Mason Conrad Stanley

Feb 05 2013

Leadership is: Exercise

Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. – Robert Hutchens

Most often when leadership is discussed, exercise is not among the qualities associated with it. However, both PHYSICAL and MENTAL exercise are essential to leading well.

Rather than go through what you can do for mental and physical exercise, or what the benefits would be, I’m going to give you four actions that will translate to success with any exercise you take on. You might think this is cheating but with a 350 word limit I call it being creative.

First, you need a goal: What are you’re hoping to achieve? Goals can change as you accomplish them or realize they aren’t right for you at the moment. However, if there is no goal, you will not be able to structure for the right activities.

Secondly, you need a plan! What are you’re going to do? If you’re not sure what you’re going to do your work outs will be less than adequate. It is most likely that you will stop too soon, or waste the time you have to work out trying to think of what you’re going to do next. This is true also for mental exercise.

Thirdly, you need a way to track progress! Goals and plans are great, but we must have a way to track our progress, to make sure we’re on the right path to our goals. Andy Stanley says it this way, “Our actions, not our desires, get us to where we want to be.” (Just for effect, read that last quote again)

Lastly, you need a break! This break isn’t to stop and do nothing. This break is so that you can evaluate what you’ve done, why you’ve done it, and what would be good to do differently. How often you do this is dependent on you and your goals. If you know you tend to get side tracked you will want to stop and evaluate more often to check yourself and renew your sense of purpose.

Just so that you can’t say I didn’t give you any direction for exercises, two great sources to help guide your mental and physical exercise are:

The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry

www.womenshealthmag.com or www.menshealth.com (note: not all subject matter suitable for minors)

Tagged ABC's, Breaks, Goals, Leadership, Mental Exercise, Physical Exercise, Plan, Progress, The Accidental Creative

Feb 04 2013

Leadership is: Discernment

Dictionary.com defines discernas: (1) to perceive by the sight or some other sense or by the intellect; see, recognize, or apprehend: They discerned a sailon the horizon. (2) to distinguish mentally; recognize as distinct or different;discriminate: He is incapable of discerning right from wrong.

The more you know ahead of time better prepared you are to make a decision.

Personally, I would define discernment as one’s ability judge correctly.

We all have the ability to discern. The question we need to ask is how good is my ability to discern (how often am I correct)? The quality of our discernment is based on our areas of strengths and weaknesses. I am more likely to have better discernment in my areas of strength. This is because it comes more naturally for me, these could be considered as my “natural talents.”

Side note: I used to tell people not to focus on their weaknesses because it will take more time and effort to attain success. However, I’m revising this stance. If you want to excel in an area that is not your strength or “bent” go for it! Just know that it will take hard, hard work to experience success.

However, natural talent is not enough to produce good discernment. If I want to increase my discernment, in any area, I must put more effort and work into that area. The more familiar I become with a principle, problem, idea, etc., the better my discernment can be.

Discernment is valuable because it allows me to make good decisions with less information in the moment. If I wait until I have 100% of the information before I make a decision it is possible that I have made my choice too late. As a leader I must constantly make choices. If I am to be a good leader, I must make the right choices. It is said victory loves preparation. I consider preparation the process of increasing my discernment.

In what areas is discernment natural for you?

In what area do you want better discernment, what is one specific thing you can do to increase your discernment in that area?

Tagged ABC's, discernment, Leadership, natural talents, Strengths & Weaknesses

Feb 03 2013

3 Comments

ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Communication

“I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” – Robert McCloskey

At the risk of sounding cliche’, communication is ~~key~~ really important! This seemingly simple aspect of leadership has ruined more relationships and lost more influence than any other action — I don’t know that for a fact, but it makes communication seem really important doesn’t it?

The truth is communication makes or breaks leadership. All too often we know what we want to say, in fact, we’ve thought long and hard about whatever it is we KNOW we NEED to communicate. So we say it. If we were a good communicator we would have developed some healthy communicating habits before we just “said it.”

