Scottish Viking, 47. Currently wandering around North Carolina. Dad to the amazing Kraken, and husband to Dr. Viking. Loves travel and food and can be found at www.thefreerangeviking.com
GRIT = Go-To, Reassess, Instinct, Tenacity
Every opportunity to lead is a chance to grow, become more of what you want to be and increase the positive impact you can have on the world.
For me, growing my GRIT looks like being better at walking that fine line of being confident in following my own instincts and digging into my inherent stubbornness without letting either of those become obstacles in themselves. Trying to ensure they remain positive assets by working on being able to step back and ensure that the approaches are right while ensuring that everyone is accounted for and given the chance to be heard since I have the privilege to lead teams at both work and at “play”.
Growth comes from not only improving the ability to overcome everyday obstacles with less stress and anxiety, but in doing so in a way that reduces stress and anxiety for my teams and simply brings more “fun” to the everyday. In the name of growing my ‘Go-To’, I will work on providing more guidance and mentorship for those around me. For growing my ‘Reassess’, I will take detailed notes of my initial reactions and thoughts about problems/obstacles and provide myself with some time to rethink each step from a somewhat different perspective.
When it comes to ‘Instinct’, I will continue to rely on my instincts, but ensure I am listening to those around me and internalizing different viewpoints to create better instincts moving forward. For growing my ‘Tenacity’, I will review actions afterwards to ensure that I am not straying too far into stubbornness as tenacity can definitely be an asset, but stubbornness can devolve into a problem in and of itself.
In terms of measuring my growth, it has come down to just giving myself honest assessment check-ins to see if I am following the goals I have set for myself. Success will not only be reflected in what I accomplish, but more from what I can have my teams accomplish by being a better mentor. A lot of my growth comes from stepping back and either taking a second look before acting, or carefully reviewing afterwards for all four letters.
The biggest discomfort for me is allowing people to take their own path to get to the right approach to a problem. I need to fight my instinct to simply provide solutions and instead guide people to finding their solutions, which also helps me become a better manager and mentor as I become more comfortable with things not being done “my way”.
On a scale of 1 (not important) to 10 (very important), I would rate showing GRIT a 10 because it is the perfect companion to concepts like servant leadership, and I think it is a great tool to create the types of organizations and relationships that can build the type of world we want to live in going forward. I decided to show my GRIT at home, work and play.
Excerpts from Know, Grow and Show Your GRIT! Self-Discovery Made Simple (pg. 68-70)
Audio version available on March 13th!
