No matter the weather, these surfers are up early, testing their skills against the waves. Skills they’ve learned, applied, and refined for years through practice and persistence until they’ve mastered the art of surfing. More times, than not, they’re successful at catching a wave and riding it into the beach, only to paddle back out and start all over again.
They epitomise the secret to success. They do common tasks uncommonly well and keep doing them until they succeed repeatedly.
As leaders, we need similar mastery, particularly in applying our leadership skills.
I’ve discovered there are at least 24 essential C-suite skills, such as communication, courage, commitment, and many more, that as leaders we must learn, apply, and refine.
Like communicating our vision to our people or displaying courage, and committing ourselves to go beyond what anyone would expect. To be a leader, we must master the skills, and influence people, situations, and outcomes toward interpersonal, intrapersonal, and collective success.
Leadership is a lot like surfing. We must stay on top of things, keep our balance, steer the situation to where we want to go and ride it all the way to glorious success.
Sure, we might not make it every time, but if we get back on, we will master our leadership skills until we perform them uncommonly well.
And what’s more, we’ll enjoy the ride.
