No other crucible does more to develop personal wisdom than the crucible of enduring challenge. Although we wish our life and our leadership responsibilities were consistent from day to day, they rarely are. Though every leader faces enormous challenges that require a response, it’s still difficult to anticipate the severity of unfolding events and the length of time it will take to resolve them. Each situation demands a vision that exceeds inconvenience and a commitment to strategies and tactics that help us persevere. Let me begin by suggesting twelve enduring lessons I’ve learned along the way that can guide you on your own leadership journey.
12 Enduring Leadership Lessons
- Enjoy today; tomorrow has enough worries of its own.
- Never open a two-front war if you can help it.
- Don’t overreact to overreactions.
- Don’t say everything you think (I’ve never gotten in trouble for things I thought but didn’t say).
- Stay emotionally present even when you don’t feel like it.
- I’ve never had an opportunity expand without a potential problem expanding with it.
- Be disciplined with what you share and with whom you share it.
- Avoid no-win arguments; it’s like wrestling with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig loves it.
- Cultivate a results-oriented mindset with attention to doing the right activities.
- Cultivate an aspiring edge that stimulates hope and renewal.
- Maintain a commitment to open communication and conflict resolution.
- Always work to outlast the opposition except when you know it’s the right time to leave for the right reason.
The Role of Enduring Leadership Lessons in Perseverance
No special method or secret way can keep an organization on track. Regardless of the challenge, we must stay vigilant about the mission and purpose and not let all that happens to us and around us be a distraction. We wish we could find the secret formula, but everything we know suggests we just have to do the work.
The Importance of Enduring Leadership Lessons in Scripture
Scripture teaches that resilience and perseverance grow out of our life with God, and it emphasizes the importance of persevering in the face of obstacles and setbacks. In truth, anything worth doing will take time, effort, and human ingenuity. As others have noted, all good plans eventually degenerate into hard work. Through persevering, we not only develop our responses and plans, but we learn how to adjust to changing circumstances to make the contribution God put us on earth to make. Our character develops as we become the best expression of ourselves. At some point, we realize we’re committing our life to purposes that will outlive us.
Psychological Perspectives on Enduring Leadership Lessons
Recently, cognitive and behavioral psychologists identified the benefits of perseverance in the face of challenge, and resilience in response to setbacks. Although earlier scholars believed we possessed a certain setpoint or threshold of resilience, new research demonstrates that every one of us can grow in our capacity to endure. In other words, two people can encounter the same situation and react very differently due to the individual experience of learning how to bounce back from a crisis.
The Impact of Enduring Leadership Lessons on Organizations
As an individual or organization perseveres, they build confidence by learning to develop a capacity to recover. This assurance then comes into play when new experiences of adversity and challenge materialize.
In Acts, the early Christians faced trials and tribulations requiring their ultimate sacrifice. Their endurance in the face of challenge created the institution of the church, which continues as God’s enduring witness in the world. These early Christians embraced the dual realities of faithfulness to their own experiences of God, while respecting and accepting encounters with God that other followers of Christ reported. They learned to respond effectively to the crucible of enduring challenge.
Adapted from The Crucibles That Shape Us by Gayle D. Beebe. ©2024 by Gayle Beebe. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.
Gayle D. Beebe (MBA and PhD, Claremont Graduate University) is president of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. He is also the author of The Crucibles That Shape Us, The Shaping of an Effective Leader and is the coauthor of Longing for God with Richard J. Foster.
