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A few years ago, I was witness to a real life drama on an
African plateau. We had been riding
in our Range Rover looking for a glimpse of the big cats, when our guide-driver
suddenly jammed on the brakes. His trained eye had found a sleek lioness
crouched in a tangle of bushes. She was obviously on the stalk, but the prey
remained invisible. Thus far on my five-week trip to the country of Zimbabwe,
the only big cats I had seen had been content to lie lazily and comfortably in
the sun. My adrenaline was pumping,
knowing that I would finally get to see some real life action. As the Rover eased forward, the object of the lioness’
dinner plans came into view—a mother giraffe and her baby (six feet tall but
only a couple of months old). We held our breaths as we watched the drama
unfold. I was so captivated that I forgot I was on a photo safari! After about 30 minutes, the lioness made her move, and
suddenly the brush was a cacophony of crashing bodies and thundering hooves. The
good news for the potential victims: the lioness came up empty handed, and momma
giraffe and baby escaped for another day of grazing in the treetops. I asked our guide why the lioness had waited so long to
spring her trap. It seemed to me that she had hesitated too long to make her
move. My guide explained that while
it would appear that lions have a major advantage in such encounters, they know
that one swift kick from those strong hooves can break their mighty jaws,
leading eventually to starvation and death. Recently as I re-read my diary from my trip, I reflected on
what lesson this encounter might have from a leadership perspective. I recalled
the following old Chinese saying: Better
to live one day as a lion than a dozen years as a sheep. There is nothing inherently wrong with living one’s life
as comfortably as possible, but growth, both personal and professional, comes
only when a person is willing to risk going outside her comfort zone. Risk taking, though, doesn’t mean that you have to a take
a blind leap into the unknown; that’s foolhardiness. As poet Anais Nin writes,
“You life shrinks or expands in direct
proportion to your amount of courage.” Only
a bold approach can produce real results quickly. The Zimbabwean lioness knew she could not feed her cubs
by remaining in the comfort zone of her sunny lair. But she also knew that a
blind leap into those powerful hooves could result in disaster from which
neither she nor her dependents would recover. Thus she chose to be both
calculating and courageous: taking a bold action, but one tempered by experience
and sound judgment. On this particular African sunny day, the lioness fell
short of her goal. But she had stepped outside her comfort zone, confident,
nonetheless, that she would ultimately achieve the results she sought. As all-time NCAA winner and UCLA basketball coach great
John Wooden says,” Do not let what you
can’t do interfere with what you can do.” We pretty much become how we
behave, so we may as well chose actions that result in higher performance and
greater productivity. Ask yourself this question: Isn’t it worth the risk if I
can take the bold initiatives to become more talented and skilled tomorrow than
I am today? When is the last time
anyone was motivated to follow a “Sheep King?” |
