Leadership Thought: Would You Rather Have Grit or Giftedness?

Dear Friends,

The other day I listened to a podcast where the speaker used the word “grit” in describing a key quality of successful people. I thought to myself that is a great word. It’s a core strength of leaders, and it often determines whether you will fail or succeed in life.

Angela Duckworth, a leading expert on grit, says that, “Grit is passion and sustained persistence applied toward long term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years and even decades.”

If you possess grit, you are the kind of person who has tenacity, and determination (nothing will keep you from achieving your goals). Grit will help you get up no matter how many times you get knocked down. Grit will overcome a lot of deficiencies in your life. You won’t always be the smartest and most gifted person in the world, but if you have grit, the chances are you will be successful for grittiness will almost always overcome giftedness.

You may possess exceptional talent, gifts, and ability, but without grit, others less talented and with less ability will pass you by. I used to tell my son, slow and steady wins the race. You may not be the first one out of the starting blocks, but life is not a sprint, but a marathon, and if you possess grit, you’ll eventually outdistance the seemingly more gifted in the race.

If you have grit, it means you will work a little harder, last a little longer, fight a little tougher, and in the end your grit will win over other’s giftedness. I would rather have a lot of grit with fewer gifts than a lot of gifts with little grit.

One has no farther to look than the Apostle Paul to find an example of one who possessed grit, and I believe it was this quality that made him the spiritual giant he was. He was steadfast, a great synonym for grit. He never quit or gave up. He never backed down no matter the challenge, and even when death stared him in the eye, death always blinked first. He writes to us, “My dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1  Corinthians 15: 58).

In relating challenges believers would face in the last days when they would come face to face the dangers of spiritual compromise, he exhorts his disciples “To stand firm and you will gain life.

Call it determination, endurance, steadfastness, or grit, we need this quality in our professional and spiritual lives. Like the banking commercial says, “Don’t leave home without it.”

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom

 

P.S. David Livingstone said it best. "I will go anywhere-provided it be forward."