Fellow Leaders,

I’ve always enjoyed being active—running, hiking, biking, strength-training and sports have been routines for me since I was young. But something changed about 10 years ago. I started to get plagued with injuries. I hurt my back, my neck, my calves, and several muscles and ligaments. Though I didn’t like it, I figured it was just a part of the aging process.

Eventually, because it was keeping me from the things I loved, I went to see a physical therapist for an intake session. His first question related to my activities (see above). But it was his second question that changed everything: what kind of stretching do you do?

I had always seen stretching as a waste of time—something that you did that delayed doing what you really wanted to do. I wanted to play basketball. Stretching delayed me from actually playing. I wanted to have a heavy lifting day. Stretching delayed me from starting my workout. You get the picture. Now back to the PT’s question: What kind of stretching do you do?

None.

The short version of my story is that I now go through a series of stretches three times a week and have done that for about 10 years. I hated it when I started. My flexibility was terrible. For instance, if I tried to touch my toes with my leg straight, I could barely get half way down my shin. Ten years later, I may not be able to get myself into a pretzel position, but I can reach my hand down to my wrist OVER the top of my shoe when I am on the floor stretching.

What I discovered is that stretching leads to flexibility and flexibility leads to the near-elimination of the injures that were keeping me from doing what I really enjoy. There is no way to calculate how many injuries I have prevented by stretching and gaining flexibility, but there is no doubt that flexibility has had huge physical benefits.

Flexibility is also a key leadership trait. In fact, in the book The Complete Leader, Chapter 2.3 is specifically about this trait. (It’s in the broader section on “Leaders Lead Themselves.”) It will take five minutes to re-read. I encourage you to re-read that and then use the self-assessment tool in the back of the book to evaluate your current level of leadership flexibility.

Flexibility is defined in this way: the ability to change plans in response to current realities. It is vitally important in coaching. Every month when you meet with a coach, it is time to revisit both your plans AS WELL AS your current realities. Plans need to change because reality changes. Effective leaders are flexible leaders.

Now please don’t misunderstand me on this: flexible does not mean changeable or uncommitted. There are things on which you need to stay the course and remain steady. I like the way the book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership puts it: You need to know which hill you are willing to die on, but you can’t make every hill the hill you are willing to die on. In other words, there is a very narrow band of things you cannot be flexible about, but on most things, flexibility is essential for success.

Rodger has a great saying with our team at Leading by Design. He has used it often for team meetings. He has used this saying for agendas for your days with LEAD 365. “This is the plan…from which we will deviate”. We have a plan…and we need to be flexible. We need to be able to change plans in response to current realities.

Flexibility prevents injury to yourself, your team, and your vision. It may seem like it simply delays “doing what you really want to do”, but in the end it is exactly what keeps you out on the floor playing the sport you love, engaging in your favorite activities, or even accomplishing that vision.

Lead on (flexibly),
Jeff

Image by benjaminasmith. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 license.