walk the talk

Inspiring leaders walk the talk. They have character and conviction. They live by a different moral compass. They back up their words with action...

On October 2, 1994, the 49ers were losing to the Eagles 40-8. Head coach George Seifert pulled [Steve] Young from the game. Years of pent-up frustration boiled to the surface. Young was livid and visibly argued with the coach. While it was out of character for Young to show such anger publicly, the players began to perceive him in a different light. They saw a fiery leader committed to winning. The “Steve Young Rant” became a rallying cry for the rest of the season.

Five days later the team played in Detroit. Young got hit so hard an excruciating pain shot up his leg. “Writhing in pain” Young crawled on his elbows to the sideline. The doctors were worried he had injured a nerve and told him not to play. Young overruled them. As long as he could walk, he wanted back in. Two plays after crawling off the field he jogged back to the huddle and completed 17 of 20 passes, leading a come-from-behind victory. “Dude, you really are crazy. You did the death crawl,” one of his teammates said. Young had cemented his leadership role.

The 49ers played like a team with a new conviction. They won the next ten games and ended the season with the number one offense in the league. Young was named MVP, but didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment. In the locker room he gave the speech of his life:

“It’s 34 days to the Super Bowl. We need to make a commitment that every day we do everything we can to put the flag on top of Everest. Let’s go make some history!” Everyone roared. Young had become the leader everyone wanted to rally behind, but only after his actions during the season gave them a reason to follow him.

“Perception is reality. I had worked hard my entire career to establish myself as a leader. But I wasn’t a leader until I was perceived as one. You become a leader in times of trouble,” says Steve Young. “Leaders emerge when things don’t go well. When everyone else starts pointing fingers, a leader takes responsibility.”

Carmine Gallo 

"Hall Of Fame QB Steve Young On Leadership, Character And Conviction" Forbes. Nov. 2, 2016

roots and mission

While the young Springsteen honed his craft every night in bars on the Jersey Shore, he enjoyed his growing popularity but felt that something was missing. “Part of getting there,” the most elusive of all Springsteenian ideals, “is knowing what to do with what you have and knowing what to do with what you DON’T have,” he writes.

That Springsteen’s work never defines there might have helped fans give it the meaning they most wanted. For him, the book suggests, there is a combination of taking a stance, making it last, and having freedom to run. Holding on to what is precious without losing the open road. But if there is vague, one thing is clear: Getting there takes hard work. You can hone your craft and let purpose find you. But you can’t hone your purpose and hope that craft will find you.

And purpose is what he did not have, for many years — the drive that comes from knowing your work is meaningful to you and valuable to others. “By 1977,” he recalls, “in true American fashion, I’d escaped the shackles of birth, personal history and, finally, place, but something wasn’t right…. I sensed there was a great difference between personal license and real freedom…. I felt personal license was to freedom as masturbation was to sex.” It is a good reminder that purpose has a long gestation, and is borne of actions and encounters, not just ambition and doubts.

Within the next few years, a major shift in Springsteen’s relationship to his work occurred. “By the end of the River tour,” he writes, “I thought perhaps mapping…the distance between the American dream and American reality might be my service, one I could provide that would accompany the entertainment and the good times I brought my fans. I hoped it might give roots and mission to our band.”

That is what purpose does. It gives a craft its roots and mission, a story to remember and imagine, a place to go from. Springsteen grasps the distinction between the work his music has to do, getting people turned on in Jersey bars or big arenas around the world, and its purpose — keeping the American dream alive — and never lets it go.

Purpose gives sense and direction to a working life spent on the road but, Springsteen’s story cautions, does not spare you torment. There is plenty throughout his life and work: the torment of depression, a struggle with his inner demons; the torment of talent, a struggle with the sense that he could always do more; the torment of service, a struggle with shouldering others’ pain. If he often fails to make sense of that torment, at least he succeeds in making use of it.

Gianpiero Petriglieri

"Bruce Springsteen, Artful Leadership, and What Rock Star Bosses Do". Harvard Business Review. 9/27/2017

a big idea will change you

You don't know if your idea is any good the moment it's created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. There's a reason why feelings scare us. 

And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. It's not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. It's just they don't know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain. 

Plus a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they don't want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They like things the way they are, that's how they love you- the way you are, not the way you may become.

Ergo, they have no incentive to see you change. And they will be resistant to anything that catalyzes it. That's human nature. And you would do the same, if the shoe was on the other foot.

With business colleagues it's even worse. They're used to dealing with you in a certain way. They're used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but that's not their top priority. 

If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less, or God forbid, THE MARKET needs them less, then they're going to resist your idea every chance they can.

Again, that's human nature. 

GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS, THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.

Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it.

Hugh MacLeod

"Ignore Everybody." Gapingvoid. 7/31/2004

a person with conviction

"Don’t ask what the world needs," the great civil rights leader Howard Thurman once said. "Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." There’s something compelling about a person with conviction, whether or not you agree with everything he or she represents. But conviction is rare, because in our longing for stability and security, we often make the mistake of looking outside ourselves for direction when we should be looking inside. And over time we can lose sight of who we truly are and what's really important to us.

Erik Wahl

"5 Traits of Creative Leaders (and how to become one)." Fast Company. 8/17/2015