A short while ago I was participating in a golf competition. The course was extremely dry as weeks had passed by without rain.

Playing a game of golf builds on developing a strategy.

Everyone develops their own strategy. Some are focused on winning with every shot and used to playing with a high risk. Others will go for a strategy that keeps the ball on the course.

Whatever the strategy is, it has to be adapted to the given circumstances.

In this case, it meant that there was only very little rough in which the ball could disappear, apart from the usual obstacles there were ecological zones in which the ball was not playable, and the dry ground allowed for the ball to continue its trajectory much longer than usual.

One way to adapt one’s strategy is by being humble.

Where humble actually means to allow oneself to be honest with oneself.

That is to see how the game is unfolding and how it is unique. It doesn’t help to focus on comparing with one’s best or worst days. It means to focus on how one’s game is transformed by the given circumstances and how one is reacting to these circumstances.

Being humble doesn’t mean accepting when things aren’t working out, it is showing what is available to play one’s best game in that moment.

The same applies to leadership. Knowing one’s strategy and adapting it to the existing reality is supported by being humble.

It doesn’t guarantee that one’s goal can be reached. But it does make it more probable.