Step 1: Learn Resilience

As the old Timex slogan goes, “It takes a licking and keeps on ticking.” Virtually every leader we interviewed showed remarkable resiliency in the face of adversity, especially early in their careers. Many were terminated because they had made stupid mistakes, or they were assigned significant authority for leading a project and missed key deliverables. Sometimes people quit, products didn’t work, or the budget was overrun. In some cases, fate intervened, their personal lives unraveled, their company went out of business, or some other out-of-their-control factor took over.

Yet they came back. More than that, they managed to come back as stronger, wiser leaders. For Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple Computer and CEO of Pixar), Sumner Redstone (chairman and CEO of Viacom), and Millard (Mickey) Drexler (chairman and CEO of J. Crew, Inc.), their stories of resilience are legendary. Was this resiliency inherent, or was it nurtured through constant competition? It is difficult to say, though a number of executives related stories from their childhood that suggested the latter. One executive crashed the family car as a teenager and had to call his father for help. When his father arrived, they discovered that the car, though seriously damaged, was still drivable. His father tossed his son the keys and said, “Try to get it home without wrecking it completely.”

Whether resilience is the result of nature or nurture, or both, displaying it facilitates the journey through each passage. Relentless optimism and self-confidence are beneficial, especially when events during this passage do not justify these feelings. Without resilience, it is easy to lapse into paralyzing self-doubt, and that is when events take over. One executive told us that he likes to picture himself as one of those blow-up, life-size balloon-men that children play with. No matter how many times you knock them down, they spring right back up.

Perhaps an image of this balloon-man could find a place in your own consciousness. Remind yourself that if you want to get anywhere in your career or in your life, failure is not permanent or irrevocable, or even the last word on your career. Many of the executives we’ve worked with have learned to leverage their defeats and disappointments. They have discovered ways to turn their strong negative feelings about an event into positive energy. They can even enjoy the irony of their bad bosses and their own poor choices, resolving to learn and go on.

This doesn’t mean they lacked periods of doubt, despair, sadness, or anger. Even today, many years after the event, some of these leaders’ voices still betray the strong emotions they felt. But they also were aware of how they felt and articulated their thoughts to others, which cleared the way for them to bounce back. Remember, it is tough to be resilient if you’re rigid with anger, fear, or any other strong, unaddressed emotion.

I think resiliency is really important. I have this thing that I use in our leadership course: “Are you a thermometer or are you a thermostat?” A thermometer reflects the temperature around the person, and a thermostat cools when it’s too hot and warms when it’s too cold. It tries to maintain an even temperature. To the greatest degree, I think, leaders should not be thermometers. They just pass on the temperature that’s going on all the time and swing hot and cold and up and down and all of that. Try to be even. It’s okay to display some emotion but in my view not to pass the pressure and heat on them all the time.

Ray Viault, vice chairman, General Mills