Battle Tested. Photos: Martin Scheoller
There is an article in a recent Fortune that I think you might find interesting:
It describes how a number of organizations are recruiting from the military because of the lessons military personnel are learning in combat are proving useful in business, especially in the area of leadership.
Let me point you in the direction of two paragraphs: Paragraph 1 highlights what they see as critical qualities of leadership. Paragraph 2 explains that mistakes are to be expected and the importance of accepting them.
This paragraph is, in my opinion, especially important. Why? In study of 35,000 people, IHHP found the item (research question) ‘freely admitting to making mistakes’ to be the most highly correlated with career advancement. In other words, those who (as judged by others) freely admit a mistake advance most quickly in their careers.
I think of it as ‘Playing Big’ versus ‘Playing Small’. When a mistake is made or a project goes awry or something doesn’t work out in a relationship, we each have a decision to make: do we own our contribution, willingly admit our part and play big or do we do everything in our power to play down the mistake, deflect or blame someone else and play small?
I think this decision to ‘approach what is difficult’ (what I call a micro decision of leadership) has immense impact on the important people around us. We are so worried about how we appear – something called ‘impression management’ – that we completely miss the power of admitting a mistake to everyone around us. Do you think being vulnerable in this way makes others more open to admitting their own mistakes and their contribution or less open? I think it is obvious.
Do you think they see us as more human or less human? Does that make them trust us a little bit more?
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/04/news/companies/military_business_leaders.fortune/
Enjoy the article, JP.
