I have embarked on a personal goal on improving my health and evaluating some poor habits that I have developed over the years.  A colleague and dear friend shared with me some thoughts from Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful.  In this book, he describes twenty habits that successful leaders need to shake.  My next series of blogs will reflect on each of them.

Habit #1 to stop is the need to win too much.  This is winning at all costs – even to the detriment of damaging relationships.  Sometimes the best way to win, is to lose.

My lesson came with the game Words with Friends (WWF).  I love it. But more than anything, I love to win.  I am constantly on the lookout for words to drop into my portfolio and crush my opponents — for example, zany words like zyme.  On a Jamaican vacation, one of the dishes that the local cook served us was akee.  I didn’t remember it because of the taste, I remembered it as a great WWF word.

I’m playing my favorite sister-in-law’s (FSIL) mother now.  She’s a seasoned lady just trying to keep her mind active.  I’m an overachieving baby-boomer that just doesn’t know when to pull up.

My eyes were opened after I made a super play using all my letters and getting over 100 points.  She texted to me, “Oh well, at least I’m having fun and keeping my mind active.”  My smart play seemed pretty dumb then.  After that, I was happy just making words like “cat” and “dog”.

The best word I played during one of our recent games was “alma”.  It is the Latin word for kind and happens to be her first name.  That was “a moment” – not because I was kind by pulling up on her, but because of her kindness to me and tolerating my arrogance.

As leaders, we often think we have to “get our way” in order to be successful.  Getting our way often comes with a cost to our followers.  Leadership Karma won’t tolerate that for too long.  The Leadership Gift comes from knowing when to give up and lose gracefully.  Therein lies that paradox for leadership success.