose to be you—everyone else is taken. Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a knock-off of someone else. Spend your time and energy building a better you.”
Be inspired by the example of others. But, more importantly, strive to be an example to others that will inspire them to greatness. Choose to invest in yourself.
3. Create Yourself
Once you have chosen yourself, you have to set about the task of creating yourself. Creating yourself means constantly seeking to improve. An attitude of growth is one that says, “Today, I’m better than I was yesterday. But I’m only half as good today as I’ll be tomorrow!” Every day is a fresh opportunity to improve. Constantly seek to better your best.
Those with a growth mind-set pursue relationships and seek resources that will enable them to advance toward maturity. They give themselves and others the grace not to be tied to the past and the encouragement to construct a brighter future. Creating one’s self is a matter of making a conscious effort to strengthen one’s character. This kind of commitment requires one to make a resolution—a wholehearted determination not to settle for anything less than one’s best. It is not an attempt to gain perfection, for that’s impossible. To posture growth as the pursuit of perfection will only lead to pride and pretense, since perfection is unattainable. Rather, growth is a constant striving toward improvement. This requires both discipline and determination.
Great players practice until they get it right. But champions practice until they can’t get it wrong. That is the kind of commitment necessary for the construction of character. It is the demonstration of discipline to repeatedly perform at such a high level that constant improvement becomes second nature.
The creation of character also involves being solution-oriented. Those with character worth cultivating are forward-facing problem-solvers. They do not ruminate on the past. They celebrate victories and learn from failures but never get stuck in a previous era. They may examine the past for insights but never for the purpose of indicting others. They then apply the insights they glean to move toward finding a solution to a problem or the resolution of a conflict so they can pursue a higher path. That path is one that leads to constant improvement.
4. Give Yourself
Personal growth is not complete until one has positively changed the lives of others. As we learned earlier, self-actualization is not the pinnacle of the pyramid. Self-transcendence, according to Maslow’s later writings, should take the top tier on the hierarchy of needs. Self-transcendence means moving beyond simply reaching one’s full potential to creating value for others. This value may come in the form of inspiring, coaching, or giving to others through acts of kindness and generosity. It’s giving back—and paying it forward. It’s investing heavily in the lives of others. It’s leaving a positive wake in the world.
Healthy people want to be part of something that transcends themselves. They want to do good for others. They want to leave a legacy. Life, to be meaningful, must be about something more than breathing our share of oxygen and consuming the planet’s resources for our own pleasure. Life, at its best, means that the world is left a better place because of our presence. Life is not about having and hoarding. Life, to be relationally rich, means impacting others in a way that somehow makes their story just a little bit better. It is about enriching life through healthy relationships.
Viktor Frankl is a famous Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived four Nazi concentration camps and later went on to write Man’s Search for Meaning. In that work, the founder of logotherapy expresses the belief that human nature is motivated by the search for a life purpose. That purpose can be found in love and a meaningful existence. He writes, “As to the causation of meaninglessness, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying vein, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.”4 For Frankl, meaning was found in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage (finding meaning in suffering). Logotherapy, then, is about curing the soul by leading it to find meaning in life.5
Frankl explains his understanding of how self-actualization and self-transcendence were intertwined when he writes,
By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic “the self-transcendence of human existence.” It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of transcendence.6
Frankl was fond of saying, “The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.”7
The lesson for leaders here is that if you want people to be energized by their work, then you must help them connect their personal passion and contributions to corporate objectives. If team members do not see how their work connects directly to the overall objectives of the organization, then they can easily become frustrated and begin to feel that their work is meaningless.
Good leaders tap into this innate desire for meaningful work and deeper interpersonal connection and help those under their tutelage connect personal passion with corporate purpose to find fulfillment in their jobs. Healthy people want to make a significant contribution to a worthy cause, whether it’s a professional or philanthropic endeavor. They want to know that what they are doing is making a positive difference in the world. They want to be part of something larger than themselves and to leave a legacy of good.
Bringing It Together
Leaders who understand these four steps in the growth process can assist their team members in assessing both where they are and how to advance toward maturity. When we help people grow personally, it pays rich dividends professionally. When we help people grow to be better spouses, parents, coaches, and community leaders, they also become better team members. Leadership is about wanting the best for our people in every aspect of life. And when we have strong team members, they can effectively create an environment of collaboration, where everyone has the opportunity to leverage their passions and strengths to solve problems, elevating both engagement and productivity.
The key to building a highly functioning team is to focus on the individual growth of each team member. Maturity is the antidote for a dysfunctional team. The more leaders invest in helping their team members grow, the greater the team’s synergy. Leaders do not merely garner followers. Leaders engage others in the growth process. And as others grow, they will be inclined to follow those who are committed to their personal development. Leaders must make a resolution to invest heavily in the growth and development of their team members. At the same time, they must be committed to work through interpersonal conflict until there is resolution. Meeting corporate objectives and managing metrics are not enough to engender loyalty and discretionary effort. People’s passions are ignited when they are deeply connected relationally, find meaning and purpose in their work, and are engaged in a personal growth process, which gives them a sense of self-mastery.
››GAINING TRACTION: Questions for Consideration & Application