Shorten Your Stride

Watching “McFarland, USA” recently (which I highly recommend) took me back to my own days as a cross country runner. The movie tells the story of a high school coach (Kevin Costner) who is determined to turn a group of migrant farmers’ kids into champion athletes and to give them a better future. In one scene, Costner has his team do an intense workout on hills. As they run up the hills, he instructs them to shorten their stride. It’s good advice for runners and for leaders. Leading is a lot more like a cross country race than running on a track. The track is a smooth, flat, predictable surface. Cross country is anything but that. Hills and unexpected turns are guaranteed. Running up those hills is never fun. They force the runner to slow down and change his stride. But the hills can be an advantage for the one who is prepared. As a leader, what do you do when you encounter a hill? It might be the resignation of a key staff member, or unexpected resistance from your board, or the failure of a major initiative. Do you try to press ahead at full speed? Let me offer some advice. Shorten your stride and pump your arms. “Shorten your stride” means slowing down in order to get up that hill. You can’t keep doing all the things that you have been doing when you’re dealing with a major obstacle. You can shorten your stride by extending the deadline for a project or asking someone else to preach. The alternative to shortening your stride is to push yourself to the brink of collapse, or spread yourself so thin that the quality of everything that you do suffers. Spectators might think that runners only use their legs. But nowhere are a runner’s arms more important than going uphill. “Pumping their arms” gives them a little extra boost to get to the top. In leadership, those other parts of your “body” are the members of your team. They can be the “arms” that help you get up the hill that you’re facing. Cross-country runners don’t arrive at a race wondering if there will be hills. They just want to know the size and number of hills. You should have the same expectation. What will you do the next time that you face a hill? It’s easy to receive my blogs by email. Just sign-up on Feedburner by clicking here.]]>