Most people are aware of the famous Stanford Marshmallow Experiment:

A child sits alone a table. A researcher presents a marshmallow to the child. Then the research tells the child, “I’m going to leave the room. If you don’t eat this marshmallow while I’m gone, when I come back, I’ll give you another marshmallow.”

The researcher leaves the room. The children are caught on video as they struggle with their desire to eat the marshmallow or wait and receive two marshmallows.

The study is famous for its cuteness. It’s also famous because of the correlation of children who didn’t eat the marshmallow and their future indicators of success.

They were followed for the next 40 years. Over that time, they demonstrated higher SAT scores, lower Body Mass Index scores, lower substance abuse rates, better social relationships, etc.

The conclusion: A child’s ability to delay gratification indicates future success in many areas of life.

But the reports are incorrect.

It’s not that the study was incorrect. But how it is reported is incorrect. It is usually reported as if all that was needed for future success was the ability to delay gratification.

But there was more to it. Follow up studies have also shown that a child’s trust in their environment was also key.

Researchers devised ways to play with some of the poor children’s minds. The children who were taught that their environment wasn’t reliable were more likely to eat the marshmallow. Children who were taught that they could trust their environment were able to wait.

Similar research has drawn related conclusions from home and social environments.

Children with stable, reliable environments learn greater self-control. Which allows for a higher probability of future success.

Why Does Self Control Matter for Leaders?

Harvard Business Review reports that self-control is associated with healthier eating habits, lower likelihood of substance abuse, better academic performance, and the ability to build better friendships.

At work, leaders who have more self-control are more effective in their approach to leadership. They avoid tendencies to micro-manage, take advantage of or abuse employees. They are more likely to be inspirational and intellectually challenging.

Self-control has a broad, positive impact.

Leadership Application

Considering the Marshmallow study, we can see that in the workplace, leaders have the greatest ability to determine how reliable (or not) the environment is.

Leaders who have the self-control to create a reliability build and environment where everyone else has a greater chance of also being self-controlled.

A leader’s self-control creates the conditions for everyone else’s success.

Self-controlled (or disciplined) teams and organizations are always the result of a self-controlled leader or leadership team. These are the organizations that experience:

• Sustained growth: They’ll hit obstacles and plateaus, but they are able to push through or past them.
• Operational efficiencies: It takes decision-making discipline and control to create efficiencies throughout your process.
• Improved decision-making: Because decisions aren’t made impulsively and there is trust. This allows for better and longer-range decisions to be made.
• More timely decision making: As opposed to relying on impulsivity, frustration or impatience to drive decision-making, decisions are made and executed at optimal times.
• Better relationships with employees and customers: Because employees and customers are able to trust and count on the actions of others, it creates credibility. It reduces friction, disappointments and

The Cost

A lack of self-control is costly. With my clients it often looks like:

• Conflict: Even in non-confrontational cultures, a lack of consistency or reliability creates conflict.
• Quitting: The inability to wait or push through difficult circumstances until there are results.
• Distraction: The “shiny object” syndrome – chasing the next “best” thing, project or idea.
• Blaming: Not owning the relationships between personal past choices and current experiences.
• Magical Thinking: Hoping for (or demanding) a change in outcomes without changing inputs.
• Confusion: Poor leadership focus and priorities confuses everyone else.
• Inability to grow: Organizations that want to grow and should be able to grow—can’t, because they are unable to stop doing what isn’t working and focus on what will work.
• Silos & Turf Battles: It takes leadership and organizational discipline to keep multiple people or departments working together.

Self-Control Fatigue

Most people in leadership positions do have some level of self-control. For many, that’s part of the job. But they don’t always exercise it consistently.

Why is self-control so difficult? The American Psychological Association released a report on current research into the topic of willpower. It shows that willpower it is a fatigable resource.

Like a muscle, it wears out. If you consistently “make yourself do /not do something” you’ll eventually get tired of the effort. Your capacity for self-control will diminish.

And it doesn’t have to be effort in the same area. If I’m pushing through a hard project that requires incredible will power to complete – I’m more likely to raid the candy bowl.

But like a muscle, if you train willpower, you can grow it.

Building Your Willpower Muscles

I’ve been involved in athletics most of my life. I teach a strength & conditioning class at a local gym. I practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Athletes need self-control and willpower. The way competitive athletes train has parallels for how you can train your ability to improve your leadership by being more self-controlled.

Conditioning: Most people in the Western world are, physically, in a deconditioned state.

Many of us are also deconditioned when it comes to willpower or self-control. Sure, we have a certain amount of it. But for most people, life is based on habits, not choices.

At a certain point in life, it’s just easiest and preferable to do what we’ve always done.

Strength: Strength, in athletics, is the ability to exert force on something else to create or prevent movement.

The power of habits is that they usually require very little thought or effort. The challenge of habits is that it requires an enormous amount of willpower (strength) to start or stop doing something.

If we learn to focus that will-power, and get support, we are able to build new habits. Which, in turn, no longer feels so challenging.

Power: Power is the ability to summon strength quickly. You need the foundation of strength first; then you can build power.

In leadership, powerful demonstrations of willpower often happen during crisis, disaster or conflict.

Powerful leaders are able to harness their emotions and reactions to make effective choices and lead through the challenge.

Endurance: Endurance is the ability to exercise strength over time. But as most athletes know, endurance is more a matter of “mind over body” than anything else. Athletes are more likely to mentally quit before their body gives out.

So, athletes train their minds as well.

This is true for leaders too.

They must be able to rally the troops when everyone else is tired or discouraged. They must be willing to see projects through to completion. Even when there are delays or frustrations.

They need endurance.

Recovery: Strength is built through good nutrition and rest.

When you exercise your muscles, you break your body down. Workouts don’t make you strong.

It’s only with sleep and good nutrition that your body rebuilds. Then it becomes stronger, more powerful, more enduring than before.

If you don’t rest and eat well, you will wear down, get sick and/or injure yourself.

Self-control, like exercise, wears us out. In fact, some of the greatest athletes and leaders, men and women whom have incredible self-control, can be prone to blowing out in surprising ways.

This is often due to willpower fatigue. They underestimated their ability to overcome distraction, temptation or exhaustion with willpower.

If they don’t acknowledge their potential for fatigue, they are very likely to find themselves doing or saying things that they might be surprised at.

Summary: Self-control is the key trait that allows leaders to perform better. They also create environments that are more reliable which allows everyone else to perform at a higher level.

Your Turn: When it comes to exercising self-control, do you need to focus on conditioning, strength, power, endurance or recovery?

What is one specific area of self-control, that if you improved, would have the greatest impact on the success of your efforts and the efforts of your team?

Take good care,

Christian

Read my recent article in Forbes.com: Four Ways Leaders Sabotage Their Own Success (And How To Stop.)

Did you receive this article in your inbox? If not, you can. I send out a new article once a week. It’s free.

You don’t want to miss it. It contains the tips and tools that make leading easier and more successful.  This is it is also the best way to discover opportunities for classes, webinars or resources that I make available. Interested? Sign up here.

Would you like to work with me one-on-one? Did you find that you get pulled from one responsibility to the next? Is it hard to get the time to identify or focus on the activities that would have the biggest impact? Would you like next year to be one of focused, deliberate growth? If so, contact me here.  Or give me a call 907 522-7200.