Copyright TIGERS Success Series
There is an assumption in some business circles that leaders who embrace intuition, family and family duty are less capable in dealing with business strategy than those who make the sacrifice to give it all to their companies. There is also the assumption that admitting mistakes is a symptom of weakness — that when the going gets tough, the tough get going and employees need to buck up and get over it.
Smart leaders who understand how important emotional management is to their organization know what many managers and supervisors have yet to discover; that accountability and forgiveness builds trust and team cohesion faster than any other motivational technique. Below, is a review of Secretariat, and a time in US history when women leaders, like Penny Tweedy, piloted their teams and their charges to a level of success that has yet to be surpassed. Â Â
The story is set during the late 60’s and early 70’s when Viet Nam plunged the US society into turmoil.  Penny Chenery Tweedy, a house wife and mother takes the helm of her parent’s horse breeding and racing enterprise. Challenged by her brother and husband to sell family assets after the death of her parents, Penny forges on to pull together a team to guide her long-shot but precocious stallion to set the 1973 unbeaten record for winning the Triple Crown.
 The lessons from this movie include:
- The power of humility and forgiveness when leaders come down hard on a team without fully understanding the source of team failure
- Tactics leaders should and should not use for turn around and crisis situations
- The power of good research and following heart-focused hunches
- The power of intuition and reaching deep into feelings and emotion to fire up team spirit
- The power of feminine mentorship
- The power of trust Â
Starring Diane Lane, John Malkovich, and Dylan Walsh
Director: Randall Wallace
Color
Disney
Film clips:
News Magazine Penny Chenery Tweedy interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-KvaeuIIsw
Secretariat movie trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlfWTBZeaXs
It would be helpful to know what are the questions you can ask yourself to know what you really want. How do you determine that the ‘dream’ you have is yours and not that of your parents or what you think your parents and peers would admire? Instead of knowing after the fact, when you feel dissatisfied when you achieved it, how would you know early on and when you’re just starting out? Sometimes, we also get excited about the dreams our parents or other people have for us.
Joann, you pose a really good question here. How do you know that the direction you have taken in life is truly yours or living the dream of someone else?
I think there are many hints. The first is the direction you are taking brings you joy. It is one thing to achieve goals. It is another to get into a condition called flow where what you are working on fully captures your interest and is all absorbing. For those who are in the flow, work and time goes very quickly. I find that when I am writing. I will start and look at the clock hours later and wonder where the time went.
Another hint is that it is based on your strengths and what is naturally easy for you. The Strength Finder 2.0 Gallop Survey is a great indicator of where you natural inclinations lie. When you pursue these inclinations, you are truly a champion at what you do.
Dianne
The first advice of knowing your own truth—what you truly want makes it possible for you to accomplish the other two tasks (goal setting and prioritizing) more easily. Knowing what you want makes it easy for you to make decisions and makes what you must do and where you should go much clearer. The first advice is really powerful!
Thank you, John. I appreciate your insight. Knowing your own truth is critical to being in integrity with yourself at all times.
Dianne
Do you have other sources or links to articles which can help people increase their self-awareness or better determine what they want?
Martin, I do have resources. I encourage you to sign up for our complimentary monthly newsletter at http://corevalues.tigerssuccessseries.com. We share the dates and times of different programs we are offering and leadership self awareness is one you might find very interesting. In the meantime, go onto Amazon and order Strength Finder 2.0 by Gallop. It is a great resource to start with.
Dianne
When you are doing what you really want shouldn’t you already feel a sense of satisfaction or well-being even if you haven’t achieved your ultimate goal yet?
Kevin,
I think so because it produces an important state of happiness.
Dianne
Your story reminds me of the movie ‘SeaBiscuit’ starring Jeff Bridges and Tobey Maguire. The owner also trusted the long-shot horse and long-shot jockey. Another leadership lesson from this movie is to genuinely understand and know the people in your team and how they work. The trainer and jockey both understood what is going on seabiscuit’s mind and how the horse wanted to race.
The owner also genuinely cared about the jockey and all of them genuinely cared about Seabiscuit—this all gave them ‘intuition’ about each other, and the ability to forgive mistakes (races lost). And they gave the country, hope and inspiration during the depression era.
So I’m looking forward to reading and hearing inspiring team stories from U.S. companies that help keep their companies afloat and even grow during this economic crises.
What makes this post stand out for me is your mention of the value of ‘humility’. Because when I looked back, it was the humility of my boss in admitting what he could have done better to lead the project that motivated my co-workers and I to really look hard at our own individual performance and team performance.
And when we see our leader ‘apply’ the solutions agreed upon in the team meeting about starting the new project and so on, we became more confident about her leadership and our chances of success in our next project.
So ‘humility’ may seem like a ‘soft’ trait and not the tough type of leadership people assume is more effective. But humility from my experience gets more people thinking and reflecting—-which helps builds more accountability in your team.