By
Robert A. Floyd, CAE
Word Count: 598
A few years ago, I was witness to a real life drama on an African plateau. We had been riding in our Range Rover looking for a glimpse of the big cats, when our guide-driver suddenly jammed on the brakes. His trained eye had found a sleek lioness crouched in a tangle of bushes. She was obviously on the stalk, but the prey remained invisible.
Thus far on my five-week trip to the country of Zimbabwe, the only big cats I had seen had been content to lie lazily and comfortably in the sun. My adrenaline was pumping, knowing that I would finally get to see some real life action.
As the Rover eased forward, the object of the lioness’ dinner plans came into view—a mother giraffe and her baby (six feet tall but only a couple of months old). We held our breaths as we watched the drama unfold. I was so captivated that I forgot I was on a photo safari!
After about 30 minutes, the lioness made her move, and suddenly the brush was a cacophony of crashing bodies and thundering hooves. The good news for the potential victims: the lioness came up empty handed, and momma giraffe and baby escaped for another day of grazing in the treetops.
I asked our guide why the lioness had waited so long to spring her trap. It seemed to me that she had hesitated too long to make her move. My guide explained that while it would appear that lions have a major advantage in such encounters, they know that one swift kick from those strong hooves can break their mighty jaws, leading eventually to starvation and death.
Recently as I re-read my diary from my trip, I reflected on what lesson this encounter might have from a leadership perspective. I recalled the following old Chinese saying: Better to live one day as a lion than a dozen years as a sheep.

There is nothing inherently wrong with living one’s life as comfortably as possible, but growth, both personal and professional, comes only when a person is willing to risk going outside her comfort zone.
Risk taking, though, doesn’t mean that you have to a take a blind leap into the unknown; that’s foolhardiness. As poet Anais Nin writes, “You life shrinks or expands in direct proportion to your amount of
courage.” Only a bold approach can produce real results quickly.
The Zimbabwean lioness knew she could not feed her cubs by remaining in the comfort zone of her sunny lair. But she also knew that a blind leap into those powerful hooves could result in disaster from which neither she nor her dependents would recover. Thus she chose to be both calculating and courageous: taking a bold action, but one tempered by experience and sound judgment.
On this particular African sunny day, the lioness fell short of her goal.
But she had stepped outside her comfort zone, confident, nonetheless, that she would ultimately achieve the results she sought.
As all-time NCAA winner and UCLA basketball coach great John
Wooden says,” Do not let what you can’t do interfere with what you
can do.” We pretty much become how we behave, so we may as well chose actions that result in higher performance and greater productivity. Ask yourself this question: Isn’t it worth the risk if I can take the bold initiatives to become more talented and skilled tomorrow than I am today? When is the last time anyone was motivated to follow a
“Sheep King?”