This year I’ve made a concerted effort to focus on physically stretching my body, especially after workouts. It’s had a tremendous impact on how I move, my recovery, and overall how I feel. During one of my stretches this weekend, I started thinking about the importance of flexibility in our lives and specifically how great leaders tend to have a healthy balance of flexibility.

We all make assumptions about what is going to happen in our lives. Whether that is for the day, the week, the month, or the next five years, it plays a big part in the decisions we make and how we approach things. Those assumptions, though, don’t always come to fruition. The environment, people, systems, rules and landscape are all susceptible to change and when that change occurs, we have to have enough flexibility to adapt, but not so much that we get lost along the way.

Too much flexibility in our lives leaves us susceptible to anything and causes us to get distracted on our path forward. As the saying goes, “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” If you’re willing to go wherever the wind takes you, it might be a fun and adventurous ride, but with no purpose or clear direction there is little reason for people to follow you.

On the other side, when we are too rigid and stuck to our plan, there are other consequences that we face. Leaders in this bucket fall into two traps. Some are so stubborn that they are unwilling to change or adapt. Their refusal to admit they were wrong causes them to forge ahead despite the fact that their plan or strategy is no longer viable. The second group is so attached and committed to their plan that they are unable to handle any disruption to it. When it doesn’t go according to how they thought, they are so frazzled that they can’t cope with the situation and they lose the confidence of the group.

When we have a healthy balance of flexibility, we are able to navigate uncertainty. Great leaders create a plan, move forward, and at the same time are able to seize opportunities that arise. This means that sometimes we change direction. Sometimes it means that we pause, and smell the roses. Sometimes we must adapt our plan to the current needs of the team.

Covid has been the ultimate curveball for the hospitality industry. And as we deal with another round of restrictions here in Denver, it was a good reminder for our team that the December we were anticipating, might look a little different. It will require us to have some flexibility with our approach and at the same time we must keep our focus on the big picture of where we are headed and not get blown too far off course.