How do people learn to be leaders?

That’s the question leadership consultant and thought leader Robert J. Thomas answered at a leadership academy event I recently helped organize. Speaking from his book Crucibles of Leadership, Thomas demonstrated that simply taking a course on leadership would do little to transform leadership abilities. In fact, knowledge plays only a small role in a leader’s effectiveness, despite the high price often invested in higher education.

Here is a sample of the elements that transform ordinary people into great leaders.

Experience

The “crucible” of going through challenging experiences (both in life and vocation) has a transforming effect on a person’s leadership ability. I’ve found this to be the case in my own assessment of hundreds of c-suite leaders as well. It’s interesting to note (according to Thomas) that early in life (or career), leaders may find themselves “pushed” into a crucible experience, while later on they tend to “leap.” As they mature, effective leaders learn to recognize, seek and steward the crucial experiences that come their way.

Practice

The half-life of new knowledge is incredibly short. To grow, leaders must form the discipline to transform an “ah-ha” moment into a commitment to practice until they experience a breakthrough. Not only that, leaders are self-aware enough to know the circumstances they need in order to practice sufficiently. To demonstrate this point, the participants in our academy individually identified a skill they practiced to proficiency and compared it to another they gave up. In almost all occasions, talent and knowledge were not the difference. It was the ownership, commitment and supporting circumstances – almost all of which could be recreated in the future.

Purpose

The “why” behind any endeavor usually determines the success of the outcome. But it’s important to note that a specific purpose often changes over time – even for the same goal. What motivates us at age 20 is often different than at age 30. What drives us to achieve initial success may not sustain us to reach the next level. In order to harness the motivation that success (and practice) requires, we need to constantly refresh our sense of purpose.

Coaching

Leadership isn’t “taught” as much as it is “caught.” Teachers, trainers, mentors and supervisors all play a role in developing leaders. But the best leadership “teachers” are the ones who can coach a developing leader to understand the key “moves” that must be made in a given situation. The quality of leadership “teachers” a person has access to varies by the individual. That shouldn’t be an excuse. Thomas posed that “A great student can make a good teacher into a great teacher – and an inarticulate leader into a great teaching leader.”

Community

“No one learns alone,” Thomas wrote in his book. For leaders, that means finding, participating and contributing in communities of leaders who are on a learning journey together. Sometimes these communities are created externally (our leadership academy, for instance). In other instances, leaders must create their own.

Becoming a leader doesn’t happen by accident. Effective leaders are diligent and committed. Still, no one is immune from the serendipity of crucible learning experiences. My favorite quote from Thomas’ book sums it up best: “Sometimes events can conspire to make you a leader.” (Tweet)

So what’s your learning strategy when it comes to leadership?

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.

So what happens when adversity strikes? How can we climb our way our of it? This isn’t an exhaustive list, but here are some thinking patterns that have helped me maintain a sense of sanity and clarity over the years.

No Second Guessing

Many times adverse situations are the result of our own making. We create our own chaos. That’s why it’s takes so much courage to make tough decisions when the outcomes aren’t clear.

Whether your adversity is self-inflicted or not, don’t second-guess. It’s a waste of time and energy. The past is gone. In economic terms, it’s “sunk cost.” Instead, re-assess based on where you are now. What went wrong? What could you do differently next time? What makes the most sense based on where we are today, not where we were in the past? Use the past as a teacher and then move on.

Profit From Your Losses

When I learned that Dale Carnegie had written a bestselling book called How to Quit Worrying and Start Living, I was a bit incredulous. Do people really worry that much, I thought. When I began reading, I realized I was one of the target audience. Carnegie shared that anyone can profit from their gains. It takes intelligence, creativity and a winning spirit to profit from your losses.

There are countless personal and business stories where the mistake led to the breakthrough. Your adversity may not be Hollywood material in the making, but most reversals rarely are. Start where you are. Find a way to turn your minuses into pluses, your lemons into lemonade.

