By
Sayo Afolayan
| Published: March 09, 2023
| Comments
We are humans first before we are leaders. We feel the weight of the changing economy and the impact on our team’s performance and morale. We connect with the struggles that our teams go through in dealing with the post-pandemic world and the new realities. We have personal challenges and experience the impact of current world events.
What is grit? Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term and meaningful goals. Grit and resilience are intertwined. Resilience is the capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. Grit is intertwined with toughness. They are both sides of the same coin.
Why do we need grit? Angela Duckworth, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, has highlighted grit as a strong predictor of success and a distinguishing factor among high achievers.
An important responsibility as a leader is to motivate our teams through challenges and setbacks to achieve targets and outcomes. We need grit because challenges, setbacks, and failures within our teams and organizations are continual. To keep team morale, motivation, and performance high in spite of this, we need to be driven by a long-term focus and passion; we need grit. Ultimately, grit helps us improve retention rates, work engagement, and job performance.
The great news is that grit is not a measure of intelligence or talent, it is a learned skill that launches you into the realm of excellent leadership. Below are some tips for developing grit. They can be organized as the 6 Cs:
Connect
Connect to a higher purpose; seek meaning in what you do and be convinced that what you do matters. Grit is strengthened when we have a passion for what we are doing. For example, when you view your purpose as building your team members’ skills and capabilities for continued achievement and success, this enables you to look at every situation as a growth opportunity.
Contemplate
Deep reflection enables you to evaluate your demotivators or sabotaging actions so you can stop yourself in your tracks. Especially during challenging periods, it is important to schedule time to think about your feelings, purpose, goals, and level of grittiness. Then you redirect yourself and create action plans to stay focused on the long-term results.
Champion
Support yourself with words of affirmation and visualizations. Words of affirmation align your thinking to a place of strength and positivity. Visualizations are great tools to help redirect yourself in the moment. Hanging messages also aids in the transmission of grittiness to others because great messages spark great conversations and learning opportunities.
Continue
Choose commitment to your long-term goal over immediate positive feedback. Focus on your motivations and purpose when faced with a setback. Choose resolve, knowing that the challenge is just temporary. Switch to your internal picture of your long-term goal and reaffirm your dedication to that activity.
Change
Change your community to like-minded, gritty professionals. The people you spend time with influence your behavior and mindset. They will help you keep your eye on the ball and celebrate the wins with you.
Congratulate
Celebrate your wins! Pat yourself on the back, take yourself out for a congratulations lunch, or buy something nice for yourself.
These are some tips on how to become a gritty leader that successfully navigates her team and organization through the ups and downs of business realities. As we develop grittiness, we should also train our team members. The collective grit of our team members ensures a resilient, flexible, and high-performance organization.