The first thing we would have done is…

1. Questioned if it really needed to be said: In our world of say anything to anyone quickly, our filters have yet to catch up. Not everything needs to be said. Sometimes, the loudest thing you can communicate is your silence.

the next thing we would have done if we were good communicators is…

2. Considered who we were talking to: If what you have to say is important enough to say, then it is important enough to say it in a way they will hear it. Always consider your audience. Depending on the course or the dorm, I’m not going to talk to a middle school group the same way I’m going to talk to a college group.

and finally we would have…

3. Figured out what we really wanted to say: The reason we figure out what we really want to say is because that single thing is what we’re going to say. Don’t add more than is needed to get what you need to say said, end of story.

Saying is just one part of communication but for the sake of my 350 word limit let me just say this: LISTEN. Part 2 of communication is listening, not staying quite — it’s listening. Hear what the other person is saying, and not saying!

What is your biggest struggle with communication: Saying or Listening?

Tagged ABC's, Communication, Leadership

Feb 02 2013

1 Comment

ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Buy-in

Are they bought into you?

In the book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Maxwell talks about the “law of buy-in.” People have to be bought into you before they’re bought into what want them to do or be a part of.

I’ve always been sort of introverted and I like my comfort zones. On Friday nights when we were throwing around ideas on what to do, if my idea didn’t get chosen I had no problem going home. What this communicated was that I was in it for me. It’s no wonder we hardly ever chose to do what I wanted to do. The guys loved me, but they weren’t going to follow me, they weren’t bought into me as someone who was going to lead them somewhere that was best for them.

BTW, this can’t be some fake, “hey man you’re great, now lets go do what I want” either. Our generation can smell fake like it’s our favorite meal in the oven, it doesn’t matter who is cooking it, we can smell it. Having people buy into you has to be genuine, sincere, purposed, and most important of all — about them!

In order to get where you want to go, you might need to make a couple of pit stops for the people you want on the journey.

If you want your group to create the best project, figure out what they want out of the activity and deliver it to them. Stephen Covey calls this a “win-win” in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. If a movie you want to see is coming out, go do some stuff with your friends that they want to do first. They will be much more likely to go see that movie with you, even if it’s not their type of movie. This is how I was roped into seeing Crossroads.

What’s one thing you can do to appreciate the people around you?

Who do you need help from, what have you done to show them they’re valuable to you?

In the comments, choose something you need buy-in from others on, and write about how you’re going to get it.

Tagged 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, ABC's, John Maxwell, Leadership, Stephen Covey

Feb 01 2013

Leadership is: Action

“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and action” – Harold Green

We’ve all heard “talk is cheap,” but when it comes to leadership, with out action, it is pointless. If you find yourself talking a lot and doing little you are devaluing the words that come out of your mouth. Don’t misunderstand what I am saying, words are important, communication is crucial to success. However, when your words are not accompanied by the appropriate actions you will lose your influence.

These actions don’t have to be monumental. In reality monumental actions are a bunch of little actions formed together to create that big break that we all are waiting for. Overnight success comes after years of hard work and investment.

Stop talking about forming a band, form one. If there is nobody to join you, practice singing and playing. Stop talking about studying for the SAT or GRE, study for it. If you’ve talked about learning a language, tell someone and then go learn it. Take someone along to join you and help keep you accountable. What ever your goal, actions, not talk, will get you closer to achieving it.

You might be wondering why I’m focusing so much on you and not so much on you leading others. This is because you must first be able to lead yourself before you can lead others. When a leader has a difficult time determining the right action to take it is because they struggle to determine the right actions to take for themselves. When a leader is confident in taking the right action, it is because they’ve had practice leading themselves.

What is your current goal?

What is one thing that you can do to accomplish that goal?

Why aren’t you doing that one thing?

What is the next thing you can do to achieve your desire?

As motivation, in the comments, write a goal you want to achieve and the first step you can take to accomplish it!

Tagged ABC's, Action, Leadership

Square One Leadership

Leading yourself, to lead others

Author Archives: Mason Conrad Stanley