Influence what you can

"Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself." — Robert Bennett, U.Due south. senator

Accepting responsibility for choices starts with agreement where our choices lie. This idea is wonderfully framed by the timeless wisdom of the ancient Repose Prayer:

God, grant me the repose to have the things I cannot change,
The backbone to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

Each line represents an important step in growing our leadership. Consider the offset – an invocation to "grant me the tranquillity to accept the things I cannot change."

There is a long list of things nosotros as leaders tin can't control, but may accept a major touch on on our organizations. These include economic and political trends, technological changes, shifts in consumer preferences and market place trends, as well as catastrophes wrought by human being beings (war, terrorism) and so-called "Acts of God," such as hurricanes or tornadoes. The poet Longfellow offers bang-up leadership counsel about how to handle these non-controllables when he says, "The best thing one can do when information technology is raining is to let information technology rain." Pretty solid advice!

The fact is that stuff happens. Life isn't fair. Whatsoever hits the fan certainly won't exist evenly distributed. The best approach to dealing with things that cannot be changed is to have them. The worst matter nosotros can do is to succumb to the Victimitis Virus and "awfulize" the state of affairs by throwing pity parties in Pity Metropolis. When the doo-doo starts to pile deep, a leader doesn't just sit there and complain (normally near "them"); he or she grabs a shovel. We may not choose what happens to us, but we practice cull how to respond – or not.

The 2d line of the Serenity Prayer asks for "the courage to change the things I tin can." This is the gulp-and-swallow part. Choosing to brand changes is hard. It's so much easier to blame everyone else for my problems and to use this as an excuse for doing nothing. Just leaders don't give away their power to choose. In his bestseller, The Route Less Traveled, Scott Peck writes, "Whenever we seek to avert the responsibility for our own behavior, nosotros practise so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means nosotros then give abroad our power to that entity, be it 'fate' or 'society' or the regime or the corporation or our boss. It is for this reason that Erich Fromm and then aptly titled his study of Nazism and authoritarianism, Escape from Freedom. In attempting to avoid the pain of responsibility, millions and fifty-fifty billions daily attempt to escape from freedom."

It takes real backbone to accept full responsibility for our choices – specially for our attitude and outlook. This is the first and ultimately most difficult act of leadership.

The concluding line of the Serenity Prayer – "and the wisdom to know the difference" – is perchance the toughest office of all. In our workshops with direction teams we often get into lively debates about those things over which the group has the power to act. We attempt to classify them as belonging to three categories:

  • No Control
  • Direct Command
  • Influence

It'due south rarely blackness and white. For example, we often underestimate the influence we might have in our organizations – or in the world at large. Simply as Robert Kennedy once put it, "Each time a homo stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a meg unlike centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

We're either part of the problem or office of the solution. In that location is no neutral ground. Strong leaders make the choice to be part of the solution and become on with it – no matter how pocket-sized their ripples of modify may be.