In this article, I discuss heroic leaders and their inevitable decline. How do we break the cycle of hero to zero? It may surprise you to learn that zero is where we should aspire to be throughout the day. Leaders who take a zero-based approach to their day experience a deeper connection with their human nature, leading to ever higher levels of performance
In mythology, heroes undertake remarkable journeys, overcoming the odds to achieve great success. But today you don’t have to look for heroes in ancient legend, simply open the business section of your newspaper and you’ll see modern-day heroes on display. They are leading our organisations, and if you believe what you read, they are essential to our collective success.
You’ll notice that newly appointed heroic leaders receive some very positive press. But you’ll also see hero leaders who, a few years into their role and after some initial promise, have failed and are on their way out. This cycle of hero to zero doesn’t favour one industry over another, or private versus public sector organisations. Wherever there is a hero, they inevitably fall back to zero. The only variable is how long the cycle takes, and this predictable pattern has been repeated for centuries.
Human beings can be very smart and capable. You’d imagine that with such intelligence, we would notice the hero to zero cycle and find a better way to create success that is more sustainable. But we are blind to it, even when pointed out in an article like this. We don’t change the status quo; we stick with the familiar and suffer the predictable consequences of the cycle. This costs us all, our families, businesses and society.
Why would we behave like this? What is the logic that makes this low performing behaviour so prevalent?
Breaking the cycle
If we want to interrupt this cycle, firstly we must understand it better.
To achieve anything in life, we must direct enough energy to the task. This is as true of getting out of bed in the morning as it is for leading an organisation. What we get right about starting our day is that we use the appropriate amount of energy for the task. We don’t boast, it’s just something we do and achieve consistent performance over time.
But something happens to us after our first successful act of the day, our ego fires up and we begin to see the world through its lens. And sometimes, when we have a challenging day ahead, this view can become inflated and grandiose – this is when the hero awakens.
Starting from zero
When we wake, we all start from zero and it is part of our human nature that we all achieve 100% success. No cleverness, being good or heroes are needed.
There is another interesting quality to our human nature. We have yet to find the limits of what it can do. What seemed impossible a few years ago is now the norm. And this has been true for all of time.
So, when we begin our day, we start from zero, spontaneously accessing part of us that is limitless to achieve a consistently high level of performance.
What happens if we continue with this idea of coming from zero and apply it throughout the day? What would it look like to be this way and how would the day play out?
Imagine your mind is like a whiteboard. Every day you get to write something on it and over the years you build up a great repository of notes about life, who you are and what you like. Each morning when your eyes open you can see a whiteboard filled with huge amounts of detail. Yet, there is only so much space on a whiteboard, and you’ve overwritten the original text many times, so much so that you’ve lost sense of the original words and now just see patterns where everything is merged. These patterns inform your ideas and behaviours, they shape your identity, your ego and bring the hero to life.
Now imagine you take a whiteboard eraser, and you clean away all the text, leaving you with a completely blank surface.
Instead of having to reference the old text and what it means, you start with a clean slate. This zero-based approach to your day means that you begin to access your intuition, know-how and spontaneity. You take actions based on how you see the world today. You rely on your human nature for how to act, and with a lifetime of experience you are more skilful today at working with your nature than at any other point in your life.
Zero limits to what we can achieve
The cycle of hero to zero is in everyday use, it’s low performing and creates noise and drama that we could all do without.
Leaders who take a zero-based approach to their day experience a deeper connection with their unlimited human nature, and they do so with more skill today than yesterday.
It takes maturity and humility to understand that your unlimited human nature is not earned, it is innate and with experience you can be more skilful in how you access it. This can lead to ever higher levels of performance and break the cycle of hero to zero that is so prevalent. This is change for the better.
Creating better leaders, better workplaces and maybe much more interesting business sections in our newspapers.