Disassociated Through Work Ethic: Why the Few Can’t Relate to The Many
Sweat poured down my chin strap chaffing my beard, and the field beneath my hand began to move away from me as if to retract into the universe. With the snap of the ball, I plunged my body forward and made contact with the man in front of me, both of us unable to breathe and in terrible condition, we settled at holding each other in the general direction we were each attempting to gain access to.
On September 3rd, 2019, we kicked off the college football season playing Faulkner University in the heart of Montgomery, Alabama. The real temperature outside was 98 degrees, but the sun-soaked beads of the turf field beneath us put the field temperature above 108…. tack on our equipment, and we were drenched during warm ups well before the game.
Years earlier, while I recovered at Walter Reed National Military Medical Hospital, a framed sign on a door written by U.S Navy Seal Jason Redman, would end up forever holding a place in my heart, and become the foundation as to how I would view myself and my capabilities moving forward. I viewed the sign in 2014 and took a picture to keep it with me wherever I went. It read:
“Attention to all who enter here. If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20 percent further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that, go elsewhere.”
For the entirety of my life, I have put my body through unbelievable toil…I have come up short despite exerting maximum effort, and also have come out on top more times than the latter. I have also made conscious efforts to surround myself with individuals who take up similar rigors and choose to face incredible odds under extraordinary circumstances. I believe, whole heartedly, that surrounding myself with these people makes me better, sharpens my mentality, allows me to focus on areas of improvement, and ultimately enhances my creative and competitive spirit.
Having surrounded myself with these like-minded individuals has allowed for exponential growth through the years, and when I’ve been given the opportunity to manage, coach, or lead these like-minded individuals in common goals, it seems as though the results flowed effortlessly. Recently I have had the opportunity to view a different perspective of leadership which has taken me in a different direction, one that has stumped me and left me partially isolated in my methodical approach to quantifiable, physical & data driven objectives; that is — what happens when you have to lead those who’ve never set out to be anything beyond complacent?
Despite the difficulty of my journey, the pain I faced voluntarily at all stages of my growth, and the path I clawed at to continue moving forward despite setbacks, I’ve almost always been surrounded by individuals seeking similar results from themselves. That journey, however, seems to pale in comparison to attempting to inspire those who view the world as a living hell rather than an endless opportunity — a choice we all are forced to make in perspective at one point or another.
Recently, everything I’ve ever known about leadership has been thrown into question as I took up a position in which 20% or less of those around me are motivated to get out of bed in the morning, care for themselves in the most basic way, or function at all — let alone create opportunity, seek feedback, and search for growth in all they do. I have been utilizing every leadership trick in the book in an attempt to see what invigorates such individuals, giving them opportunity to ONLY succeed so they can be praised, as well as allowing for a softer management approach than that which I was used to in the military or college football.
As I have continued to experiment in attempting to lead those who have in one way or another been consumed with the trauma of their personal life experiences and made the choice to remain in stagnation, I’ve come to several realizations which allow for the weight to be lifted off my shoulders. I’ve also reached out to others in similar positions and found this divide in the work place between those who seek to maintain, and those who seek to innovate, are not localized — and likely a symptom of a larger cultural issue. Much of what I have come to realize, and still have yet to learn, is still very difficult to implement. There is no “one-size fits all” management style, and in fact, most still wouldn’t be content if they were able to build their own management at a factory. With that said, some of these thoughts are realizations which have both come in due time, as well as been given as advice by those in the “game” longer than I, and going through similar thought processes day to day.
1. It is not a leaders responsibility to lower the standard for people who cannot raise themselves up. Doing so will eventually lead to a plateau and plateau will eventually lead to rapid decline. The effort I’ve exerted trying to prop people up beyond something they themselves cannot even begin to conceive themselves as, is fruitless in every way, and could have been used towards growing in other aspects.
2. It is not a leaders responsibility to address every rumor. I’ve learned that those who are most bored in their personal lives, who lack ambition or otherwise any future goal to pursue, will mind their time with everyone else’s lives as an escape from theirs. Despite the unbelievable hypocrisy often involved, these individuals use rumors, drama, and negativity as a way to pit management against one another, distract from their poor performance, and leverage others nuances and grievances as a way to distract themselves from the pain of refusing to create opportunity in their personal lives. Exerting energy addressing these things will only burn you out and give them a reason to continue doing it.
