Balancing Grit and Grace in Times of Chaos | San Francisco

About this event

According to most traditional leadership metrics, it’s good to be “gritty.” From its Latin root lethin, leadership literally means ‘to make things happen’ – great leaders know how to get things done. Having grit is also about making things happen. People with grit persist longer at their important goals, are less likely to be thwarted by obstacles and are more likely to achieve them. Hence our obvious fascination with grit in the professional world.

But what if there are some moments when the traditional rules of leadership simply don’t apply? What if there are moments when having grit is actually not the best leadership approach?

In these strange and unprecedented times, many leaders in business are being forced to slow down, to take a step back, to be even more strategic, and to rely on something other than grit to succeed. In fact, even if you work in an industry where the pace of work is currently speeding up, you may still be finding yourself so exhausted that you’re no longer able to rely on your sheer force-of-will in order to get things done.

In this session, we will take a look at an alternative to grit – grace. We will now explore what it means in a leadership context, how to cultivate it, and why it’s such a critical ingredient for both our success and our sanity in these uncertain times.