Live to Play Another Down

That’s a sports reference. If you want a first class lesson in dealing with adversity, just take your queue from the world of athletics. I could never be a sports coach. If there is anyone who isn’t allowed to say “well guys, looks like this one is over,” it’s them! Sometimes it “works” and the team comes from behind to win. Other times even the most devastating losses provide an opportunity to grow into a stronger team. No single play or game or season gets the last word. The present is only temporary. It’s all about where you go from there.

When I was a college student, my classmates and I would occasionally receive a bad test on an exam followed by an overwhelming, end of the world feeling that our lives and careers were now in total jeopardy. It took some perspective to admit that job recruiters weren’t likely to inquire about each individual test score for all our classes.

Put your adversity in perspective. A speed bump is just that: a bump. Not a mountain.

Plan for Next Time

The worst part of adversity is getting fooled twice. Don’t let this happen to you! Don’t second-guess, but re-assess. Remember?

A construction company I work with nearly went under during the housing collapse in the United States a few years ago. They made it, but just barely. Now the market is coming back and it would be easy just to get back to business. But nobody wants to go through all that misery again. So the leaders made a plan to diversify the main product line. It takes extra work now, but if the market collapses again, the company will stand strong.

How do you handle adversity? What’s your plan?

If your adversity involves a traumatic experience, visit this article entitled: Resilience and the Pan Am Flight 73 Hijacking.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

Five short years later, she was called on by authorities as an expert in the initial custody process following the raid of the YFZ Ranch in Texas, which was being run by her ex-husband. The raid proved pivotal in landing the extremist sect’s leader Warren Jeffs in prison with a life sentence on multiple child sexual assault convictions.

I read Jessop’s New York Times bestseller Escape after it had just been released in 2007 as I was training for an overseas deployment to Iraq with the U.S. Army. I’m not sure what prompted me to read her story – or how I even heard about it – but I immediately thought she deserved to win some kind of Outstanding Person of the Year award and wished I could tell her as much. Jessop doesn’t lead a nation, a sports club or a Fortune 500 company, but she embodies some of the most important leadership attributes you or I could ever hope to learn.

Sometimes You Have to Lead By Yourself

Leadership can be a lonely place, but most of us have the benefit of resources, training and a leadership community to support us. But sometimes, in Jessop’s case for instance, we’re standing alone. It’s not pretty and it’s not fair, but it’s reality. How do you react when you’re responsible but isolated? The paralysis of uncertainty and temptation to second-guess can be overwhelming. But the risks of not acting, even with limited information and confidence, can have dire effects. In Jessop’s case, had she lingered, she knew she would have risked having her underage daughters forced into marriage with a FLDS man several decades her senior – as well as risked having her family move to the compound in Texas where anything short of a raid would make it impossible to escape. Being alone doesn’t take away the responsibility to lead well.

Courage Can Take Place in a Single Moment

I’ve written before that the type of courage leaders ought to aspire to includes making responsible decisions (instead of passing them on to others), accepting responsibility and initiating difficult conversations. It’s the opposite of waiting until a fire needs to be put out. It’s a constant and proactive practice. But sometimes, as in Jessop’s case, the situation calls for a sudden act of undeterred bravery. Jessop said in her own words that “at some point nearly everyone, no matter what [their] situation, has to face change that is terrifying and overwhelming.”

In corporate leadership development, we try to build leaders who lead by design and not by demand. In other words, they don’t wait till a fire starts to come to the rescue. In reality, leaders need the courage to do the right thing, no matter how much time they have available.

The Hardest Battle is the One Against Ideology

If there’s one thing we don’t have any control over, it’s the circumstances of our birth: where, when and to whom. That means we likely grew up believing most of the things that were intentionally or unintentionally taught around us. Hopefully along the way, we developed the critical thinking skills to evaluate our own ideology.

This is the reason Jessop’s escape was so incredible. By her admission, she grew up in a closed system which taught their leader had divine and sole inspiration from God and their only means of salvation was to obey their every whim. They were taught that women were essentially property, the outside world was only evil and it was forbidden to use the word “fun” or possess anything colored red. It wasn’t until she accepted that hell (according to FLDS doctrine) would be a better option than the life she and her children were living that she had the courage to make an exodus.

