I’m the youngest of two. I have a brother who is three years older than I am. We were each other’s primary playmates growing up. We constantly played games together. We played a wide variety of games, but I particularly remember excessive amounts of Foosball, Monopoly, and Super Mario Kart.

What do you think happened when I continually played competitive games with someone who was three years quicker and smarter than me? I lost a lot. A whole lot. We didn’t keep track of win/loss ratios, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think I lost about 95% of the time. The 5% I won were sweet victories indeed!

You may think that this experience would make me non-competitive. You might expect me to have developed an attitude that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, but it’s just fun to play the game. That’s not me. I love to win.

Many years ago, I took the StrengthsFinder assessment. #2 on my Top Five Strength Themes is Competition. According to the assessment, here’s the definition: “People strong in the Competition theme measure their progress against the performance of others. They strive to win first place and revel in contests.”

How do I reconcile my childhood experience with this strength of competition?

I’m very comfortable in the role of underdog

I have absolutely no qualms about entering a competition where the odds are stacked against me. Throughout my career, I pursued roles that I was only moderately qualified for, just to see if I could get the job. Given where I am now, enough of those panned out, but many didn’t.

I like it when my team is quick, nimble, and humble, like David ready to take on Goliath. 

I like being able to keep score

In school, I watched my grades. They weren’t always good, but I knew they were a fair representation of how I was performing against expectations.

I’m a fan of performance management systems including year-end reviews. I like scorecards and metrics that tell me how my team is performing. I pay attention when my company reports our financial performance.

I’m very good at losing

Spending my childhood losing 95% of the time made me a good loser. Very good. I am an absolutely amazing loser. That sounds weird, but you get the point.

We’ve all experienced sore losers and they are all kinds of awful. They throw fits. They get defensive. They make accusations. Because they are so sore, they often don’t put themselves in losing positions.

If I were a sore loser, what kind of leader would I be? I’d probably play it safe and only play when I can win. I might even be tempted to cheat.

Here’s my point. It seems counter-intuitive, but I believe that being a good loser makes me a good leader.

• I won’t let myself get discouraged for too long. I still grieve losses, but I bounce back quickly.
• A fair game is more important than a win.
• I’ll take risks and enter competitions even when the odds are against me. Sure, I’ll probably lose, but I might win, and if I do, that would be awesome!
• I’m prepared to play a lot of games over a significant timescale. “Lose the battle, but win the war” is a strategy that resonates with me. Each game is a chance to learn. I get better the more I play.

Each of these attributes has served me well. I could never have imagined that those countless hours of losing at Super Mario Kart would eventually manifest into a useful leadership ability. Failing to dodge those banana peels and turtle shells made me who I am.

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