The movie Sliding Doors demonstrates how chance events can have life changing consequences. It is an idea that Hollywood has been fascinated with ever since, with movies such as Serendipity and The Butterfly Effect being highly successful in the box office. These films have resonated with audiences because everyone can relate to them. We all experience “sliding doors” moments where the decisions or actions that we take have profound, often unpredictable, impacts on the rest of our working lives. The Chaos Theory article on pages 5 and 6 touches on the role that chance events have in shaping our career and it got me thinking about the role of serendipity in leadership.
Have you ever noticed that some leaders just appear to be “luckier” than others? Although chance events occur in everyone’s lives, things just work out for the “lucky leader”. Some of the latest research in Psychology identifies that one of the reasons for this is luck readiness. Luck ready leaders are flexible, optimistic, curious and persistent. They are confident taking risks and actively seek out opportunities to improve their chances of being successful. Although they believe and expect to have good luck, they do not believe that luck has to determine their personal destiny.
The book “Good to Great” provides another perspective on luck. It concludes that the best leaders in the world tend to ascribe the success of their businesses, in part, to luck. Such leaders resist the temptation to claim the credit for major successes, however they are quick to accept responsibility if things begin to go wrong. It appears that “Serendipity Happens” and some leaders capitalise on and cope with it better than others.
Are you a lucky leader? At the risk of sounding a tad self indulgent, I would suggest that people that read this newsletter, and others like it, are more likely to be lucky than those that do not. When reading this newsletter I encourage you to see this as a “Sliding Doors Moment”. The following pages contain a range of new ideas and different perspectives but it is up to you to find the one or more ideas that have the potential to make a real difference within your business or career. Happy reading and Good Luck!