Having a doctrine (a “set of principles or beliefs”) is a good thing. Each military branches has one. The FBI has one (I helped build the “indoctrination” program). Your organization hopefully has a doctrine of some sort and your religion doubtless has many. What’s dangerous is being unaware of what the doctrine is, what indoctrination methods are being used, and not evaluating the merits. If you want to leave one ideology, you need another one to take its place. Otherwise, you will simply return to the old or succumb to disillusionment.

Carolyn Jessop’s story underscores the fact that you don’t need to be “special” to be a leader. You don’t need to be the next Winston Churchill, Vince Lombardi or Jack Welch. No matter who you are, you will encounter a leadership challenge at some point. Following Jessop’s example isn’t easy. But if you do, you’re sure to come out on top.

Carolyn Jessop is the author of Escape and Triumph and has appeared on various media outlets, including CNN and Oprah and testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Additionally, in 2008 Katherine Heigl contracted the rights to produce and star in a movie based on her story.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his new ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website  or follow him on Twitter.

As enthralled as I was with the presentations, one poignant leadership lesson stood out which I knew I’d have to eventually share.  It came from a story Richard Melhart relayed to us.  Melhart was an American survivor of the Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking in 1986 in Karachi, Pakistan which resulted in 22 fatalities and over 150 casualties.  It was a horrific ordeal and ended with the passengers fleeing the plane through emergency exits as the four hijackers began an all-out assault following failed negotiations to acquire a new pilot for the grounded aircraft.

According to Melhart, the survivors stayed in the airport until the next morning when they were boarded onto a new flight since the one that had been hijacked was a connection for most of the passengers.  Imagine getting back on a plane that soon after such an experience!  After the passengers were reboarded, a group of mental health professionals entered the aircraft to deliver a message, and that is what I want to share with you because it has such a huge implication for resilience in the face of tragedy.  Here are the four things they shared, with my commentary:

The responsibility for recovery is your own. You have the power to overcome.

When adversity strikes (as it does for all of us), many times we have a tendency to focus on what happened to us instead of what we can do about what happened to us.  The ability to overcome isn’t out there.  It’s in here, where we control our response.  This is where I’m reminded of Viktor Frankl’s immortal words: “between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.”

Get back to normal quickly.

Taking time off can allow emotional trauma to fester.  This is one of the unfortunate realities we see with soldiers returning from tough overseas employments who are expected to immediately use all the leave time they’ve accrued and can’t find a productive way to employ their abundance of free time.  Activity aids the healing process.

Tell your story often and as soon as possible. Then write it down. In this way you will treat yourself.

When we recount and record our experience, we are forced to interpret it in our own words.  We openly acknowledge the damage that was done – perhaps to others, but more importantly, to ourselves.  We cannot change or heal what we do not acknowledge.

Realize there will be a way to use this situation positively at some point in the future.

Once again, this is speaks to the heart of Viktor Frankl’s message in his book Man’s Search For Meaning, which he wrote upon surviving the atrocities of the holocaust in Auschwitz.  Frankl believed that life is not primarily a quest for pleasure or power, but a quest for meaning.  Meaning can be found in many places, including (and sometimes especially) tragedy.  What a waste of an experience that was acquired at a high price if it cannot be employed to benefit others!

In no way do I want to hold myself up as an expert in overcoming tragedy.  My experience is nothing like the experience of anyone involved in the Pan Am flight 73 hijacking (or any other hijacking).  But it is a fact of life that everyone will experience adversity at some level.  As a leader, your ability endure to the end depends on your ability to overcome.  There are many examples of “one and done” leaders who eventually broke under the pressure of adversity.  The resilient ones are the ones who carry on despite the scars.

Nathan Magnuson is a leadership consultant, coach, trainer and thought leader.  Receive his ebook Trusted Leadership Advisor by subscribing to his website or   follow him on Twitter.