Leaders and excuses

Excuse is the tombstone of excellence, the incinerator of talents, the furnace of creativity and the cemetery of greatness. It is the avenue for replacing the acme with the nadir, trading the sublime for the ridiculous and exchanging the exceptional for the pedestrian. Excuse is letting an ah-ah moment turn into an oh-no situation. It is turning a could-have-been situation to something that never was.

An excuse is an explanation for failing to effect a change or missing a target. It is a justification for why something is the way it is, and not the way it should be. More often than not, it involves putting the blame for not doing the expected on somebody else or an extraneous factor. An excuse is an alibi for shirking responsibility; it is a vehicle for unloading on another person’s doorstep what should have been on one’s shoulders. It is the chosen haven for those who have forsaken their paradise. Hence, those who make excuses hardly ever make anything else.

Leaders who want to go far never allow excuses either from themselves or those who work with them because the excuses that are allowed are indicative of the height one can aim for. Nobody can rise above the excuses he permits. The fewer the excuses one makes, the higher one can go. In the same vein, the more the excuses permitted, the closer to the ground one remains. Finding an excuse not to do a thing is one of the easiest things in the world because excuses abound everywhere; no one needs to look too far to get one.

But as observed by Jim Rohn, “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.” So, the slogan of forward looking leaders is, ‘get it done or get out of the way.’ Great leaders do not make excuses for non-performance, they make things happen in spite of obvious difficulties or limitations.

 

Temptation of excuse

The temptation of excuse is its convenience. Majority of the people of the world revel in giving excuses, therefore joining the majority in explaining why a thing cannot be done is much easier than finding a way to get it done. Thus, it is more convenient to make excuses than to exact oneself to get the desired result. It is easier to blame the economy for posting a poor result than to rise above the situation to get the desired result because many companies are in the same rut. It is more appealing to blame the situation than to circumvent it because that is what the majority does. Because everyone around does it, it is quite tempting to belong to the crowd than to stand out.

Making excuses is also tempting because it is easier to stay within one’s comfort zone and maintain the current result than to try something new and get one’s fingers burnt. Many people would rather stick with what they know than to try something new which they are not sure how it will turn out. So, it is always convenient to make excuses in the comfort zone.

 

Roger Bannister’s feat

Roger Bannister finished fourth in the 1500 meter race in the 1952 Olympics, thus missing a medal. He was disappointed in himself because everybody had thought that he would end up with a medal. But instead of comforting himself with the fact that the majority of those who participated in the games returned home without a medal, he set for himself the target of being the first human being to finish the one-mile race under four minutes. For over four thousand years, no human being had been able to achieve the feat. Many had taken tiger milk and other performance-enhancing drinks and food but the harder they tried, the more they failed. In spite of his knowledge of this, Banister, then an Oxford University medical student, resolved to accomplish the seeming daunting task.

On May 6, 1954, at Iffley Road track in Oxford, Bannister achieved his aim when he was able to finish the race in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds, becoming the first human being to complete the mile race in less than four minutes. Bannister later rose to become a distinguished neurosurgeon.

But the interesting thing about his feat is that in less than two months after he completed the four-minute mile race, two other people achieved the same feat. Since then, thousands of athletes have been able to complete the race in less than four minutes with even some of them making it in 3 minutes 47 seconds. This was something nobody was able to accomplish in 4,000 years.

The import of this is that all those who could have made an attempt to break the jinx hid under the excuse that nobody had been able to achieve it. This excuse drained them of the motivation and inspiration required to achieve their aim. Aligning with the majority in many issues provides a shield that makes looking for an excuse attractive. Those who want to make a mark, not excuses, look away from the majority more often than not.

 

How to avoid the trap of excuses

The following are steps that can be taken to avoid making excuses a way of life.

 

Have a priority list

One thing a leader must come to terms with is that he cannot do everything. A leader who wants to do everything by himself will end up not doing the most important things. It is doing the important things, not getting bogged down by issues that could be handled routinely, that makes a leader. This is why a leader must keep his goals and vision in view at all times. These will show him what it is that he needs to do to achieve the target he has set for himself.

At any point in time, a leader must not be confused about what it is that he has to do. Once this is clear, he can delegate other things so that he will focus on what it is that only he can handle. Failure to either recognize what he has to do or taking on what he ought to allow others to handle will result in the leader making excuses for not getting things done. Living beyond excuses starts with the leader staying on what is important and allowing others to handle what could be delegated.

 

Develop iron-like resolve

It is conviction that sets a leader on a journey, but it is resolve that keeps him on the journey. Without resolve, making excuses will become a way of life. A leader must determine ab initio if the task or activity is important enough to get his attention. Once that issue is cleared, he must also develop the necessary resolve that will keep him on the go, irrespective of what happens along the way. Most of the time, whether a task will get abandoned or accomplished is a matter of the resolve that is behind it. The strength of resolve is the weakness of excuses. Conversely, the weakness of resolve fuels excuses. Therefore, a leader must ensure that he is strong on resolve concerning issues that are important to his leadership so as not to get stuck in the excuse rut.

 

Don’t over-promise

It is always better to under promise than to over promise. While it is not advisable to set unchallenging goals, over promising brings the leader under avoidable pressure that may force him to miss on set target and end up making excuses for non-performance or lackluster performance. It is always good to under-promise even when you are sure of performing better than the set target, this allows for a breather. There is no harm in exceeding set target but hitting below the target is never without its consequences.

 

Have an excuse audit

A leader must always have an excuse audit. This will afford him to know what excuses are coming up for non-performance and also to determine if there is a pattern. An organization is a chain and a chain is only as strong as its weakest point. So, a leader must guard against losing what is gained in a section or department to the excuses of non-performance in other departments. An excuse audit will enable the leader to eliminate people’s excuses for failure. It will also help him to distinguish performers from non-performers. It may also help him in reassigning responsibilities and resources. Every leader must always conduct excuse audit as a way of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the organization.

 

Last line

One common denominator of great leaders is that they never pick an excuse even if they find one.