F3 For almost any job, the first question in the interview is “what experience do you have?” F3’s field manual points out a strange exception: when groups pick their leaders, they routinely ignore exactly that.
What does F3 mean by opportunity?
A real chance to lead, with the outcome fully on your shoulders. F3 calls it the third stage of developing a leader, and it insists no amount of training or mentoring ever finishes the job. A man only becomes the leader he could be by actually leading. The key difference from the earlier apprentice stage is responsibility. In an opportunity, there is no mentor standing by to share the load. The leader now passes on all the praise and shoulders all the blame himself. That full ownership is what turns knowledge into real ability. And how a man handles that ownership early tells you a lot about what he can be trusted with later.
Why does experience matter for this?
Because how a man handles his early chances tells you whether to trust him with bigger ones. F3 says a leader’s track record in small opportunities should be the guide to whether he is ready for larger, more important roles. This is common sense everywhere else in life. All else being equal, past performance is the best predictor of future results, which is why every employer on earth asks about it. Which makes it strange that groups so often ignore the same evidence when picking who leads them.
So why do groups ignore it when choosing leaders?
F3 does not fully let them off the hook, and neither should we. It observes that despite how much leadership matters, the search for leaders is often done without the basic due diligence applied to any other role. Groups wave away a candidate’s lack of any real leadership track record, leaning instead on impressions, charisma, or a strong resume in some unrelated area, and they pay for it. The lesson cuts two ways. If you are choosing a leader, look hard at how he has actually led before. And if you want to become one, understand that you earn the big opportunities by not wasting the small ones.
F3 calls this Opportunity, part of leaving right in the F3 Nation Q-Source, the field manual for virtuous leadership that F3 is built on. Read the full teaching: f3nation.com/opp. F3 Denver is where men practice it. Find a workout.