A Test of Learning from Passages

The odds are that you’ve gone through at least a few of the thirteen passages we outline. We would like you to consider how you traversed a passage. Here is a list of the passages:

• Joining a company

• Moving into a leadership role

• Accepting the stretch assignment

• Assuming responsibility for a business

• Dealing with significant failure for which you are responsible

• Coping with a bad boss and competitive peers

• Losing your job or being passed over for promotion

• Being part of an acquisition or merger

• Living in a different country or culture

• Finding a meaningful balance between work and family

• Letting go of ambition

• Facing personal upheaval

• Losing faith in the system

Choose one passage from this list that you’ve gone through. Ideally, pick one that you experienced relatively recently and that had a significant impact on your personal or professional life. Based on this particular passage, answer the following questions:

When you were going through this experience, did you have much time to step away from it and think long and hard about what was occurring?

After the event that constitutes the passage had ended, did you reflect on what had taken place? Did you put this event into the larger context of your life (work or personal) and attempt to figure out its meaning in the greater scheme of things?

Did you engage at least one other person in conversation about this passage? Was this conversation confined to the problem and possible solutions (what happened and what you might do about it), or did you talk about deeper issues: how it made you feel, your fears, your expectations?

If the event had an adverse consequence, did you admit to yourself or others how you may have failed or come up short?

Is there anything you learned from this passage? Motivate you to reassess certain assumptions? Make you aware of a vulnerability? Motivate you to acquire a specific knowledge or skill? Prepare you to handle a similar passage better in the future?

If you’re like most people, you answered no to at least some of these questions. Perhaps, like Phil, you became defensive when you failed and blamed your problems on others as you went through the passage. Perhaps you simply rushed through it, anxious to get it behind you and avoid dealing with the issues it raised. Most of us lack the time, energy, and inclination to go through these passages consciously and deeply. Consider, though, that the benefit of doing so is greater leadership effectiveness.

When we think about being more effective as a leader, we generally don’t think about developing greater self-awareness or emotional intelligence. Instead, we think in classic terms about what makes an effective leader. We believe we need to acquire certain skills—decision making, strategizing, and so on—to become a strong leader. Or we are convinced that winning is key and that if we just become better at getting things done and achieving results, we’ll increase our effectiveness. Or we work at our people skills, recognizing that leadership is increasingly about building strong relationships.

All of this is fine, except that these actions provide only incremental gains in leadership effectiveness. Ultimately, the way we use our skills, obtain results, or establish relationships is contingent on our internal awareness of who we are. If we’re blind to our weak spots, they’re bound to trip us up. We may be a great relationship builder under ideal circumstances, but under stress our weaknesses surface and we destroy a critical relationship. Because we’re not aware, we don’t learn from experience, especially the critical passage experiences.

This brings up the key question: How do the passages help us learn what we need to know to become effective leaders? We hope that this book will allow you to answer that question successfully.