Grit often begins shaping lives long before anyone steps into real-life struggle. For many underprivileged but bright and talented children, grit is what opens the door to opportunity. While intelligence and talent may help them stand out, it is their grit—the relentless drive to learn continuously, exercise pushing limits, overcome hardships, and persist despite limited resources—that enables them to earn scholarships, gain access to quality education, and consequently lay the foundation for a better future. Scholarship and part-time work opportunities, fair and competitive exams, supportive treatment, and mentorship from teachers, advisors, and experienced colleagues, often reward persistence just as much as intellect and talent. Grit becomes their lifeline to become successful in life.
Besides technical skills, intelligence, communication skills, and grit, a combination of passion and perseverance, is seen as an important underlying trait for success. Good leaders and hiring managers try to recognize not only what qualities one has, but how they have achieved it. I have always tried to understand the story of a candidate to understand the driving factors behind someone’s success. It is easier and very effective to make people with grit believe in your good mission, run with you towards the vision by focusing on achievement rather than power or short-term success and show off.
Grit enables professionals to remain focused and resilient in the face of challenges, setbacks, and uncertainty. While resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficulties or recover from failure, grit helps one go a step further by helping others, staying committed to long-term objectives despite repeated obstacles, with the help of a curiosity to understand other people’s stories, and giving a helping hand to others when they need it. In other words, resilience helps you get back up after a fall; grit keeps you climbing the mountain for years.
A few examples I have seen throughout my professional life are here:
- People who believe in you as a leader help you to carry the load. They try to understand you and help you with the load. Grit enables the empathy necessary for giving.
- People who have gone through difficulties do not leave you alone in the first failure. They accept responsibility, tend to fight back, and overcome challenges.
- People with grit also try to understand your story and value your effort and support.
- They become helping elder brothers/sisters, mentors, and advisors quickly, and try to move towards goals together.
Hiring, mentoring, fostering, and enabling people with grit leads to stronger performance, respect within the team, improved problem-solving and creativity for progress, and a more resilient workforce. Leaders who show how grit helps them succeed also inspire their teams by modeling persistence, and perseverance, setting clear long-term visions, and showing the value of sustained effort and working towards a goal together. This not only builds trust but also promotes a culture of accountability and dedication.
While intelligence and talent may open some doors, it is grit that determines how far one will go once inside. Cultivating grit through mentoring, empowerment, feedback, and assigning load that keeps one in The Flow is a strategic priority for leaders, and organizations aiming for coherent, successful teams and good results.
Remember that grit isn’t just about working harder or about competing. It is about working with purpose, persistence, and passion and helping others by giving, much more than taking.
A good TED talk about grit is in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H14bBuluwB8
I hope you always work with good people who have good traits, like honesty, a giving attitude, and grit!
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