Having Grit - An Important Leadership Attribute

Some people naturally have grit and others have to develop it themselves, but everyone needs it!  Grit is the ability to keep going when the going gets tough.  The ability to suceed in the face of adversity.  Grit is a recipe and foundation for success.  Here we discuss a few tips on how you can add grit to your list of character attributes!

Your HR Problem Solver host is Mark Mitford, a strategic HR leader who is business and HR focused.  Mark is a management team advisor with 20+ years working as an HR executive in mid-size to Fortune 50 companies. He brings in depth, hands on experience successfully leading and advising company and business leaders through all life cycle stages.  Mark is viewed as a key advisor to C-Level Executives and has strengths in Improving Company Culture, Performance Management, Compensation Benchmarking, Employee Engagement, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Coaching, Succession Planning and Mergers and Acquisitions.
 
During his career, Mark has successfully held HR executive positions in companies such as PepsiCo, Ericsson, Nortel, Telmar, Texas Instruments and Safeco.  Mark has also worked for private equity backed organizations, S Corporations, and publicly traded firms and has lived and worked extensively overseas.  He has led several Enterprise wide transformations including Cultural Change and IT transformational change at Fortune 500 companies. He holds two Masters’ degrees, one in Organizational Psychology, and an MBA in Strategy and International Management.   

In 2013, Mark transitioned from a Corporate HR career to start his own HR Strategic consulting company, HR Catalyst Consulting with the goal of helping small to mid-market companies in growth or change and in need of Human Capital leadership to drive their continued growth and success.  You can reach us through our website – hrcatalystconsulting.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, I'm Mark Mitford.
I spent 25 years working as ahigh level HR executive in
corporate America with manyfortune five hundreds and middle
market size companies.
If you're a small businessowner, CEO, or any other
professional, given the task ofsolving your company's HR
issues, then you're in the rightplace.
Today.
Our episode is gonna be focusedon a leadership attribute.

(00:23):
You don't really hear a lotabout its grit.
So when you think about it, it'sreally critical.
When you think about grit, it'sthe ability to succeed in the
face of adversity.
It's the ability to get up andkeep going.
One of the key things that Ifocus on is if anybody's ever
watched the original SylvesterStallone iconic movie called

(00:45):
Rocky, it has a great part inthere.
I wish I could do my Rockyvoice, but anyway, it talks
about focusing on ainspirational speech that Rocky
gives to somebody else.
Who's a boxer.
And the key thing is coming outof it.
It's really gotta go up.
And even though you get hit andyou get knocked down, you have
to keep getting up.

(01:06):
So for those of you who haven'tseen Rocky in a couple of years,
then go ahead and actually takea look at it.
It's a great movie.
I highly recommend it.
Grit is so important, especiallyin nowadays, we've gone through
so much.
This is being recorded in thesummer of 2022.
There has been a lot going onwithin the organization, within
the, within the economy, withincoming out of a pandemic, there

(01:31):
is just a lot going on.
Whereas leaders, businessowners, CEOs have had to show
grit.
It's one of those things thatyou really don't talk about too
much, but it's, you know, a lotof times you talk about here's
some great leadershipcompetencies or attributes,
grit.
Isn't one of them.
That's why I think it makes alot of sense to actually talk
through it today.

(01:51):
So what does grit look like?
Actually, it really focuses on acouple of different facets.
It's really one of those thingsthat's kind of from an abstract
perspective.
It really is interesting cuz youcan't define it, but use these
as kind of some definitions forgrit perseverance.
The first thing is grit ispersevering.

(02:12):
It's pushing through things,getting through, get when you're
knocked down, guess what you getback up.
And I think that's the epitomeof coming out of C a lot of
organizations, of course did notsurvive COVID and went out of
business.
But a lot of organizations wereable to persevere and show
perseverance.
So they actually made it throughthe COVID time and the pandemic

(02:38):
over the last few years, thenext one around grid is problem
solving.
It's amazing because going backto the pandemic, a lot of
organizations had to do thingsvery, very differently.
Many organizations rein inventedthemselves so that they could
actually survive and theyproblem solved through that

(02:58):
problem.
You know?
So you go back to, and a lot ofrestaurants are great examples.
Some restaurants who didn'tsurvive, they kept waiting and
waiting for people to come totheir restaurants.
And they had your traditionalmenu.
A lot of restaurants who didsurvive and thrived during that
time, they actually created thishuge takeout business.
And quite often then also justthe advent of curbside pickup.

