‘Patience - is it a virtue?!’

As a successful Leader and Entrepreneur, there is a vast amount of written material about your quickness to spot opportunities, your ability to make snap decisions, and your response to acting upon ‘gut feelings’ (as we have discussed previously). All of these are a critical part of your strengths in leading a corporation, a team and an idea.

Within your toolbox of skills and attributes there is also an extremely valuable tool called ‘patience’ which may not always be brought out to maximise its value. This is the balance to your quickness, and plays an equally important part of your success. Let’s focus on the importance of patience in your role as a Leader, particularly in relation to people.

Some quick questions to ascertain your patience in a normal environment
X How often do you give your undivided attention to someone?
X How understanding are you if someone does not ‘get the point’?
X If someone is not doing what you had intended, what is your normal course of action?
X How long will you wait for the right customer?
X How often do you change your goals?

Based on the answers, you can probably feel whether your approach life and work as a tortoise or hare! However, if you are more ‘hare’ like, have a think about why you are impatient with some people, (and/or yourself).

How much of it is about confidence? Are you confident in the person, are you confident in the right answer, and are you confident in your own ability? Or are you being impatient because you are not quite sure that it is the right person, goal or direction? We often choose a quick course of action to hide a real issue or decision, which may fix it once, but does not solve the real issue.

It is fascinating to note the link between confidence and patience. Being patient requires greater confidence in knowing what you want, in knowing your goals and ideas are right. If you know deep down that they are right, you know that you can wait until the time is right to implement them.

Having recently worked with a very successful Elite Tennis Coach, he was very clear about the critical importance of patience. He consistently works with his clients to develop a strategy that was process-focused rather than results-focused. He said that if they worked patiently on the process, the results always followed. Conversely, if they focused just on results, they would try to find a quick way to get to the result, and never have a good foundation of style, method or tactics to enable them to be sustainable champions. He stated that you win games by the opponent’s mistakes. A champion will be patient in their approach and being confident and consistent in their method. Just watch Roger Federer to see an excellent example of this approach!

This view of patience and confidence can be successfully adopted in business too. Stop for a moment and think about your potential clients you are hoping to win in the coming months.

X How confident are you in that they are the right match for your service/product?
X What makes you sure?
X What methods are you using to win them as clients?
X Are these results-focused or process-focused methods?
X How confident are you that these will build a forging relationship?
X How much of your approach is a quick fix to your competition?
X How long will you wait for the right clients?

By considering the answers to these questions will make you more aware about your confidence to deliver. If you are completely confident in winning them, then you know that you can afford to be patient. If you are finding that you are impatient to win them over, are you cutting corners, or covering up cracks, that may damage your relationship longer term.

So, when you are out there today, try to spot when you are being impatient. At that time, ask yourself ‘what is causing the impatience?’ – you may find that the metaphorical tortoise may be a wiser choice!

Until next week,


Kate Tojeiro is an Executive Performance Coach at X fusion.
www.the-x-fusion.co.uk