"I Am Invincible (I Think)!" - The Daily-Improviser Leader Manipulates His Beliefs

In recent articles, I've been describing my quest to resolve (seeming) contradictions. In doing so, I've been drawing on one of the central components of the performance improviser's art: The integration of incongruous elements (as pitched by the audience) into a seamless whole.

To illustrate a real-world application of resolving contradictions, I cited the example (from Matthew Syed's book Bounce) of an athlete who must absolutely convince himself that he'll succeed while simultaneously noting his performance gaps if he fails so he can correct them later. As Syed notes, an athlete must be able to "manipulate his beliefs" across the performance cycle - even to the point of maintaining contradictory beliefs of invincibility and fallibility at the same time - if he ever wants to reach the top echelon of performance.

I can see the same effect at work in an organizational setting. Vance Packard once defined leadership as "the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done." To achieve this, the leader has to project absolute confidence in the vision and the course of action he sets before his intended followers. Yet at the same time (as scores of historical examples show), if the leader turns a blind eye and a deaf ear to all signs that suggest a need for a course adjustment, he'll quickly lose touch with reality (and, except for the most rabid true believers, will lose most of his followers as well).

So, to borrow an old cliche, if she wants people to follow her through a brick wall, the leader must first approach the wall with complete certainty that she'll break on through to the other side. Yet, rather than continuing to bang her head against the wall if she fails, she better also be looking for the doors.

It seems, then, that to be truly effective across the performance cycle, a world-class leader must take a page from the champion athlete's playbook and learn to "manipulate his beliefs" to alternately shape reality and respond to it. If you want to grow as a leader, you must develop the capacity to both "influence and be influenced" - sometimes doing one, sometimes doing the other, often doing both simultaneously.

And here, I think, is where we can resolve another seeming contradiction I described in an earlier article. I'll reveal this next time.