(03:21):
So curbside contact list, pickupand delivery and things like
that.
So those organizations who didthat quickly in the first couple
of months of the pandemicprobably made it through if they
were a restaurant, otherorganizations didn't so they
just didn't problem solveenough.
And then the other big one isconfidence.
When you have confidence, it'samazing how many people they

(03:44):
have competence, but they do nothave confidence.
And I always go back to it's atwo prong approach to success.
You have to be confident, goodat what you do, but you also
have to be confident in knowingthat what you do is gonna be
successful.
And of course I'm realistic.
It doesn't mean everything thatyou touch is gonna be a raving
success.

(04:05):
Baseball players are a greatexample, right?
A baseball player who isconsidered extremely good and is
a star.
They bat about 300.
And for those of you, if youflip it upside down, that means
seven times out of 10, theyactually do not get on base.
And so you think about it onlythree times, or they actually
hit the ball successfully andget on base the rest of the

(04:28):
times they don't.
So that they're still confidentin the way that they swing and
they're batting mechanics andthings like that.
So one of the key things youhave to do is really increase
your grit.
A couple of things that you needto do to really boost your grit
and really boost it up and beable to take it to another level

(04:49):
is these couple of items let goof your failures.
It's amazing how many people inlife or in leadership roles or
wherever it is.
Doesn't matter if you're, if youmake, uh,$20,000 a year or you
make$200,000 a year, let go ofyour failures.
Some people dwell on something.

(05:09):
While I remember when I did thistwo years ago, that was two
years ago.
A lot of things have happenedthat you've done things well,
that you've had many moresuccesses than you have
failures.
So don't dwell on things thathaven't gone your way, because
you need to let go andsuccessful people let go of
those.
And they chalk it up to alearning experience.
What did I learn to make sure Ido not do that again?

(05:31):
Learn from your mistakes.
So that's the next one go, whichgoes along with failures.
What did you, if you made amistake own up to it, be a
hundred percent candid.
Do not try to make up someanswer or worst case lie about a
situation own up to your mistakeand then focus on what am I
going to do differently.

(05:51):
The next one is take it on thechin.
Kind of going back to our, uh,Rocky movie a couple minutes
ago, take it on the chin.
And we all mess up.
We all screw up things, but getover it don't dwell on it
because people, and I think weall know people in life, who
they dwell on things that didn'tgo well, whether it's six months

(06:11):
ago, two years ago or five yearsago, it's, you know, you can't
do that because the personalbaggage you're gonna carry with
you is gonna be huge.
And that's gonna only increaseyour stress level.
Always move forward.
Always be thinking the way, theway kids walk.
If any of you have any, uh, ayoung child, probably 10 months

(06:31):
old or 12 months old, the waythat they learn how to walk is
put one foot in front of theother and they stumble.
And sometimes they fall andsometimes they hit their chin
and they cry and they have abloody chin, but they get up and
guess what?
Every one of us figured out howto walk sooner or later in our
lives.
The next one we wanted to focuson in the final one is learn

(06:53):
from others.
We are not the smartest persons.
I know that constantly.
And I I'm reminded of that, eventhough I'm in my late fifties, I
know that I'm not the smartestperson in the room and don't act
like you're the smartest personin the room.
Learn from others, a personwho's been doing a job like
myself for over 30 years.
I can learn from somebodyyounger because they're really

(07:16):
good at technology.
I have two daughters in theirtwenties.
They can run circles around mefrom a technological
perspective.
So I could learn from them.
And I didn't think a year ago ortwo years ago that I would be
doing POS podcasts and guesswhat?
I'm doing podcasts now.
And this is something that Ilearned how to do, and hopefully
they are being successful andyou are enjoying the podcast

(07:36):
series we have out there.
So that's where I wanted tofinish up today is making sure
you have grit.
It doesn't matter if you are a,uh, manager in an office, an
individual contributor with acompany or you're the business
owner.
Having grit is one of thosethings.
That's going to give you arecipe for success, not only for
today, but also five or 10 yearsfrom now.

(07:59):
So thanks a lot.
That's about covers it fortoday.
Thanks for listening for allthings pertaining to HR.
Come visit our website,HRcatalystconsulting.com.
And don't forget to like us andsubscribe to our podcast until
next time.
This is Mark Mitford.
Thanks for listening.
Have a great day.