Feb 10 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Juggling

A Balanced Life?

Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward. – Maxwell Maltz

A lie wrapped in layers of common sense does not give validity to the lie, it only allows us to pursue a lie unaware.

The lie that most leaders often pursue is the mystically balanced life. I’m sad to say that there is no such thing, personally or professionally. The reason is, a balanced life indicates your attention and actions are equally distributed to all areas of your life. As leaders we know this is highly improbable!

I believe that life is to be juggled, and I’m not the only one who believes this. In her talk, “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20,” which is also one of her books, Tina Seelig shares Carol Bartz’s idea that “you need to look at balance over a long period of time and catch it before it hits the floor.”

Here are some of my observations on juggling:

1. Juggling requires that we identify all the pieces. Before we start juggling we must know what all we are going to juggle. A helpful resource for this endeavor is John Maxwell’s book “Today Matters.”

2. Juggling requires knowing the condition of the pieces. Leaders can’t effectively juggle if we do not know the condition of the piece. Some pieces are lighter, some are heavier. We must not overestimate or underestimate what we are juggling. If we do we will throw off our ability to effectively react to what is falling.

3. Juggling requires being aware of what is falling. In order to successfully juggle leaders must give attention to what is falling. The lesson here is to be aware of all of our pieces and know which one is closest to the floor so that we can give it the support it needs. This should be considered our priority above all else.

4. Juggling requires supporting the falling pieces. Leaders must give support (attention + action) to the falling area(s) of our lives. If we’ve focused more on work than we have on family, it’s time to spend some quality time with them. If we’ve focused on information rather than implementation, it’s time to start doing more than learning.

What else would you add?

What are your thoughts on balancing vs. juggling?

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Feb 09 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Investment

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain

If we ever expect our teams and organizations to be great we must invest in our people! I’ve heard it said that Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, knew that if he wanted to make his customers happy, he would have to make his employees happy first.

While we are all wired differently, we desire to feel connected to people, from the obvious extrovert, down to the the most introverted hermit (myself included). Investing in people is the process of helping them feel connected! John Maxwell says, “leadership is influence,” that influence is gained through investing.

There are all different types of influence, not one type is better than the other. In order to figure out what type of investment you need to give, you must first know the people you want to invest in. What do they like? What is their personality like? What are they interested in? How do they feel appreciated? Them + their circumstances = a unique situation.

Here are a few types of investment:

Financial Investment: A financial investment says that I’m willing to give up my hard earned money to support your cause or need.

Emotional Investment: A great way to build rapport with a person quickly is to have empathy. This can not be synthesized, this must be real! People know when you truly care for them and are willing to identify with their situation. All you might need to do is listen and nod your head as they express themselves to you, but your listening speaks volumes.

Physical Investment: This is probably my least favorite of all the investments. However, there is something very powerful about a person who is willing to take time out of their schedule and give physical effort to help you accomplish a task. This could be moving, painting, building, etc.

Professional Investment: When you’re willing to help people get better through training or mentoring and they experience success because of it they will remember your investment and be more bought into who you are. This is essentially them giving you influence.

What other kind of investments would you add to the list?

What kind of investments do you prefer?

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Feb 08 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Honesty

“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.” – Marcus Aurelius

Honesty in leadership is tight rope that must be walked.

Unfortunately honesty isn’t as straight forward as it sounds, here are my observations on some methods of honesty:

For some, honesty is the best only policy — If they have the information they feel it must be shared regardless of  method, timing, or even outcome. I have a student that believes in this policy. They tend to speak their mind in the moment. Usually this honesty (which is supposed to be helping people) isn’t well received, however true it may be! The problem with this policy is that it violates the healthy habits of communication (I talk about the healthy habits of communication here), as well as John Maxwell’s law of timing.

