In his research for his new book, Crucibles of Leadership, How to Learn From Experience to Become a Great Leader, Bob Thomas, executive director of the Institute for High Performance Business, made an interesting discovery. He learned that practice can trump talent, be it in business or the performing arts.
Talent matters, but the right combination of ambition, instruction and feedback can turn someone with modest talent into a serious competitor, Thomas discovered. The key lies in practicing as strenuously as you perform—and practicing while you perform.
Legendary musical artists interviewed for the book, including Eric Clapton and Paul Simon, offer personal perspectives on the concept of performance as practice. Essentially, these artists are so in touch with their music that even the smallest nuances and variations from a song as originally written and recorded, for better or worse, can be quite pronounced to their ear while on stage. And so, each performance is regarded as a practice session on a path to perfection.
This concept rings true for today’s business leaders, no matter what level of the organization they are at, according to Thomas. But more important than the willingness to continually learn on the job is the ability to recognize how one best learns from experience, particularly from times of adversity and challenge. Thus, the ability to learn from experience is the key to outstanding leadership.
Thomas’ book delves deeply into how people use these “crucibles” of experience to discover and exploit opportunities to learn.
“Most leaders don’t get very much feedback,” Thomas says. “They are often skeptical over whether someone is telling the truth or just trying to shield them from difficult news. For business professionals, feedback is critical, but they don’t often get what they need.”
So, it is up to each leader to develop a personal learning strategy to create a foundation of continuous improvement.
“I believe that effective leaders have an extraordinary ability to learn and have a hunger and ambition to change,” he said. “They are able to set aside what they know for something that works better, which is a really hard thing to do.”
He adds that Crucibles of Leadership provides instruction and guidance on how to develop a Personal Learning Strategy.
Thomas says that Tiger Woods is a perfect example of his practice-over-talent philosophy. Tiger is talented, yes, but it is said that he also practices more than any other golfer.
“High performers make no distinction between practice and performance,” said Thomas, whose book is being distributed to Accenture’s Leadership Development Program participants. “It is the ability to respond ‘in the moment’ that makes us great leaders.”
Thomas’ book also establishes an important new role for senior management in creating a depth of leadership talent—an essential characteristic of high-performance organizations, according to Accenture’s High Performance Business research.
To further illustrate the real potential of crucibles for leader development, Thomas studied two organizations on opposite ends of virtually any spectrum, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) and the Hells Angels, an outlaw motorcycle gang with chapters around the world.
For the Mormons, the most visible leadership crucible is a two-year missionary experience, while for the Hells Angels it takes the form of a motorcycle run, an event remarkable for its functional similarity to that of a missionary tour of duty, Thomas writes. In both instances, a crucible is a period of time in which important leadership and learning lessons can be achieved.
Thomas is the author of several books and articles on leadership, including Leading for a Lifetime in 2007.