Friday, November 12, 2010

Humility and Drive

I believe that it was Jim Collins who wrote about extraordinary leaders who possess an unusual combination of humility and drive. It is not an either-or choice and yet many leadership stereotypes seem to push that view.

In his first book on the race for The White House, Theodore White mentioned that successful candidates have to have a "fire in the belly" in order to make it through the trials of campaigning. We later saw plenty of candidates with belly fire but little else to recommend them. Unfortunately, the stereotype of the hard-as-nails, climb-over-the-bodies-of-the-opponents leader may indirectly cause people to dismiss the humble but driven candidate as too nice, less ambitious or passive. That is a huge mistake for such individuals can be very tough operators.

They are so tough, in fact, that they scorn attempts to inflate them into something they are not.

2 comments:

Shaun Emerson said...

Michael,

Love your posts...I couldn't agree more...I actually wrote about this a couple of weeks back if you are interested http://tuttopersona.com/2010/10/jim-skinner-and-the-power-of-humility/

Michael Wade said...

Shaun,

Thank you. I appreciate your comments and will check out the link.

Michael