Your Challenges are Leadership Ingredients

Dear Leader,

I trust this meets you in pursuit of leadership.

As human beings, we seem to believe that life is supposed to be easy. We expect a smooth ride and easy route to success. We expect to reap the harvest faster than sowing. We expect the government to solve all our problems. We expect to get away with the prize without having to pay the price long enough.

The reality is that life is not that easy.

Life is governed by principles and the earlier we accept that fact, we begin to see with the eyes of growth and play the longggggggg game.

We must understand that every challenge is an opportunity. Every difficult situation is an invitation. We do not let hardships defeat us, instead we welcome them as a test of our character and ingredient of leadership.

Everyone in this world is going through one thing or the other. Adversity is not optional, it is compulsory as long as you are on the earth. But what you do and how you handle adversity reflects your leadership growth.

Here are a few things I have learnt in using what I am going through to grow my leadership potential.

1. What I am going through reveals a lot about me. Just like you, anytime I am going through hard times, It gets my attention. Hardship is something we cannot ignore. It requires us to stop and reflect over the situation and look at ourselves if we have the courage to address it.
   
   What you are going through creates an opportunity for self discovery – in my own case, I have had to learn something new about myself, my strengths and weaknesses.
   
   Circumstances do not make us, instead circumstances reveal us to ourselves. Use what you are going through to grow your leadership potential. Stop and reflect.
   
2. What I am going through is a teacher. Challenges serve as teachers. Challenges however do not announce themselves before coming. Challenges do not care if you are ready or not. Hard times happen to everyone. Those who are ready learn from the teacher, those who are not don’t learn anything. But as leaders you must know how to convert your challenges into lessons. You only do that when you have the right mindset.
   
3. What I am going through is a window for new opportunities. One of the greatest lessons for me is that challenges are often doors of opportunity. Entrepreneurs know this better. But most of us have been trained to see challenges the wrong way. Since kindergarten in school, we have been taught that mistakes are bad and you were punished from failing a course in school.
   
   In school, you avoid mistakes but in real life, you learn a lot from mistakes.
   
   A mistake simply shows you something you do not know, something that is not working and helps you figure out what works.
   
   Challenges are not bad – they are there to teach us something.
   
   When challenges come, don’t let it get you down, look instead for the benefit or opportunity. If you respond right to what you are going through, you see it as something that can help you become better than you were before.

Most of us want our problems fixed without having to face them, but for leaders, it’s impossible. As leaders, it is our duty to help people solve problems, take responsibility, make things better and help people see challenges differently.

What are you doing with what you are going through?

I’m rooting for you,
The Great Owete