The easy way is a cop out for leaders. I can succumb to taking the easy way. I let internal arguments be settled by what seems the easiest. At those moments, I have to realize that the hard thing is what a Leader of Character decides to do.
It is easier to:
- stay in my comfort zone.
- do what I think is right for me.
- stay quiet when others make poor choices.
- Work on my priorities instead of helping others.
- Tell people what to do instead of coaching them how to do it.
- Join in the gossip instead of changing the narrative to something productive.
When you have a choice between easy and hard choices, what choices do you make? Those choices will either bring you closer or further from your calling to be a Leader of Character. There is nothing easy about exercising character. But it is a leader’s Duty to choose the harder path.
Duty: Taking action based on your assigned tasks and moral obligations.
When reading stories about great leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Dietrich Bonnhoeffer, Margaret Thatcher, and other leaders, I never see them taking the easy way. They all saw their Duty and did it even when it was the harder choice.
Our day to day lives give us opportunities to choose the harder things. Everyday we have opportunities to choose between:
- Courage or comfort
- Humility or pride
- Integrity or hypocrisy
- Selflessness or selfishness
- Duty or unreliability
- Positivity or negativity
The more we choose the hard things in life, the more we grow and become the leader we are called to be at work and at home. Fulfilling our moral obligations is usually harder than what the average person chooses to do. But a Leader of Character is not willing to settle for being an average person.
Our workplaces, our homes, and our society need people who choose to do the hard things that others avoid. My hard thing today was to step out of my comfortable situation and make a difficult phone call.
What will your hard thing be today?
I want to encourage you to be the person you want to be by choosing the hard things in front of you. When you make that choice, you will be choosing a better version of yourself and a version of yourself that others will trust, believe in, and follow.
Question:
- How often has choosing the easier thing gotten you in trouble?
FINALLY!
Becoming a Leader of Character Audiobook is available on Audible. If you are an Audible user, then order it here:
You can also order on Spotify and Apple!
Audiobook sales have taken over for ebook sales. When we first published Becoming a Leader of Character in 2017, people were predicting ebooks were going to kill traditional hard copy print books.
That didn’t happen. In fact, print books’ percentage of sales are very similar to what they were in 2017 when we first published. What has changed is that audiobooks have eaten away at ebook sales.
Therefore, if you have been waiting on the audiobook version of Becoming a Leader of Character it is now here! You can get it on Spotify, Audible or any other major platform for audiobooks.
While you drive or workout, marinate your brains in theSix Habits of Character – Courage, Humility, Integrity, Selflessness, Duty, and Positivity.
Order now on your favorite platform:
Character Counts!
Dave
