Learning Leadership

Chapter 12Get Gritty and Stay Hardy

Knowing what you want and wanting it intensely are two essential elements in the formula for success in learning, in leadership, and in life. There's yet another vital component, and that's persistence. Together these ingredients make up what University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Angela Duckworth calls grit.

“Grit,” Angela says, “is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but also for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint.”¹

Grit is that firmness of spirit, that unyielding determination that is essential in dealing with a challenge, and it “entails working strenuously toward challenges, maintaining effort and interest over years despite failure, adversity, and plateaus in progress.”² It is not unusual for would-be authors, or aspiring musicians, for example, to have a burst of inspiration, begin writing a chapter, or chords and lyrics, and then give up when they start to hit roadblocks or hurdles. The people who tough it out and work through those problems end up with interesting—and finished—books and songs.

Angela and her colleagues, having studied the impact of grit in a variety of settings, convincingly demonstrate that people with the most grit achieve the most positive outcomes.³ For example, researchers have found ...