We have a saying here at my company: we like to see managers get “bloodied up a bit” before moving them into more prominent leadership roles. If we believe someone has management potential, we will intentionally put them in a situation where they will encounter extreme conflict, opposition, or just plain ambiguity (which in and of itself can be very stressful). Then we will watch closely to see how the manager candidate responds. How will they handle an impossible situation where there is no right or wrong answer, but a decision has to be made? How will they manage conflict and difficult personalities?  How will they weather through a thorny issue that may take a year or two to work its way through to resolution? Our hope is that the painful, difficult experiences will help mature the person in question, and that through the experience they will gain wisdom, as well as a measure of trust and respect from both the executives and their peers.

If you haven’t picked up on it by now, the reality of most business situations is that they are complicated. There are rarely cut and dry textbook answers to the dilemmas we face. None of us can predict the future or be precisely confident that every decision we make is the right one. Usually, you don’t know if you’ve made the right decision until weeks or months later.

Last year we took two young, strapping guys who were newly minted MBAs and threw them into the ring to see what they were made of. It was clear that these young men had strong leadership potential. But how best to make it shine? Then the perfect opportunity came up. It was almost providential. We had a small business that had been an utter mess over the past three years due to a combination of some bad decision-making on the part of the previous manager, along with some plain ol’ bad luck: regulatory issues, commodity market swings, equipment failures, that sort of thing.

“Well,” said I one day to the Chairman, rubbing my fingers together briskly, with an evil glint in my eye, “Why don’t we throw Don and Gary into this stink-hole? It would be a great experience for them to see if they can manage their way through a turnaround.” The Chairman leans back in his chair and gazes up at the ceiling for moment. A sly grin also appears on his face. “Yes,” he says, slowly, calculating. “Let’s see how they do when they actually have to live a case study rather than reading about it in theory. This will be much more effective than what they ever learned in their MBA classes.” Brilliant.

If these experiences don’t do you in, they usually provide an excellent opportunity to grow in maturity and stamina. It also allows the prospective manager to experience the practical realities of leadership, with all the messy employee issues and market chaos and unexpected crap hitting the fan. And we can’t really trust a manager to make major decisions or handle significant responsibilities without having observed them live through some of these situations, and eventually coming out the other side in tact. 

Some people have the stomach for it, and others don’t. You find out fairly quickly. I don’t know why the difficult, gut-wrenching experiences are so crucial, other than they somehow test us – our will, our strength – and humble us at the same time. And that’s how we grow in wisdom and confidence, I guess. Now, there’s a great combination for leaders: wisdom, confidence, and humility.

There’s a huge gap between those who can, and those who can not make that leap. We have plenty of people in our organization who are capable doers, skilled at many areas of business, but who can not seem to cross the line over into this vaguely defined level of maturity. One reason is their lack of willingness to simply take on responsibility for more and more things. And part of it too is their lack of ability to appreciate complexity. There are no easy answers, most of the time, and you don’t know if you’ve made a good decision until weeks or months later. Complexity and decision-making in business involves risk, and not everyone has the personal wherewithal for combining personal responsibility with risk. Yet risk-taking defines growth.

Don and Gary did a great job. It was hard at first, but I stayed close to them for the first few months, making sure they knew there was someone to lean on in case things got too hairy. Which they did. But gradually, as they saw the dynamics of navigating the failures and successes and all the in-between stuff, these guys gained confidence in their decision-making. They took more and more personal ownership over the business. Before long, the calls they made to me were not to ask my opinion on what to do, but to inform me of some bold decisions that they needed to make to ensure the turnaround. It was great to watch this transformation. Eighteen months after they started, the business is now solid, stable and more profitable than it has ever been. And I had very little to do with it.

The other day Don thanked me. He said this was the best experience of his career and he wouldn’t have traded anything for it. Did these guys feel like they got a little beat up along the way? Sure.

Welcome to the club.