3. Assess your goals, and then assess if you have the right team for the goals you are trying to achieve. Attempting to build your goals around your teams capabilities lowers the value of yourself, your team, and your busine, and leaves you chronically feeling as though you are underachieving or under-performing. You are allowed to dream, set ambitious goals, and expect others to rise to the occasion of their truest potential under mentored goals and milestones without having to yield every ambition to those incapable of consistency, or being part of a team.
4. Although the standard set for leaders should always be higher than those they lead in order to set an example, it is not the burden of leaders to explain or posture themselves for explanation for every nuanced decision they have to make day to day. Doing so only forces you to spend your valuable energy explaining yourself to people who are using the opportunity to escape their own responsibilities. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t communicate decisions made which effect people, but rather to say that not every decision needs the seal of approval from someone who does not actually care.
5. You must relinquish your work ethic as the standard for your team. Those who have sacrificed, clawed their way to the top, and marred in order to achieve the unachievable, often project this style of work ethic and grit onto those they intend to lead. In business, this is an impossible task because no one is going to care about the organization you run, founded, or are in sole custody of, because no one else was given such responsibility and no one else bears the weight of the risks or rewards involved. You must set ambitious, but tangible goals by which your teams work ethic is able to match. Nothing you have done in the past which has superseded your wildest expectations through sheer tenacity is able to be passed down to those in compartmentalized positions within organizations. That passion must come from the top and spill out naturally amongst subordinates and peers, it is not a forcible objective.
6. No one person’s absence should be able to topple an organization. Whether a CEO or 1st level leader within an organization, their presence may add significant value to an organization, however their absence should not be able to topple teams and organizations. If any one individual who departs a team or organization is able to topple the organization, then either that is the wrong person to let go, or you’ve put too much of the objectives in their care and ignored the potential consequences.
7. Leaders cannot effectively communicate with their team if their team cannot take constructive feedback and criticism. If your team is unable to listen to constructive feedback, or hear the opportunities they are missing out on by choosing to deflect and point out everyone else’s’ short comings — or are unwilling to participate at all in even listening, then we cannot logically expect to progress the organization. These individuals will often choose to point the finger at everyone else when the finger is pointed at them, and when they are asked to set a higher standard that they’ve been comfortable in keeping lower for so long, they will act erratic and as though they’ve been attacked personally. This behavior resonates through organizations and will ultimately leave the organization unable to set any tangible goals when all feedback becomes an attack that is taken personally.
8. Leaders need to allow adults to make decisions and trust that the best interest of the organization is being carried out when they are not present. If your team or organizations leaders are unable to effectively manage themselves for even a moment while other leaders step away, either you do not have leaders or you do not have responsible adults. An organization must trust their leaders to make decisions in the best interest of the company without being burdened day and night by irrational considerations and illogical issues that can be solved using basic thought processes. If you are unable to put your energy into other avenues of work, and spend it all trying to micromanage others, you will find yourself uninspired and burnt out by the minutia of day-to-day work, which will soon enough become increasingly depressing.
As someone who demands all of myself towards my ambitions, sacrificing everything for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I often go into my work 100% and head first and I find more times than not, that when I do these things in areas where it is not expected unlike football or the military, that I often come up short at relating to people within organizations because achieving greatness and pursuing excellence is my sole passion; whereas I find that many are simply trying to provide for themselves and their families. Their humble pursuits are often made uncomfortable by my demands of perfection or greatness, and learning to coach this inspiration by example rather than demand it has been a difficult transition.
I believe that for the past 40 or 50 years, the American working class has been so demoralized by the political classes, that they are simply exhausted through generations of work, yet ironically also so comfortable that they are unsure how to find the time or the will to remove themselves from their current environment in order to be able to find new purpose or a sense of creative spirit. Though there’s never been an easier time in American history to stand out through self-discipline and work ethic, there’s also never been a time when leaders have had to reposition their management styles in order to accommodate others in such dramatic fashion. By applying yourself with consistency, and leading by example rather than demanding, there’s a good chance that many can find their own potential buried deep under the confusion so many are facing today.
Today, it seems that the man on top of the mountain is often being told by society that he fell there, after he spent years sacrificing every bit of his being to claw his way to the top. We know that the vast majority don’t fall on top of the mountain, and this thought process is creating divides within our culture which purports to show that success is based on luck or unattainable all together. Through leadership that demands more of themselves as well as their team, it’s possible that America can once again coach its future leaders to believe that success is inevitable through giving yourself to the cause you seek to pursue, rather than demanding those who seek to achieve lower their standards to accommodate the complacent.
