Today I want to go back to the Launching A Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward. In the book they talk about a specific highway that leaders need to be on in order to be
successful. If you visualize a leader you are going to visualize someone that is a mover and a shaker. Someone that is launching a plannedassult on the status quo. Someone that is tired of the same old and wants to change and make things better.

 

Remember, a leader takes people somewhere.  The moment the leader is not moving, the leader is not leading. And it takes ambition to keep the leadermoving.

 

Here’s how Chris and Orrin describe this highway in their book.

 

Picture success as a road that leads to you dreams:

 

Along each side of the road are shoulders. Often the shoulders of the roads are comprised of gravel.  If a driver inadvertently runs onto the gravel, the sound serves as a warning that a course correction is required to resum traveling safely on the road. Conversely, sometime that same gravel can grip the wheels of the vehicle and pull it from the road into the ditch.

 

On the left shoulder is comfort. Comfort is fine in small doses and in certain areas of life, but, like gravel, it can also serve as a warning. Remember, ambition flourishes in discontent with the status quo. Discontent and comfort cannot coexist. If a leader becomes too comfortable, ambition will die, and the soft gravel of comfort can pull him or her down into the Ditch of Complacency.
 

Complacency is defined by Webster as “self-satisfaction accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies.”  Complacency pulls a leader from the road of success and halts all travel toward his or her dreams, as when a car is stuck in a ditch.

 

There is another danger in traveling too close to the shoulder of comfort: opposing traffic. Most people in life are looking for the easy road. They want comfort and will pay the price of mediocrity to get it, so they rush toward it like cows to the barn at feeding time.  If a leader attempts to lead from a position of comfort, he orshe will run smack into that mass of traffic heading in the other direction away from dreams and toward mediocrity.

 

Leaders, however, shun comfort and seek excellence instead.

 

They travel down the right lane in the diagram and away from oncoming traffic. The right lane is never crowded.  There always seems to be a shortage of leaders but a plethora of people heading the other way. This is one thing that makes a leader so special. Also notice that being a leader means traveling close to the Shoulder of Frustration. In fact, this is the mark of any true leader.

 

Being a leader is a study in managed frustration.  Any real leader traveling the Road of Success toward his or her dreams will encounter frustration along the journey.

 

Frustration can be healthy, but, just like the shoulder on the other side of the road, this gravel of frustration presents a trap.  Too much frustration can be a warning to the leader that his or her attitude is dipping and could pull the leader down into the Ditch of Discouragement.

 

Discouragement is a show-stopper because it robs the leader of hope.  Without hope the leader is trapped in the Ditch of Discouragement and makes no further progress toward his or her dreams.

 

The only way to stay away from oncoming traffic, the Shoulder of Comfort, and the Ditch of Complacency – and the only way to travel near the Shoulder of Frustration but clear of the Ditch of Discouragement – is to focus straight ahead on the dreams in front of you.  Having a dream-focus keeps a leader safely on the Road to Success.

 

Please do two things for me:
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2.  Leave me a comment to let me know what you think!

 

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