As an ON Point leader, one must model Grace Under Fire. This is a critical skill and it also happens to be the first chapter in my book, “ON Point.”
First of all, let’s talk about what grace under fire means. It’s staying calm, cool, and collected under extremely stressful situations. Whether you’re a youth coach, CEO, director, manager, or parent, you will experience stressful situations where you need to model grace while under fire. Stressful situations will look different for everyone and it’s worth taking a look at a few situations I have faced or my clients have faced where it was necessary to have this skill: losing a million dollar client, experiencing a losing season, losing players who are transferring, attacked by the media, reading negative comments about yourself on social media, or a youth coach who has to deal with entitled parents.
Do you have the ability to control your emotions and show grace in these situations?
Here are the 3 attributes one must have to show Grace Under Fire:
1) Confidence.
Confidence comes from wisdom, knowledge, and experiencing a tremendous amount of success throughout your career. Success gives us confidence and a strong belief in our decision making. Experience is critical in the ability to make decisions with confidence and certain you’re making decisions for all the right reasons. Practice, preparation, and having routines will give us all confidence in what we do.
2) Courage.
Courage means doing something you have self-doubt about. We often doubt ourselves and our decisions – courage gives us the strength to believe. Always remember your “Why”, your passion and purpose. Remember why you do what you do. You’re the On Point leader, it’s your responsibility to walk into the fire on a daily basis – that takes courage. As the leader, take responsibility for the losses and give credit to others and your team for the wins. As a leader, there are many times you will need to show public grace while under fire. There’s a reason you are sitting in that chair, believe in yourself and courage.
3) Resilience.
Never give up and develop a thick skin. Get back up when you get knocked down. Brush yourself off and move on. We all experience stressful situations and some live them everyday in our personal or professional lives. Leading with grace under fire is finding the inner strength and courage to rise above the chaos and the critics.
When under fire, stay calm, be confidence and your pull from your inner strength. Always take the high road and accept responsibility. All eyes are on you, at all times. As an On Point leader, having grace while under fire is an art, a skill and it separates the good leaders from the extraordinary ones..
