Are you ‘tough’ enough at work?

In the realm of executive coaching, professionals have collaborated with leaders from prestigious organizations such as Apple, Nike, eBay, Hewlett Packard, and General Motors, as well as burgeoning companies like DoorDash, MasterClass, Fivetran, and Remitly. These coaches have discovered that exceptional businesses are built by tough leaders.

However, the concept of toughness is often misunderstood. According to the authors' definition, toughness is the readiness to commit to a mission, maintain strength during adversities, and encourage others towards excellence. This resilience is not about invulnerability but rather staying true to one's values amidst market fluctuations, persisting through failures, and resisting the temptation to retreat into excuses.

Toughness is a combination of innate abilities and teachable attitudes, such as mental fortitude, willingness to challenge norms, boldness, conviction, urgency, obsession, resilience, presence, and pain endurance. It also encompasses interpersonal skills like conflict resolution, expressing difficult emotions, providing constructive feedback, enforcing high standards, persevering through accountability conversations, and motivating others to excel.

It's crucial to distinguish toughness from macho posturing, bullying, emotional suppression, humiliation, threats, cruelty, or personal attacks. Such behaviors, which undermine standards and serve the leader's ego, represent fake toughness rather than authentic leadership. True toughness often entails enduring short-term reputational losses by enforcing non-negotiable standards.

For instance, when Gwen Whiting founded The Laundress, she maintained high-end brand standards by canceling sales orders to non-luxury retailers and rejecting misaligned labels. Her stringent measures were initially met with resistance, but after Unilever's acquisition and a subsequent product recall due to weakened standards, Whiting's colleagues acknowledged the importance of her approach.

The authors have identified seven habits that characterize true toughness in leadership. To be considered Tough Enough, one must cultivate these habits: Live Your Manifesto; Make Your Pursuit Relentless; Assemble a Cult of Incredibles; Harness Emotional Thunder; Fiercely Pursue the Truth; Build Your Accountability Stack; and Adopt Warfare Tactics.

These habits are interconnected, with later habits building upon earlier ones. By understanding and deliberately enhancing each habit, individuals can become tougher and more effective leaders. Comfort is detrimental to toughness, as it encourages complacency and undermines the pursuit of excellence. True tough leaders are willing to admit mistakes, provide specific and respectful feedback, engage in constructive disagreements, and make difficult decisions like terminating underperforming team members.

Comfort-driven leaders, on the other hand, tend to offer vague praise, avoid confrontation, and delay tough decisions. The authors emphasize that toughness is not merely a skill to be acquired but a system designed to help leaders master themselves and their teams, preparing them to handle high-stakes challenges that differentiate average leaders from exceptional ones.