Leaders learn to lead in more than one way. Last month, I discussed how leaders learn from their bosses. This month, we’re going to look at how they learn from the seemingly impossible challenges they have at work.

A while ago, I was talking with a senior executive, who said, “I still remember my first real break. I was in a company training program in West Virginia and one of the Vice Presidents came up to me and said, ‘Young man, I think you have what it takes to be a major player here. So, I’m going to put you in charge of one of our new divisions to see how you do.’ I had never run a division before. And to tell the truth, I didn’t think I was ready. I took the job, not knowing whether I could do it or not, and worked like I never worked before. Eventually, I got the division off the ground and my career took off from there.”

His story is just one of those of many leaders I know who were thrust into a job that, in their minds, they were not prepared for and that served as a launching pad or major boost for their careers. How does that relate to learning to lead?

It’s simple, really. When presented with a task that seems beyond their ability, good leaders rise to the occasion. Not only do they put in the time and energy needed to do the job but, more importantly, often as a result of not wanting to fail or to let others down, they learn whatever is needed in order to succeed at their new job. Their focus on learning is the key to their success – they don’t rely on what they already know because they don’t believe they know what to do to get the job done.

Examples abound.

“I remember the first real promotion I ever got like it was yesterday. I was scared to death. I was asked to move to another city and take over a team of engineers. I was barely out of engineering school myself and didn’t think I was ready. In retrospect, it was the best thing that could have happened.”

“Early in my career, I was at my best friend’s wedding and his father asked me what I was doing. I told him and mentioned that it was not particularly challenging. He said, ‘Let me see what I can do.’ A week or so later, he called me up and told me about a job in his company. It wasn’t what I had in mind for myself at the time and I really didn’t know anything about the work, but he must have seen something in me that I didn’t because that job launched my career.”

“It was my first time overseas. I didn’t know the language or the culture very well yet, but we were short-handed and a long way from the U.S. My boss told me that I’d be in charge of a new task we’d just been assigned. I never worked so hard in my whole life.”

“We were in a team meeting the week after our boss got fired and everyone was looking around to see who would step in. They all looked at me. I didn’t really think I was ready, but evidently they did. So I just started doing what I thought needed to be done to lead the team. Things took off from there.”

Good things happen as a result of taking on seemingly impossible tasks or positions for which leaders feel unprepared and succeeding at them. Leaders learn that the impossible is possible and that internal obstacles, such as believing they are not ready for the job, are not that important. Once they realize that they can accomplish more than they had originally believed, they are no longer daunted by difficult tasks. They readily undertake tough tasks and assign them to others, too, with the full knowledge that they can be achieved.

Their confidence grows and becomes infectious, as it spreads to those whom they lead, so that the collective ability to set and achieve exceedingly high goals becomes standard practice. The belief that “we can achieve anything we set our minds to” is the natural result of this confidence and becomes ingrained in the culture.

Learning to lead is rarely planned. It often happens via lessons like these, ones in which leaders are thrust into positions for which they feel ill-prepared and proceed to learn what is needed to get the job done. Has it happened to you?

This summer we hosted a young man from England who left, as a house gift for me, a biography of Ulysses S. Grant, knowing that I would be interested in it from a leadership perspective. I was.

Grant was known for not caring about the many trappings that so many other leaders seemed to care about. He did not travel with an entourage, or want fancy meals or fine clothes or posh lodgings. He really cared for just one thing – to get the job done. Oh yes, and beyond that he was known to drink a lot.

Lincoln, when he was searching for a general to lead the Union troops to victory, and who was repeatedly frustrated by generals who hesitated or failed to press their advantages, once remarked about Grant, “I then began to ask them if they knew what he drank - for if it made fighting generals like Grant I should like to get some for distribution.”

Lincoln realized that it wasn’t the style of the leader that mattered, but the substance. And in the case of Grant the substance was that he wanted to win, nothing else mattered to him.

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if more leaders were like Grant?

I’m in Budapest now, working with the leadership team of an international client, and the contrast between what is seen on CNN and what I experience on the streets of the city is striking.

CNN shows a crowded square with flag-waving demonstrators. From the friend’s apartment where I’m staying, it’s a three-block walk to that square. If you didn’t see the news you wouldn’t know there was a demonstration.

For the most part, the residents of Budapest are proceeding with their lives with no apparent concern for the events on TV other than the inconvenience it creates. On Sunday, on Margit Island, in the middle of the city, in the Danube River, families, couples, kids, and individuals strolled, jogged, picnicked, and generally enjoyed the Indian Summer day. Last night, we walked to dinner, passing not too far from the square which, seen on CNN, was crowded. There were no sirens, loud noises, traffic congestion, or disruptions. The restauranteur threw up his hands and complained that the reporting on the demonstrations was affecting his business.

I wonder whether the vast majority of the people here in Budapest are more concerned with their daily lives than with what is on TV. Are they like most people in organizations whose daily work is of much greater relevance and immediacy than that which goes on in the Board Room or the CEO’s office?

Do leaders, of countries or companies, sometimes fail to recognize the gap between what concerns them and what’s actually on the minds of those whom they lead?

email: archie@archietinelli.com archie@archietinelli.com