Leadership thoughts - Shock absorbers

 I believe my career thus far has taken the main street. That is to say that I have gone through several rich experiences over the course of my professional journey and there hasn't really been a short cut, barring perhaps the advantage bestowed by my education. But lets say given the starting point of post graduation the journey has been rather main stream. Full of its share of luck and setbacks.
The setbacks have mostly been the "entry-ticket" kind, keeping me from getting my big breaks. But they haven't been of the kind where I had to recover from a situation when I was doing well or was on  top so to say. In short, they have required of me persistence but not much resilience. 

Until recently that is, when certain organizational changes impacted my portfolio unit. In the aftermath of these sudden changes I was left re-drawing the frame conditions and stabilizing my unit. This led to an inevitable encounter with a "Senior" designated person in the company, the kind I have barely once come across before but had managed to skirt around. With this person though, it was a head-on collision. The discussion degenerated quickly and this person from my stand point unveiled their narcissistic personality, backing it up with actions to get back at me. 

This was a set-back of the second kind, one requiring resilience - ability to collect yourself and bounce back. (interestingly many years ago I wrote a blog on a similar theme, based on examples from other people's lives). 

My first reaction was to accept that I have run my unobstructed course and this could be the end, accompanied by some standard whining about the corporate realities and how this world is too dark at the top and not for people like me. But then my mind conjured up an analogy that gave me perspective. 

The analogy was this: Imagine you have built a great car. A really wonderful car of crystal and glass with high-performance mechanisms and features. And you have a destination in mind. You take this car out and are gunning down the highway at top speed. And then there it is, a pothole or a road block and with one impact your crystal car is shattered. Well you could take the car back and crib about how bad the World is. Or you can realize that a car that is high performance and must also reach its destination should have shock absorbers. Without shock absorber we are all a one trick pony. 

And a plan that is spoiled by the first obstacle was no plan to begin with. 

So the car will likely get messy and worn out but the purpose is to get to the destination or at least as far as possible and then to unclutter the road for those who come behind but running without shock absorbers is naïve.