Leadership Traits:
Justice, Judgement, Dependability, Initiative, Decisiveness, Tact, Integrity (previously addressed), Endurance, Bearing, Unselfishness, Courage, Knowledge, Loyalty, and Enthusiasm.
Our heroes may be fictional, or in the other room, but they all share qualities we admire. One of those is endurance.
What separates a job being done, despite duress caused by evolving priorities, a moving target, and an unproven timeline, is endurance.
Once in a leadership role, gone are the days of sobbing until pity arrives to relieve you. If something must get done, it must get done, even without the proper resources or best situation. A leader will do what is needed to accomplish the task.
It takes mental and physical stamina to deliver what cannot be left to others. A good leader will ensure he/she is well rested, healthy, and exercising to raise endurance and reduce stress.
Imagine a hero in battle: wounded, weak, outnumbered. The fighting continues until victory is won, or the ultimate price is paid.
These heroes are all around us in some degree or another. Whoever puts a bicycle together at two a.m. Christmas morning so it will be assembled when the children wake -- endures. The person who changes your flat tire, at night, on the side of the road, in the rain -- endures. The parents who work two or three jobs to provide for their family -- endure. Let's not forget the caregivers, who battle compassion fatigue to continually provide the assistance that must be rendered.
Endurance wins races, battles, campaigns; it separates the winner from the also-ran.
Searching for an apt quote I have discovered too many to choose the best. This speech from Henry V, as written by William Shakespeare has always been an example of endurance to me. The English were outnumbered two to one by the French at the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years' War on St. Crispin's Day. Harry, King Henry V, rallied his men with a powerful speech which sent them "once more into the breach".
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words—
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester--
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