For others, honesty is circumstantial — If they have information but don’t know if it will be beneficial to the person or situation at the moment, or ever, then they don’t have to be honest with them. Unofficially, this seems to be the favored view of honesty. I don’t have to tell my wife she looks “big” in those jeans, because that’s going to ruin my night and her night. The problem with this view is that it makes us the sole decider of what is beneficial and what isn’t. Usually when dealing with honesty it is for the benefit of another person. When we decide what is and isn’t beneficial for them we rob them of a chance to grow.

For leaders, honesty is all about other people — If you’re goal is other people, your honesty will include the healthy habits of communication, the law of timing and a desire to see them grow. Honesty must be used to build people up, give them hope, and cast a vision for the future. A leader won’t be honest because it makes them feel better, they will give it in a way that connects with the person, and they will said what needs to be said, no more no less.

What are your observations of honesty?

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Feb 07 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Guiding

Do you guide or drive?

First, let me define “driving” for this post. There are many types of “drives” we could talk about, for example it is good to push and drive a team towards excellence but that’s not the type of drive I’m talking about. For this post drive should be seen as: forcefully pushing, with out much fore or after thought for the person or group.

The longer I lead the more clearly the differences between guiding and driving become. As a teacher it is extremely easy to be a driving force, shoving information down the throats of students. Recently I’ve tried to guide my students not to learn more information, but rather to be better students. What they learn in 7th and 8th grade will be forgotten, trust me, I had to re-learn (or learn for the first time) all the information I have to cover. But if they can learn how to be a good student and develop those habits now, they will stick with them for the rest of their lives.  A guiding leader is focused on their team members and culture because they know a healthy team produces healthy results.

7 Differences Between Guiding & Driving

Guiding leaders mirror the actions and attitudes they desire to see from their team members.
Driving leaders demand their subordinates to act how they want them to act regardless of how they themselves act.

Guiding leaders see ahead to the possible dangers their team might face.
Driving leaders look ahead and only see the possible dangers they might face.

Guiding leaders are proactive.
Driving leaders are reactive.

Guiding leaders are servant leaders.
Driving leaders are “serve me” leaders.

Guiding leaders know their team members.
Driving leaders expect their subordinates to know them.

Guiding leaders are constantly seeking information.
Driving leaders believe they have all the information.

Guiding leaders lead toward intrinsic values.
Driving leaders manipulate with extrinsic consequences.

What would you add?

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Feb 06 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Following

What leads the leader?

“The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.” – Thomas Jefferson

Leaders must be followers. However, the question begs to be asked, “If they are leading, who or what are they following?”

For most leaders, dreaming the dream and coming up with the vision is the best part. The problem lies in keeping with the dream and the vision once it’s out of the incubator stage.

When I took the Strengths Finder 2.0 “strategy” came up as my main strength. As I read through the action plan for someone with my strength, I came across this suggestion, “Partner with someone with strong Activator talents. With this person’s need for action and your need for anticipation, you can forge a powerful partnership.”

That’s a really awesome way of saying you need to hook up with a doer. This doesn’t hurt my feelings at all, because the reality is I’m not a big fan of the constantly doing. I want to dream, create a vision, start it, and then walk away to dream something else.

The problem with this is that it can really frustrate the doers on my team. If I bounce from dream to dream to dream, my leadership ADD is going to wear my other team members out; they will quit, leave visions incomplete, or produce low quality finished products.

In order to save my team, and for the final product to be as close to the vision as possible, I must have a plan! Once I have that plan, I must follow it!

This all assumes that the plan matches up to my values and my goals. If it doesn’t I need to scrap the dream, vision, and plan. As I mentioned in Leadership is: Exercise, “your actions, not your desires, get you to where you want to be.” I must always be asking, does this get me closer to my goal? Does this match up with my core values? If I’m not constantly checking where I am in relation to these, I am bound to get off track.

Do you find it hard to follow through the plan you’ve made?

Are those around you worn out from your leadership ADD?

Have you taken on too many task at once rather than systematically accomplishing what is needed?

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