We all have a capacity for greatness.
It means different things to different people. We have different skills and talents, and we start from different places. The ceiling is different for each of us.
But the ceiling is higher than we think, or can imagine.
The quiet tragedy is that most of us never find out how high it goes. We give in to pessimism, laziness or complacency, or we rest on our laurels.
Success, of course, means different things to different people, and that is fine. Life would be sad if everyone had to aspire to the same things. Success is deeply personal. It is not what society tells us it should be.
And it can be defined, and strived for, in every domain of life: personal growth, health, love, family, friendship, the spiritual and, yes, work, commerce and career. It is also our impact on the people around us and on the world. Our mark, and our contribution to the wellbeing of others: humans, animals, other beings.
It is closely bound up with personal responsibility, ownership, imagination, curiosity and drive. Across all of those domains.
Responsibility, in both directions
At work, I apply this to myself as a leader, and as a follower and doer.
Responsibility towards others, who trusted me to help them stand against the world and fend for our tribe, against all the change, uncertainty and external risk.
Responsibility towards myself: to grow, to realise my full potential, and not to waste the incredibly rare and precious gift of being a free, capable, intelligent and conscious human, able to grow and to determine my own path.
That gift is incredibly rare in the animal kingdom, and possibly in the universe. Not every human, in every epoch, could say the same. In fact, relatively few ever could.
Responsibility grows in circles
Responsibility, and our impact, grow outwards in concentric circles.
At work, some of our tasks are (hopefully) well defined and immediate. We have a choice. We can push further, or we can do the absolute minimum and find excuses, more or less plausible, to do less, and never more than we are directly asked.
That choice shapes us. It forms habits, and over time it determines our impact with exponential force. In life and at work. Call it life and professional karma.
As workers, employees, team members and followers, we can always do more, look further and take wider responsibility. We can grow our understanding of what responsibility actually means.
Doing more does not mean working more hours. Long hours spent on the minimum are still the minimum. More means more ownership, more imagination and more care about the outcome. It means thinking about the problem behind the task, not only the task.
As we look further and broader, and use more imagination, our impact grows in both reach and depth.
The innermost circle is my own work: my tasks for today, this week, this month. The next circle out is helping my team succeed and growing our importance within the company, making me and my colleagues more successful and more secure in our jobs and our financial future. Further still is helping our company or organisation navigate the uncertainty, anticipate risks and navigate around them, and ensure our survival and growth as a tribe.
Like a team of Navy SEALs, or a band of prehistoric humans hunting a mammoth. No single person can do it alone. Everyone has to give their best. Together they are invincible.
You start from your own circle. You use your knowledge and imagination to reach further out. You spot trends and risks. You identify your own gaps and work to close them with new skills and knowledge. You build good habits and strengthen your character.
Then you think back to your own area of responsibility. What else could you do to navigate around the obstacles and reach higher, for a greater prize? Are we focusing on the right thing? Should we expand it? Should we shift it?
You are never satisfied with the minimum. You push yourself, and you inspire others to do more. To go the extra mile.
You become more impactful and influential, more respected and more appreciated in your company.
And your company becomes more successful too, especially if others share the same ethic and personal responsibility becomes part of your culture.
Or not. If your growth and influence scare your superiors, you are definitely in the wrong place, and you need to get out as soon as you can. There is no place in life for toxicity and limiting beliefs, your own or those of the people around you.
A different stick for leaders
For leaders, this responsibility is far greater. As a leader you are responsible for all your people. You are entrusted with their success, and your impact on the success of your company is exponentially greater.
You need to measure yourself with a different stick.
And if you lead a public institution, the stick is different again. When patients depend on you doing your job well for their health, and sometimes for their lives, responsibility is on an entirely different level. You answer not only to your people and your board, but to every patient and every family who trusts that the system behind their care works, and to the public who pays for it. Complacency there is not a missed target. It is harm.
For you, complacency and narrow-mindedness are not an option. Otherwise you are in the wrong job, unable and unfit to lead.
If you don't have a growth mindset and an open mind, if you are not hungry for more and not demanding more of yourself and your followers (in a compassionate and inspiring way), you are taking the place of someone who would do your job better.
You are letting others down. You are an impostor.
But you can be a great leader. It is all a matter of attitude, beliefs and commitment. It is a matter of personal responsibility.
You are responsible for every person in your company, department or team. You need to give them clarity, meaningful work and the right tools, and create a supportive environment where they can do their best work. Above all, you need to inspire them to want to achieve more, to grow, and to take personal responsibility.
You need to make sure that every ounce of their life energy, and as much as possible of the precious time they spend at work, goes into meaningful outcomes and is not wasted.
That is not about extracting more from people. It is about respecting what they give. Their time on this planet is finite, and they spend a large part of it with you. Wasting it on unclear priorities, broken tools and pointless work is a failure of leadership.
And you need to grow them in the process, into better workers and better humans.
This is how you build a strong, winning culture, one that can withstand whatever the future throws at you.
Including the dramatic changes brought by the rise of AI.
The human edge
The best way to secure our relevance and our future careers in the era of AI is to cultivate our uniquely human qualities.
The qualities that have made the human race so successful through the ages: drive, curiosity, imagination, judgement, taste and, yes, personal responsibility.
I am exploring these ideas in more depth in a series, starting with Your ceiling is higher than you think.