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Pat Conroy: A Final Lesson For Leaders

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“I don't think you learn anything from winning. You just jump up and down, it's wonderful, it's fabulous, it's glorious. But losing - there's a deeper music in loss.”

That is author Pat Conroy speaking in an interview for his 2002 book, My Losing Season, about his time playing basketball at the Citadel, a military college in South Carolina. As the title implies the team did not prevail on the court but for Conroy it was an experience that steeled him for greater things.

As Conroy told Terry Gross on Fresh Air, “There really is something about losing that you have to figure out what you did wrong, you have to change the way you played, you have to look at yourself in a different sort of way. Losing seemed to prepare me for life -- bad reviews, my mother dying.”

Readers may know Conroy best for his book The Great Santini, which tells the story of Bull Meacham, a Marine fighter pilot who treats his wife and seven children as if they are under his command. While the book is fiction, in reality like much of Conroy’s work, the book is highly autobiographical.

Conroy suffered an abusive childhood which included physical beatings as well as the persistent fear which stemmed from physical terror as well as a sense of that he could not live up to father’s expectations. Losing therefore is a theme dear to Conroy.

While winning is great as Conroy says, it may not be the teacher that losing is. Few of us set out to lose but when we do fall short of our objectives the challenge becomes what to do next. Quitting may seem a reasonable option, and at times it may be the best move in the short run.

Still what to do next?

And here again is where Conroy offers good advice. “I had to listen to my voice. I had to find confidence by listening to me because I could not find it listening to [my coach]. Conroy later elaborated. “The voice was giving me good advice. This was a voice I could trust …” Conroy later labeled it “my writer's voice -- the one I listen to, the one that gives me good news, gives good advice, uses sound judgment.”

Leaders, too, need to follow their own inner voice. Call it an inner compass that is one part moralistic – pointing toward what it good – and another part motivation – stirring us to action. Taken as a whole such a compass stimulates a leader to persevere in times of hardship. A measure of a leader is how much he was able to overcome; the legacy of a leader is what he did to overcome the obstacles in the pursuit of his goals.

Good news is that when you succeed you develop something else: confidence. Anyone who aspires to lead other must generate the willingness to be autonomous as well as accountable. Being in that role for a while will test a leader and when she succeeds she will have accomplishments of which to be proud. That’s confidence.

Conroy’s life – overcoming an abusive father, becoming a successful author, and eventually reconciling with his father – is a testament to one man’s ability to overcome hardship due to his sense of resolve and belief in self.

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