A commitment should be treated as a binding contract with yourself. However many of us break our commitments. We commit to people, teams, work, ourselves etc. A commitment is something that you have no doubts about. Something you give 100% of your whole self to.
Patrick Lencioni, in his book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team identified lack of commitment as the third dysfunction in his model for non-cohesive teams. He says, “in the context of a team, commitment is a function of two things: clarity and buy-in. Great teams make clear and timely decisions and move forward with complete buy-in from every member of the team…they leave meetings confident that no one on the team is quietly harboring doubts about whether to support the actions agreed on.”
Commitment is a fulfilling endeavor that when followed through gives an immense sense of accomplishment. Think about something you have committed to, followed through with to the end, and how you felt at the end knowing you didn’t break it along the way. Pursuing your dream life, weight loss, getting a formal education, going for the big contract and landing it…
Sometimes commitment can be confused with staying with something long after you should. Like a dead end job or a fruitless endeavor. If you have any of this in your life, let’s look at it for a moment. Ask yourself why you are still in something that you have doubts about or don’t believe in or worse yet, that you give less than all of you to. People pick up on this subtle behavior. To stay committed to something, you have to put effort in and periodically change up what you are doing to keep it alive and fresh.
Commitments are what grounds you and keeps you active and engaged in life. Being free and having few commitments sounds so refreshing to many who have spouses, children, pets, jobs, mortgages… but for only a fleeting moment when life feels heavy and burdensome. We are social creatures who desire connections and relationships with others; a sense of accomplishment and pride in our contributions to making life better for everyone in our lives including ourselves.
Sometimes we need help with our commitments and we seek out this help through our friends, co-workers, spouses, coaches, mentors… By asking for help, we are strengthening our commitment to ourselves and others; we are fulfilling our obligations contractually with ourselves to follow through to the end, no matter what it takes.
As someone is a leadership position commitment is an absolutely necessary quality to possess as you can only influence the people you lead by demonstrating your own commitment to the vison. My mentor and leadership guru Dr. John C. Maxwell’s law of the picture says “people do what people see” so unless your team can see commitment in you, you might just be a taking a solo walk.
Last modified: October 11, 2017
