I had the opportunity last week to speak to a group of Masters students on leadership. After I spoke with their professor about her expectations, I was inspired to talk about the idea of “stepping up”.
As a student, you learn many things. One of the life lessons you learn when you transition to the “real world” is that applying your knowledge is often more complex than learning the theory in the first place… and, moving from theory to practice isn’t necessarily intuitive.
This is when the concept of “stepping up” is critical… to move from theory to practice you have to step into the uncomfortable unknown without a guarantee that you’ll be successful making the leap.
I’ll always remember being given the opportunity to improve a manufacturing process the summer after I completed my Masters degree in Statistics. I was expected to use the statistical tool of Design of Experiments – the topic of my thesis. I strongly expressed my concern that I had only studied Experimental Design… I had never seen or been part of a team using this statistical approach to improve process quality. I was sincerely terrified of letting my sponsor down.
I didn’t have time to learn how to facilitate a problem-solving session or how to effectively engage the process experts whose knowledge and experience were critical… I just had to do it. And, although it was the most uncomfortable situation I had faced at that point in my life, the experience provided life lessons I have relied on ever since.
To see leadership in action, the same action of “stepping up” is required. It’s not enough to be a good communicator, you have to actively use your skill of listening and expressing to facilitate a team towards a goal or vision. It’s not enough to understand the concept of delegation, you have to respect the real strengths of your team and ensure that the right people have the right responsibilities.
In both our personal and professional lives, the difficulty of stepping up is correlated with the difficulty of the challenge. The harder the challenge, the harder it is to step up. (Sadly, these are also the moments we would most willingly embrace someone else taking charge!) Thankfully, every time we “step up”, we grow both our abilities and our confidence, which, in turn, grows our capacity to contribute positively to dealing with our challenges.
This is the message I really wanted to impart to the students… it’s not enough to have a skill or an understanding – you have to be prepared to step up to the critical challenges when the outcome is most important to you or your team.
Here’s to “stepping up”, especially when it counts!!