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| My grandmother and her first husband some time in the early 1900s |
It is now officially 2017 and 2016 is
just sad history. Many people are already failing to live up to the resolutions
they made two days ago. I, for one, don’t make resolutions. I follow the rules
set by my grandmother, who was mainly responsible for raising me from around
the time I turned twelve; her philosophy was that if you had to make
resolutions to do better at the end of the year, it meant that you’d been
slacking off for a whole year, and that you’d
likely slack off again, resolutions or not, so it would be better to try
and live right all the time, and not have to worry about making amends at the
end of the year.
As a gag once, I used one of those
computerized sign generators found online to make a little poster of Bart
Simpson writing on a chalkboard, “I am what my grandmother made me.” This was a parody of the central thesis of my
first published book, a short essay on leadership entitled, Things I Learned from My Grandmother about
Leadership and Life.”
Subsequently had occasion to reflect on
that sentence (I am what my grandmother made me) and I came to the conclusion
that what I meant originally as a joke has a larger truth imbedded within
it. Furthermore, I realized that for
leaders, this is a truth that must be fully grasped. As we mature, we are shaped by our education
and experience, but the basic core of who we are has already been formed by
those who guided and mentored us in our formative years. For many of those of my generation that was
largely grandmothers and other older relatives who were too old to work in the
fields; and to whom fell the responsibility of “taking care of the young-uns.”
Places like West Point or the Harvard
School of Business might teach us the sophisticated techniques for gaining the
trust of our followers, but the basic traits of honesty and integrity either
will or will not have been engraved into our behavior at the knees of that
older relative before we hit our mid-teens.
Lacking that basic honesty and integrity learned from them, the
techniques you learn later in life become merely tools of manipulation and
exploitation.
Self-confidence is enhanced by increased
knowledge and experience. But, a true
belief in yourself and your ability to succeed will have been learned from a
caregiver who treated you with respect and taught you that you were a person of
worth; who taught you to think highly of yourself—but, hopefully, not too
highly.
This is not to say that people are
incapable of change. Far from it, but,
without understanding the influences that have shaped a person during the
formative years of childhood, change is more difficult. It is especially difficult,
as a leader, to change people who have had the wrong values engrained from
childhood.
Most importantly, though, if you’re to
understand what motivates you as a leader, it helps to consider your
upbringing. You might be surprised to
learn that your habits and preferences in leadership or in life in general,
stem from what you learned as a child.
Once you have that knowledge about where you came from, you can more
clearly see where you are, and plan intelligently and effectively for where you
want to be.
So, instead of making resolutions, I
make a call to action: decide what you want to be, and then be that person all
year long. You’ll slip now and then, but you’re only human, and to err is
human. When you do slip, pick yourself up, admit your mistake, and get back on
track. That way, come the end of 2017, you won’t need to make resolutions.
It’s just that simple. That’s what my
grandmother taught me.
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