Toughen Up Your Leadership Fingers

"Anyone who has ever undertaken learning the guitar knows that early on it is a painful process. In order to master the instrument your fingers must first toughen up; you must toughen the skin on the tips of your fingers in order to take the repeated wear from the strings. Those who cannot push through the initial sting of this process never master the art."

And the same is true of leadership.

Anyone who has ever undertaken leadership knows that it can be a painful process.  Every move and decision is subject to critique and the repeated wear of dealing with opinion can be difficult.  Good leaders push through the initial sting of the process in order to master the art.  And just as a guitarist develops callouses on his or her fingers in order to play well, so too must a leader.

While you might be inclined to think that anything calloused in a leader is a bad thing, making the leader insensitive or removed from everyday people, the opposite is actually true.  In the process of developing callouses a guitarist is developing more sensitivity, not less; a heightened sensitivity and touch is gained, not lost. 

Great leaders endure because they have toughened up their leadership fingers and, in the process, gained a greater touch and sensitivity to the organization (or people) that they lead.  But neither endurance or experience will come without first learning to survive the wear that comes with leading.

When you feel the pressure and pain of leadership creep in and when your decisions are met with opinions don't make the fatal mistake of pulling back.  Instead, play harder.  Apply yourself all the more to the task at hand.  Endurance and experience will only come once you learn to toughen up your leadership fingers.