Within
moments of his 2013 Wimbledon victory, making him the first British man to win that
fabled competition in 77 years, Andy Murray gave a media interview that seemed
almost as grueling as the match itself. When asked what had changed in the time
since his heart-wrenching and emotional defeat on that same court the year
before, Murray responded without hesitation. Out of breath and clearly
exhausted, the new champion answered by saying that over the past twelve months
he had: a) learned from his mistakes, b) worked extremely hard, and c)
surrounded himself by a top-notch team.
I
suspect that the very last thing on Andy Murray’s mind that July day was
teaching the world about effective leadership, but that is exactly what he did.
His tripartite prescription: learn from your mistakes, work hard, and surround
yourself with a first-rate team is, in fact, a formula for all who strive to be
successful leaders.
Learn From Your Mistakes
The
best leaders are thoughtful leaders; they understand the benefit of quiet
reflection as part of their work. The essential Jewish teaching of teshuva (repentance) suggests that each
of us has the capacity for heshbon
hanefesh (self-evaluation) and can learn from our errors. Judaism has never
insisted that we are imprisoned by our past actions. Rather, our sources
suggest that if we acknowledge our mistakes, we can move beyond them.
Individuals who are too quick to overlook their failures, insisting that they
are anomalous and have nothing of value to teach, or those who seek to blame
others for their shortcomings, are incapable of effective leadership. Absent a
willingness to deal head on with yesterday’s mistakes, to learn from them, and
to improve, one cannot expect a different tomorrow.
Work Hard
The
Talmud (Megillah 6b) says it best:
“If a man says to you, I have labored and not found, do not believe him. If he
says I have not labored but still have found, do not believe him. Only if he says,
I have labored and I have found may you believe him.” What Andy Murray knew,
and what effective leaders understand, is that there is no substitute for hard
work. The privilege that often comes with power can be alluring. But no leader
can succeed by sitting back and coasting or by phoning it in. No one is that
good to be able to get by on natural talent or past performance alone. Leadership
is difficult and painstaking. Defeat and setback come with the territory. No
experienced leader hopes for instant results. Patience, tenacity and
steadfastness are the necessary ingredients. Success will come but there are no
magic bullets or quick fixes.
Surround Yourself with A Great Team
As Ram
Charan and Larry Bossidy make clear in their work Execution, great leaders get things done through other people. The
very idea of a stand-alone leader, without followers, is an absurdity. In the
twenty first century, no single individual, however talented or brilliant, can
know enough or do enough to succeed solo. Murray, on what was arguably ‘his’
day, was quick to acknowledge what the best leaders have always known: his success
was not his alone. In the wonderful book, Outliers,
Malcolm Gladwell argues that even the most accomplished individuals are the
products of elaborate nexuses:
“… In order to understand the outlier I think
you have to look around them—at their culture and community and family and
generation. We've been looking at tall trees, and I think we should have been
looking at the forest.”
In a Midrash
(Tanhuma, Beshalach), God reminds the
greatest Jewish leader, Moses, of the same thing. His success as a leader, God
tells Moses, can only be explained in the context of his team – the Israelites
who left Egypt. ”… In their merit I have elevated you, and because of them you
will find … honor before Me.”
It is
unlikely that any of us will play tennis like Andy Murray. But we who aspire to
lead have much to learn from that 26-year-old Scotsman who in the aftermath of
the biggest victory of his life offered a simple yet eloquent paean to the
value of learning from our mistakes, working hard, and surrounding ourselves by
a great team.
