Posts Tagged ‘resilience’
One More Leadership Lesson from a Chilean Miner November 4 2011 one response
One of the greatest leadership feel good stories in recent memory ended just over a year ago when 33 Chilean copper miners were rescued from their mine 70 days after they were trapped inside. Their survival and rescue were triumphs of leadership, courage and ingenuity. While they were still underground, I wrote a post called What We Can Learn About Leadership from the Chilean Miners. It was one of the most read and commented upon posts I’ve written. There were three basic lessons in that article:
- Leaders share the role.
- Leaders leverage their gifts.
- Leaders keep the whole person in mind.
You might remember the story about the miner, Edison Pena, who ran three to six miles through the tunnels every day to keep himself sane and fit while trapped. Just a few weeks after the rescue, he came to the U.S. to run the New York City Marathon. He appeared on Letterman and sang Elvis songs (his favorite singer). It was a challenge, but he finished the race a few days later in under six hours.
As the New York Times reports, Edison is back in New York this year to run the marathon again. It’s been a tough year since the last race. The stress of captivity got to him and he dealt with through drinking and drugs. He checked himself in for help and feels like he’s back on track now. As he said in a brief press conference in New York this week, “I’m here despite the fact that I’ve fallen down to show that I’ve risen up.”
So, we have at least one more lesson in leadership from a Chilean miner. When we fall down, as we inevitably will, we can seek the help we need to get back up.
Good luck with the race this weekend Edison. I hope you beat last year’s time.
3 Things Resilient Leaders Do September 12 2011 7 responses
Watching the ceremonies on TV yesterday, I was struck by the beauty of the 9/11 memorial in New York. It’s a park built around the footprints of the World Trade Center towers and waterfalls flow into the footprints. Looking at the memorial, I was reminded of the first time I saw Ground Zero after the attacks. I had worked on Wall Street a block and a half from the WTC in the late 1980’s so I knew the area pretty well prior to the attacks. The Trade Center had been my subway stop in those days.
My first trip there after 9/11 was in the Fall of 2005. I had a client in the Wall Street area and flew from Dulles to Newark on an early morning flight and eventually caught the PATH train to go underneath the Hudson and into lower Manhattan. What I hadn’t realized when I booked the arrangements was that the PATH train station was at Ground Zero. As the train came out and up from under the river, it emerged into the foundation where one of the Towers had stood. My first view of the site was literally from the inside out. The view out the window was so unexpected, that it literally took my breath away. It almost overwhelmed me. I started looking around the train to see if anyone else was having a similar reaction.
No one was. It took me a few moments to realize why. These people who were on the train, reading their newspapers or listening to their music, were on another daily commute to their jobs. They took this trip everyday of the week. A lot of them had probably made the same trip prior to 9/11 and now, a few years later, they were back to doing what they do.
It hit me then how resilient human beings can be. I’ve thought a lot about that since then and have, in observing my own life and the lives of others, identified what I think are three characteristics of the kind of people who bounce back. Whether they’re bouncing back from a world changing tragedy or a common disappointment, here are some of the things I’ve noticed about resilient people and resilient leaders:
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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