[May 22, 2015] John Wayne has always been one of my movie heroes. To be more precise, I was a fan of the actor John Wayne but the men he played were the ones with true grit and a perseverance … they were all real men of action. There have always been people who show both grit and determination;1 they are the ones who we all admire and wish to emulate. Why? Because those are the characteristics of the most successful.
A wonderful book in my recommended Reading List (Updated), How Children Succeed, was about how the most successful children were those who showed perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control.2 It was less about intelligence than about children having grit and determination to overcome adversity that made them so successful. Like me hero John Wayne played, those who show grit and determination are those who win our hearts and accomplish any task given to them.
“Heroes are never perfect, but they’re brave, they’re authentic, they’re courageous, determined, discreet, and they’ve got grit.” – Wade Davis
Like Winston Churchill said during the darkest days for Britain during World War II, “Never, never, never give up.”3 He was encouraging his countrymen and women to never give into the enemies of their nation, Nazi Germany. Today, we characterize this as grit; the long-term perseverance to overcome obstacles and to achieve an admirable goal. Churchill was a controversial leader and yet people flocked to him during the most horrific days of the war – a time they thought the Nazi war machine would conquer and enslave them.
The trend in most communities today and in particular in higher academics is to discourage grit. Passivity is rewarded because it does not promote aggression. The logic is that aggression in people is what makes war and since war is so destructive it has no redeeming value; or so goes the argument. Despite this distortion of the concept of grit and determination, primary and secondary education schools have recognized their value and are actively encouraging teachers to push their young pupils to obtain those traits.
Leaders who encourage grit and determination in their followers are doing them a great favor. They are helping instill those traits associated with significant accomplishments. Leaders do this by providing carefully crafted adversity for their followers. Ultimately, they allow their followers to fail without being failures. Through this, leaders help make others stronger, more resilient, and more capable for success.
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[1] Grit is commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include “perseverance”, “hardiness”, “resilience”, “ambition”, “need for achievement” and “conscientiousness”. Determination is a quality that makes you continue trying to do or achieve something that is difficult – Webster Dictionary.
[2] http://www.paultough.com/the-books/how-children-succeed/
[3] Alternatively, this might actually be the correct quote: “Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” – Winston Churchill