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02 Aug

Leading Ourselves Can Be The Biggest Challenge

wdmoran Leadership 0 0

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? Not always. I came to this realization in October of 2008. That was when I started a new chapter in my career. On October 2, 2008, I left the safety and security of the corporate world for the uncertainty and anxiety of entrepreneurship. For nearly 25 years, I had been a part of an organization, a member of a team. Now I was the organization. I was the team. That was my plan. I had saved for years, and that had given me the flexibility to make this bold move. Unfortunately, my plan was developed in the fall of 2007, and it did not contemplate the economic crisis that hit rock bottom right as I was walking out the door. I had planned for some degree of economic uncertainty, but I never contemplated a crisis of that magnitude. My savings, my safety net, seemed to have developed holes overnight. My plan was on schedule and falling apart at the same time.

So what does my misfortune in career planning have to do with leadership? After all, this blog is supposed to provide “enduring wisdom for 21st-Century leaders,” not career horror stories. The operative word is “leader.” It started when a friend asked me about a recent speaking engagement. He was surprised to hear that I had spoken to a group focused on career planning and transitions. He said, “They need to find jobs, not hone their leadership skills.” I was as surprised by his comment as he was about my speech. I responded, “Career transitions can be one of the most demanding leadership challenges anyone will ever face.” I proceeded to tell him my own story and how the “Four Most Important Questions a Leader Must Ask” are the same questions that helped me through the most difficult periods of my transition. These are the four questions:

  • Who Am I?
  • What Do I Want?
  • How Will I Get Others to Choose to Follow Me?
  • How Will I Earn and Retain the Privilege to Lead?

My personal career transitions required me to ask and answer these questions. It also meant possessing and demonstrating to some degree all of the If 16 Leadership Attributes. However, there were four attributes in particular – one aligned with each question above – that helped me succeed.

The linkage between the first two questions and successful career transitions is obvious. Job hunting and career transitions bring these questions into stark clarity. At times, this can be in a negative way. With regard to knowing who we are, many of us tie our identity to our job, so losing or changing it can create real anxiety. But once I moved beyond the anxiety, my career change provided me with a unique opportunity for self-discovery. It gave me the chance to inventory and take stock of what mattered most in my life – what I valued, what made me happy, what I did well, and what changes I wanted to make in how I was showing up to others.

Career transitions demand that we know who we are – our character, our authentic selves, and how to remain true to them. But perhaps the most important attribute is our self-efficacy – our belief that we have the capabilities to execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations. Self-efficacy is more than just blind confidence or self-esteem. Highly self-efficacious people know themselves extraordinarily well. They possess a genuine confidence in their own abilities. In order to truly believe in our abilities, we must know what they are. Just as character requires that we continuously inventory and understand our values and beliefs, self-efficacy requires that we do the same thing with our skills, abilities, and preferences. While I have always believed in myself and my ability to overcome the challenges I confronted, my career transition was a real test. By recalling and building upon my past successes, I maintained my self-efficacy.

Knowing what we want is also obvious – we want a job! But not just any job! Once I got past the anxiety and fear that came with my transition, I was able to explore what I truly wanted. I was able to focus my efforts on opportunities that satisfied my ambitions – a career that was aligned well with who I am. The leadership attributes associated with understanding what we want include ambition, vision, boldness, and last but not least, resilience. Resilience, the ability to bounce back from adversity, is essential to any job search. I confronted a variety of obstacles. I lacked the exact combination of skills and experience needed for most opportunities I sought. Other times things just went wrong. Resilience meant anticipating and planning for these obstacles and responding decisively to them when they occurred. Resilience gave me the ability to keep going despite the setbacks and disappointments.

Getting others to choose to follow us doesn’t mean walking into an interview and convincing people that you are the next CEO. Instead, this is leadership in the same way that sales is leadership. When we are interviewing for a position, we are selling ourselves to the hiring manager and the organization we want to join. The key attribute here is inspiration. Before I could inspire my family and friends to believe in me, I had to first be inspired. As I was finding my new path and making my transition, I had many opportunities to connect with people who were experts in the field I was entering. These connections allowed me to ask for help and to demonstrate to potential partners and clients that I was worthy of their investment. Success often comes down to who a client (or perspective employer) believes can help solve their problems. We can inspire potential employers with our creativity, tenacity, work ethic, or any number of characteristics.

