Driving For Success Or Driving Yourself Into The Ground?

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Driving For Success Or Driving Yourself Into The Ground?

It’s the best of times and the worst of times for executive leaders. You know what I’m referring to, when in your pursuit of success while you are driving hard, you wake up to the reality that you have driven yourself into the ground. Those of us in executive leadership positions are notoriously gifted at getting results and yet in our efforts to win we often end up losing personally, professionally, and in the relationships that matter most. The consequences of executive fatigue are devastating!

Derek is one of the most gifted executive leaders you will find anywhere, a man on fire, a man on a mission, a man set on conquering the world! To watch him lead is a glorious “cinema graphic” experience. He leaves you asking the question whether or not he’s Super Man. In his pursuit of success and growing his organization, Derek is obsessed to not only meet stated goals and metrics but to exceed them and to exceed them well beyond what most think can be accomplished. Early to rise, late to bed. Meetings upon meetings. Firefighting issues in the office and triangulating relational politics, he leads undeterred.

For a while Derek is unstoppable, but below the surface at the core of his person, a fissure develops and goes unnoticed. He doesn’t know it at first nor recognize that his drive for success is driving him into the ground, so he forges on until it catches up to him. He gets a rude awakening when his performance and productivity are down, way down and he is clueless why. His team begins to see behaviors that are creating concerns. He is overreacting, overreaching, and overwhelming the people he is leading, and they are about to mutiny. Driven by unknown forces he presses even harder, but it only takes a greater toll. The people that love him the most are now suffering from his behaviors. Derek was at the top of his game and is now at the end of his rope.

The details of Derek’s story are not unique, they are so textbook and so common that this should be taught in universities to prepare aspiring executives of the storm that’s coming – but it remains ignored and brushed under the rug. The good news is that executive fatigue is completely avoidable and reversible. While it’s consequences and effects can be devastating, they do not have to be permanent even in the worst case scenarios.

Derek was able to navigate his way back to the top, while rebuilding the trust and respect of his team. Most importantly, the relationships that mattered most to Derek were fully restored and are now vibrantly alive. In Derek’s journey from the depths of executive fatigue, he learned three critical practices that changed the game for him then and are influencing his life everyday now.

Principle #1 – HONESTY

Honesty is the foundation of true and lasting success. When I say honesty, I am not talking about the moral foundations of being an honest person (that is a given or at least it should be), I am talking about being honest with ourselves. Too many executive leaders ignore the inner gauges that are revealing unhealthy behaviors that will ultimately blow their engine.

When an executive intentionally chooses to take a honest look at the inner gauges of their life and not just the growth metrics of their organization they are providing the most strategic leadership necessary for a life of impact and meaningful success.

Principle #2 – HUMILITY

Humility is complicated, it makes us feel vulnerable; however, it is essential to preventing or reversing executive fatigue. Humility is the inner strength of a leader to recognize and own their faults, failures, and frailties without attaching shame and blame. In the framework of humility an executive leader courageously embraces their strengths and their weakness and celebrates their uniqueness.

Humility is not just about looking within, it is also about doing what needs to be done to make things right with anyone affected by the behavior caused by their state of executive fatigue. Humility is about making wrongs right, correcting errors, mending fences, and doing whatever it takes to restore relationships that were damaged.

Principle #3 – HEART

This final principle is the bedrock of the first two. Heart is about courage and being bold. To be honest, you must have heart. To embrace humility, you must have heart. To change your life, you must have heart.

There’s nothing easy about the journey to overcoming or even preventing executive fatigue. If a leader can lead with heart, they will find themselves enjoying the rich benefits of honesty and humility and being vibrantly alive without driving themselves into the ground.

Have you taken the Fatigue Assessment? Click here to discover whether you are in the red zone, green, zone, or yellow zone.

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