“What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.” – Oscar Wilde

We live in a chaotic world.  When you turn on the TV, or pull up your favorite news or current events-related website, or look on social media, you see one crazy thing after another.  There seems to be no end to it.

And most of that crazy is stuff we really have no control over.  World conflicts, AI, global economic issues, weather, trade, and dozens of other things that seem like a flood that’s going to overwhelm us.  It can be frightening and exhausting.

But only if we let it.  We as leaders can choose a different response.  And it doesn’t have to be some kind of fake-positive, inauthentically optimistic response.  It can be a constructive, future building response based on reality. 

That reality is that those crazy things that sometimes seem to overwhelm us, whether giant global things or local challenges, actually make us and our organizations better.  When you were young, you may have had parents or teachers or other “old people” tell you that “whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”. The reality is, that’s actually true.

People and organizations and systems that deal with stress or strain or disruption and survive are much stronger for it afterwards (don’t just take my word for it – this guy says it much better).  The challenges we’re forced to work through improve our resilience, our attitudes, and our core strength.

Think about the last three or four years.  Think about something – maybe several somethings – that came along that you had to address as a leader that you believed were “bad” things.  Maybe it was something people related, or something to do with customers, or regulation, or whatever.

Look back on that challenge.   How does it look now?  Does it still look like something bad or terrible or that you wished you could avoid?  Or can you see how you as a leader and the organization you lead are both better off for having dealt with it?

In most cases, it’s the latter.  The issue is that we usually don’t stop and look back and realize the positives that came out of those challenging times.  We just move on to the next challenge, once again assuming it will be “bad”.

Approach challenges for what they are – opportunities for growth.  When you get through them, you’ll be stronger.  So don’t run away.  Tackle them head on.