In 1996, I became a manager for the first time. I was ambitious. Hungry for a result. I wanted to prove myself.
My boss at the time said something that I remember to this day:
“- You have three tasks as a manager.”
“- Develop the business.”
“- Develop people.”
“- Develop yourself.”
“- Just do it in reverse order.”
I was surprised. After all, business was supposed to come first.
After which he added:
“If you do not master yourself, how is your team supposed to work well?”
“- If your team is weak, how is the business supposed to have good results?”
At the time, I did not yet fully understand that this was not an operational council. It was a leadership lesson. And over the years, I’ve seen how this reverse order works – or how its absence destroys teams.
1. CRITICAL THINKING – think before you act
A leader thinks first. If he doesn’t separate fact from opinion, if he can’t see cause and effect, if he can’t foresee scenarios – his every action will be just a movement. Not a decision.The team can forgive delay. It will not forgive decision-making chaos.
Lack of critical thinking makes a leader:
– reacts instead of leading,
– escalates emotions instead of organizing them,
– makes decisions under pressure, not facts.
First the thinking. Then movement. The opposite ends up being costly.
2. SELF-ORGANIZATION – if the leader is the bottleneck, business will not go.
A leader who is distracted, perpetually busy, putting out fires – quickly becomes a bottleneck for the team. The point is not to work more. It’s about working sequentially, consciously, and without unnecessary movement. If:
– you can’t finish,
– you postpone decisions,
– you let the calendar manage you,
it’s the team that will wait. And waiting kills dynamics. A leader should be like a samurai – zero unnecessary movements. Not like a windmill that spins without effect.
3. SELF-MOTIVATION – drive must be in the middle
The team can sense very quickly whether the leader has energy or just a position. If you:
– you let go,
– you say “we’ll see” instead of “we do”,
– you extinguish enthusiasm instead of sustaining it,
you will not build commitment. A leader cannot depend on mood. It must have a self-charging drive. It is the ability to find meaning in monotonous tasks, to act despite fatigue, to maintain direction despite a drop in emotions. Because if you don’t believe it, the team won’t believe it either.
4. ANTIFRAGILITY – the highway is a luxury. The leader rides off-road.
Pressure, conflict, failure, resistance, criticism – these are not exceptions. This is a leader’s work environment.
– if every stumble weakens you,
– if every conflict precipitates you,
– if stress takes away your clarity –
the team will start looking for stability elsewhere.
Antifragility is more than resilience.
It is the ability to strengthen oneself through difficulty.
Leader does not work on the highway. It can’t be cruise control.
It works off-road . Often bumpy.
Without one of these, the structure begins to crack.
Some prefer to read.
Others prefer to train.
In practice, we work on tools such as 3 Cameras, Final Countdown, Kintsugi, Baseball Game and the SIC model, among others. Each of these was created not to sound interesting, but to work under pressure.
Because leadership does not develop in comfortable conditions. These four pillars can be developed. Systematically. Methodologically. Under conditions that simulate real pressure.