Earning and retaining the privilege to lead means keeping those we lead engaged and motivated regardless of the situation. During the early part of my transition, that meant my wife, my family, my friends and myself. Leadership meant keeping the people who I wanted following me from losing confidence or trust, especially when things got tough. And they did get tough. That is why composure is such an important leadership attribute during a career transition. My ability to “keep my head when all about me were losing theirs” was critical to my success. My composure kept me from giving up and taking jobs that were just like the one I had chosen to leave. This was particularly challenging when friends and family were encouraging me to take the safer and proven path. My composure kept me from becoming frustrated by interminable marketing processes that may stood between me and the next business opportunity.

My decision to reinvent myself and to pursue my dream was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It also proved to be one of the greatest leadership challenges I have ever faced. Whether I was leading my family, a potential client, or simply leading myself, I had to exercise every leadership muscle I possessed, while discovering some that I didn’t know I had.


Composure If You Will Lead inspiration Leadership leadership attributes resilience self-efficacy The If 16 Leadership Framework
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Ph.D., Director, Gilliam Center for Free Enterprise and Ethical Leadership and Professor, Management Department, College of Business, James Madison University
If You Will Lead - Enduring Wisdom for Those Who Choose to Lead
I've invited Doug to speak several times at our university and will continued to enjoy doing so. Both students and faculty members love Doug's humility, his comfortable and highly interactive manner, and willingness to share both painful and successful experiences. He comes across as wise yet without a trace of arrogance. I think students almost instantly view him as the type of person they'd like to have as a mentor. I’m confident that those who apply the wisdom he shares will be introduced to new and practical ways of improving their leadership.
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Ph.D., Director, Gilliam Center for Free Enterprise and Ethical Leadership and Professor, Management Department, College of Business, James Madison University
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This is an engaging primer for anyone committed to becoming a leader at work or in life. Using compelling examples, Doug Moran has provided a valuable series of leadership lessons that are relevant and useful to all of us. This book will make a difference to you and to all who look to you for leadership.
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Professor Emeritus, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia
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Doug Moran’s book will motivate leaders at all level to strengthen key leadership traits of character, authenticity, integrity and self-efficacy. You will learn tangible leadership techniques and walk along side some of history’s best known figures from Lincoln to Mandela, making this a truly inspirational book.
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Co-author Anytime Coaching: Unleashing Employee Performance Adjunct Professor, Johns Hopkins Carey Graduate School of Business
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I highly add my name of recommendation to the book by Doug Moran entitled If You Will Lead. "One of the great needs in our country and in our world is the need for capable and inspiring leadership. There is, in my judgment, an absence of good leadership as we hear each day of the incessant wrangling among elected officials. We certainly need some new leaders to come forward. This book gives the reader a sense of the qualities of leadership which are so needed today. Leadership is an innate quality. It certainly can be acquired, as long as we have examples which this book gives to emulate." "In my judgment this book is most worthwhile and sorely needed in our world today.
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Bishop Emeritus of Richmond
If You Will Lead - Enduring Wisdom for Those Who Choose to Lead
This is an engaging primer for anyone committed to becoming a leader at work or in life. Using compelling examples, Doug Moran has provided a valuable series of leadership lessons that are relevant and useful to all of us. This book will make a difference to you and to all who look to you for leadership.
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Professor Emeritus, Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia.
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After 26 years on Wall Street, the last 20 of them leading people, I am more aware than ever of the need to level-set your actions and philosophies and always be adjusting to the fast-paced world we live in where change is the only constant. Doug Moran has proven himself to be a forward-thinking leader and insightful assessor of practical practices in an increasingly complex and competitive business environment, having demonstrated a track record of creative and strategic thinking along with successful tactical execution in both the public and private sectors across multiple leadership roles. As one fights off the temptation to become jaded and dismissive of those offering the latest recipe for leadership success, Doug has proven to be one of the few people whose opinions I seek out proactively, knowing that I can count on candid feedback, spirited debate and a collaborative partner when dealing with issues important to me both personally and professionally. If You Will Lead is an important addition to any leader’s short list of practical business reading and will make an immediate positive impact on how one ties effective leadership principles to the future success of their organization.
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Doug's book on leadership is a standout. Based on Kipling's poem, "If," the book is thoughtful and comprehensive, pragmatic and inspiring, and grounded in self awareness, which is the fundamental requirement for leadership excellence. This book, with its well-drawn examples of leadership attributes, is in itself a courageous act of leadership. Serious leaders interested in transformation for themselves or their organizations ought to savor it, journal with it, and refer to it often as a way to calibrate, contribute, and create results that matter.
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