Tag Archives: Leadership

Feb 23 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Winning

Celebrating wins is guarding against failures

“A champion needs a motivation above and beyond winning” – Pat Riley

It is possible to turn winning, experiencing success, into a habit; unfortunately, the same is also true for losing. In today’s world the difference between winning and losing is the same difference between having a job and finding yourself unemployed.

If we want our teams to develop a habit of winning, as leaders we must consistently do these three things:

  1. Recognize wins – Wins come in all shapes and sizes, and we must allow our idea of what a win is to change with our circumstances. We can simplistically define a win as any action or result that moves us towards our goal. When we start to define wins this way, we will be able to recognize more of them.
  2. Celebrate wins – Recognizing a win is only the first part of making winning a habit. Our next step is celebrating the wins. When someone’s actions moves us closer to our goals, celebrate it. Celebrations can be as simple as publicly praising them in front of the team, writing them a thank you card, bragging on their work and effort.*NOTE: You get more of what you praise, be sure to celebrate moving closer to the goal rather than the specific action. If you praise the specific action you will get more of that action, not necessarily actions moving you towards the goal.
  3. Create wins – Sometimes we have team members that are struggling to win, or even worse, struggling to believe they can win. When we create wins for team members we help cultivate their habit of winning. Creating wins can be done a number of ways. Here are a couple of ideas: Allow that team member to take the final step that completes a project, and then brag about their finishing touches; Set them up with an easily achievable task. This isn’t cheating, this is helping them establish the momentous habit of winning.

Few people are motivated enough to reach their goals on their own, let alone someone else’s goals for them. If our teams are going to consists of winners we must help cultivate a winning mentality.

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Feb 22 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Vision

Vision casting is more than saying what you see

“It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.” – Helen Keller

Dreams, Goals, and Purpose are all necessary when pursuing a desired result; however, all of these are useless if they aren’t encompassed by a compelling vision!

A simple way of thinking about vision is:what could and should be, but isn’t there, yet!

Extraordinary leaders see what isn’t there, figure out how to get there, and then communicate the vision in such a way that others can attach themselves to that vision and get there with them.

According to John Maxwell‘s “The 360* Leader”

Here are 8 ways to be an effective vision caster! (or if you’re Andy Stanley, a “visionier”) Continue reading →

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Feb 21 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Understanding

Is a lack of communication and understanding acceptable to us?

A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. – Marshall McLuhan

As leaders it is easy to get caught up in our tasks. We desire for our team members to know and understand what it is we need and want from them, and if we aren’t careful we won’t give them a second thought unless something involving them is hindering our own process.

Once, I asked for a consistent weekly meeting with my leader to give direct reports and to stay on the same page (have understanding). They responded with, “I didn’t think you were that immature that you need me to hold your hand.” To be honest, my relationship with that leader lost some of its luster that day. From that point on, it felt like a lack of understanding and communication between us was acceptable.

So you don’t lose your shine, here are 3 steps to winning over your employees by Inc. Magazine: http://www.inc.com/3-steps-to-winning-over-your-employees.html

When we don’t communicate for mutual understanding with our team members it is a recipe for disaster! In reality, lack of communication and understanding will drive away your high performers. I’ve written about some habits of effective communication here and here.

Carl Robinson, from Advanced Leadership Consulting, has a great list on more of what drives away great performers here: http://leadershipconsulting.com/why-great-employees-quit.htm

In order to be effective, understanding leaders, we must practice these 2 habits:

Continue reading →

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Feb 20 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Touch

“It’s vital that the monarchy keeps in touch with the people. It’s what I try and do.” – Princess Diana

There are differing thoughts on everything from soda to trucks, so why should leadership be any different? Leadership is such an expansive topic, most of the topics of disagreements run the gamut.

Laura Erskine writes in A Question of Leadership, “some organizations reject the practice of encouraging close emotional relationships between leaders and followers because they believe that the perceptions of special treatment prevent leaders from being effective.” Essentially the argument is that a leader can’t do for everyone so they shouldn’t do for anyone! Andy Stanley (@AndyStanley) addresses this issue in one of his leadership podcast titled “Do for One.” Stanley says, “you should do for one, what you can’t do for all.” If you can’t invest in all of your team members you should at least invest in one of them!

Leaders should be strategically investing in their team members, specifically their direct reports. In a Career Tools podcast titled “Build Your Network,” Michael Auzenne (@mauzenne) and Mark Horstman (@mahorstman) suggest that in order to build and maintain your network you should schedule a specific time to keep in contact with people in your network. So why should it be any different with your team members? Leaders can’t meet with everyone, but they can meet with those who need your input and direction the most.

Continue reading →

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Feb 19 2013
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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Selfless

"You have to give up, to go up" - John Maxwell

To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness. – Benjamin Franklin

There has been much said recently about Steve Jobs and his style of leadership, love it or hate it, we should all learn what we can from it. In a Harvard Business Review article, Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs, (@WalterIsaacson) writes, “I once asked [Steve Jobs] what he thought was his most important creation, thinking he would answer the iPad or the Macintosh. Instead he said it was Apple the company. Making an enduring company, he said, was both far harder and more important than making a great product.”

In a way, Steve Jobs was a servant leader. I won’t go as far as to say that he was the kind of leader that we would all want to follow. In fact I believe that Steve Jobs was a special kind of leader that influenced special kinds of followers. Isaacson writes, “One of the last times I saw him, after I had finished writing most of the book, I asked him again about his tendency to be rough on people. ‘Look at the results,’ he replied. ‘These are all smart people I work with, and any of them could get a top job at another place if they were truly feeling brutalized. But they don’t.’ Then he paused for a few moments and said, almost wistfully, ‘And we got some amazing things done.'”

Continue reading →

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