Intellectual Perseverance
In my experience in leadership
positions, from what I have learned in leadership courses, and in watching good
leaders in action, I have seen that leaders must develop and possess certain,
key traits and knowledge. Among the more
important traits are integrity, character, humility, moral courage, and
perseverance. Through use and
development of the intellect, leaders acquire knowledge across a vast array of
topics, such as effective oral and written communications, interpersonal
relationships, technical and business expertise, planning and strategy, time
management, and a sense of where to focus their attention to achieve optimal
results. The article (Winners Never Quit (Except When They Do):
Reflections on Intellectual Perseverance, http://cct.biola.edu/blog/winners-never-quit/)
puts it this way: “Intellectual perseverance is an intellectual virtue. Such virtues are the intellectual character
traits of excellent thinkers. Such
virtues include intellectual humility, intellectual courage, open-mindedness,
fair mindedness, perseverance, and so on.”
The author also goes on to state that: “Perseverance is a better
predictor of academic success than standard indicators like raw intelligence.” In my own life, especially in my first Master’s
degree program, I found this to prove true: I harbor no illusions about my own
raw intelligence but my learned ability to persevere led ultimately to my success.
For those who would occupy leadership positions, the
development of these key traits and attainment of the knowledge to perform well
require intellectual perseverance. The
Foundation for Critical Thinking defines Intellectual Perseverance as: “Having a consciousness of the need to use
intellectual insight and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and
frustrations: firm adherence to rational principles despite the irrational
opposition of others; a sense of the need to struggle with confusion and
unsettled questions over an extended period of time to achieve deeper understanding
or insight” (Foundation For Critical Thinking, The Critical Thinking Community,
Valuable Intellectual Traits, http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/valuable-intellectual-traits/528).
Nothing
truly worthwhile ever comes easy. I have
certainly experienced obstacles and frustrations just in the completion of this
assignment. But, perseverance is the
ability to move forward, to make progress toward a goal, or to continue one’s
chosen course even in the face of harsh difficulties, resistance, frustration, or
fatigue. Merriam-Webster makes a noteworthy point in their definition of
perseverance: "Perseverance is required to perfect just about any
skill." (Merriam-Webster Dictionary application)
The
knowledge that leaders require comes about through continuous development of
the intellect. In other words, the
leader must remain in a state of continuous learning throughout his career. Intellect is “the faculty of reasoning and
understanding objectively, especially with regard to abstract or academic
matters” (Oxford Dictionaries, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/). The word Intellect imparts a
notion of sound knowledge, critical thinking, the ability to comprehend complex
concepts, and the ability to apply such concepts to the practice of leadership.
In the
movie Patton (1970), we see a General
who not only practiced perseverance, we also see a man who devoted a great deal
of his time to the study of history, particularly the historical details of
great military battles fought through the ages.
Patton was an intellectual, particularly in the study of his craft. At the Battle of El Guettar, where Patton’s
troops defeat the Germans, we hear George C. Scott, as Patton, exclaim, “Rommel…I
read your book!” Through intellectual
perseverance, General George S. Patton gained a host of knowledge about
military strategy and tactics; he also became intimately familiar with the
minds and the ideas of his adversaries to became one of the most successful
military leaders in World War II.
In a
Seminar given by Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s that I attended in 1991 in
Minneapolis-St. Paul, I heard Dr. Deming talk about “continuous
improvement”. At one point in the
proceedings, Dr. Deming stated, in reference to his Book Out of the Crisis (Deming, January 1, 1982), “a book is never finished,
for there is always more to be said and better ways of saying it”. Dr. Deming was certainly an intellectual who
persevered in teaching right up until his death in in December, 1993. He was also an extremely accomplished leader
and advisor who helped to re-build Japanese manufacturing following World War
II, using statistical process control techniques that American manufacturers
rejected at the time. Dr. Deming
persevered in the face of obstacles, resistance, frustration, and certainly
what proved to be irrational opposition in this Country, to the point where
America’s manufacturing firms embraced his techniques in the 1980s and those
same practices persist today.
In the final analysis, leaders require a well-developed intellect
because all leaders must make decisions.
Only through study, experience, and perseverance can a leader acquire
the mental faculties to make good decisions.
How else can you obtain the knowledge, and develop the criteria for
decision-making if not through diligent study, experience (even failure), and
practice; wrestling with difficult concepts to gain mastery of the skills required
of a leader? Intellectual perseverance
is indeed a fundamental requirement in the development of one’s leadership
ability. Albert Einstein once said “It’s
not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with the problem longer”. One more observation about perseverance that
I want to emphasize: the words “struggle”, “frustration” and “confusion”; and
the notion of overcoming these things.
Good leaders struggle, they are often frustrated, they can encounter
confusion, and they are frequently under stress when making decisions. Intellectual perseverance necessitates
practice dealing with stress, frustration, confusion, and to experience struggle. Through intellectual perseverance, one
becomes accustomed to the emotions that accompany these conditions and how to
rise above them.
When I
was a relatively junior Air Force Officer, I was responsible for the
acquisition of a specialized, largely hand-built single-seat aircraft. Occasionally we had to acquire a variant with
a back seat to use as a training aircraft.
One of these training aircraft was built under my watch and as it
proceeded through final assembly, we discovered a noticeable and unsightly gap
between the edge of the canopy and the cockpit sill. This was not a safety or even a performance
issue, it just looked bad and reflected poor quality workmanship. There was concern that the operational users
of this aircraft would not accept this flaw.
But to fix the issue would take literally thousands of man-hours and
cost the manufacturer a great deal of money.
I flew to Palmdale, California, where the aircraft was being assembled,
and had a look. I talked with company
management. I gathered as much data as I
could, and I came home to discuss the issue with my boss (a former pilot of
this particular aircraft). In the end,
my boss told me, “Dan, it’s up to you; you make the call.” I weighed the potential outcomes of the
choice that I had to make. It was not
easy picking up the phone, calling the company’s senior program manager, and
telling him that they must re-work this canopy to fix the problem. But after I announced my decision, that same
senior program manager said, “Dan, it’s the right call. We don’t want to deliver an inferior product,
and we’ll get to work on it right away.”
The thing that I learned that day is that people want a leader who will
make the difficult decisions, even (and especially) when the consequences are
significant. People generally understand
at least some of the stress associated with leadership; and people will not
respect an indecisive leader. Many times
during my career, I have had people pull me aside and say, “Thank you for
making a decision and providing direction; we don’t like not knowing which way
we are supposed to go.”
In
closing, I would suggest that to truly understand a subject, you must teach it. Superior leaders don’t simply lead; they also
mentor their junior people. This
benefits not only the mentoree, but it also further sharpens the leader’s
skill. Teaching is probably the best,
and most accurate indicator of mastery of a given skill or topic. Mentoring then, can also be seen as part of a
leader’s intellectual perseverance. As
students enrolled in Embry Riddle’s Master of Science in Leadership program, we
are leadership mentorees. We will
undoubtedly wrestle with difficult concepts and find frustration as we strive
to learn new material, encounter opposition (most often within our own minds)
in completing the work, and the questions that we are asked to answer may
remain unsettled within our minds for protracted periods. We will experience stress due to time and
other constraints, and maybe even self-doubt as we examine our own leadership
ideas, have those ideas challenged, and expand our knowledge. But we cannot quit. The experience and practice of intellectual
perseverance, developing this intellectual virtue, is critical to our becoming
lifelong leaders.
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