Self-Leadership #5 Think Big Picture

Once you’ve begun to know yourself, the next step is to make sure that everything you do is directed to the successful completion of your goals.

Vince Lombardi, a celebrated football coach, was completely devoted to making his teams successful. He didn’t tolerate outside interests interfering with his players’ dedication to their game and certainly wouldn’t have put himself in that situation. As the Packers’ general manager, he ran a tight ship and he ran it conservatively. He dominated the Packers’ executive board.

Lombardi found ways to compensate in areas where he didn’t have much experience especially at the outset of his professional coaching career. He was an effective delegator and he didn’t hesitate to ask questions when he didn’t understand something – one sign of a confident leader – and he didn’t tolerate answers that he considered half-baked. He ran tight agenda-driven meetings which began and ended on schedule (I need more discipline to do that!).

All of these effective strategies allowed him to focus on the one overarching mission – winning football games. Victory on the field - or any field of leadership – is in part the outgrowth of a complete understanding of the leader’s vision and strengths. And every part of the organization must be focused on this big picture.

This doesn’t mean that the big picture doesn’t change as the competitive environment changes. In fact, the ongoing viability of an organization or group depends on the adaptation of its mission to the current climate. But the big picture must not be affected by minor setbacks or problems.

Consider the following to keep the big picture in the forefront of your consciousness for you and your organization/team:

Link Goal to Vision: Goals must be anchored in conviction. Make sure that your goals are closely linked to your mission; if they aren’t, it will be too easy to throw them overboard at the first sign of adversity.

Change with the Competitive Environment: The long-term viability of an organization/team depends on its ability to adapt to a changing environment. Sooner or later, your product will become obsolete. If you’re not ready to take advantage of that moment, somebody will.

Don’t Be Swayed by Minor Setbacks: Don’t confuse minor shifts with major changes. A bump in the road can – and should – be navigated without major rerouting.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

John C. Maxwell on Leadership #17 Increasing Your Passion

Is passion a characteristic of your life? Do you wake up feeling enthusiastic about your day? Is the first day of the week your favourite, or do you live from weekend to weekend? How long has it been since you couldn’t sleep because you were too excited by an idea? You can never lead something you don’t care passionately about. You can’t start a fire in your organization unless one is first burning in you. To increase your passion, do the following:

Take Your Temperature. How passionate are you about your life and work? Does it show? Get an honest assessment by querying several co-workers and your spouse about your level of desire.

Return to Your First Love. Think back to when you were just starting out in your career – or even farther back to when you were a child. What really turned your crank? What could you spend hours and hours doing? Try to recapture your old enthusiasm. Then evaluate your life and career in light of those old loves.

Associate with People of Passion. It sounds hokey, but birds of a feather really do flock together. If you’ve lost your fire, get around some firelighters. Passion is contagious. Schedule some time with people who can infect you with it.

[Taken from The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow (2007) by John C. Maxwell. Published by Thomas Nelson]

Spend Some Time With Passionate People Today

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Self-Leadership #4 Write Your Character

We come now to the character building stage. Character is the first requirement of self-leadership. Combined with good habits and competence, character creates the building blocks for leadership:

Good Habits + Competence + Character = Superb Leadership

The word “character” is derived from older words than mean “engraved” and “inscribed.” These etymological roots imply something important. Character is written, inscribed and engraved all over you. Everyone has a character but not all of us are “of” character. Character is founded on unchanging principles. It is your underlying core. It has unspoken power, it is solid and resolute, and it doesn’t blink.

Most important, character is a series of decisions and choices that you make as you grow and mature. Character is not something that is handed to you; it must be forged through years of hard work and discipline. It is the culmination of years of choosing to act one way rather than another, of choosing truth over deception, respect over arrogance, compassion over cruelty. There is no one prescription for character. You cannot simply copy someone else’s character. Character must fit our own personality and characteristics if it is to withstand trial by fire.

There are many techniques for “writing your character.” These include the habits of seeking truth, finding and keeping faith, practicing humility and showing respect and compassion for others. None is easy to adopt; all are important for self-leadership.

Here are three (3) techniques you can use as you write your character:

Learn From Hardship: It is at the most difficult times that we become most open to profound learning. Sometimes when we realize we don’t have all the answers, we begin to ask the right questions.

Building Character Takes Discipline: Internalizing the principles and values that you believe in means that they will surface in times of crisis. This takes daily renewal and practice.

Identify Your Heroes: Heroes (or Mentors) embody qualities of character that are important to us and compel us to examine more closely how we’re conducting our own lives. Find one (or more) and learn from him or her. Read biographies and autobiographies is one way.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Self-Leadership #3 Play To Your Strengths

“What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths - and can call on the right strength at the right time.”

(Tom Rath)

Self-discovery is nothing if not personal both in the process and in the results. There is no formula by which you can find out what makes you tick, no standardized test that will reveal your goals in life. Looking within yourself to ask the tough questions is an individual quest, and you must not conform to what you think the results should be.

The trick is to find your own strengths and to play those strengths. As you start to answer the questions that lead to self-knowledge, certain strengths – and weaknesses – in your own character will begin to become evident (This is not a bad thing. Strong people tend to have strong weaknesses; as long as you're aware of them, they don't have to work to your disadvantage). Good leaders will work to reduce their weaknesses, but moreover, they will use their strengths to the greatest advantage. Focus more on your strengths than weaknesses.

There are many ways in which we may learn more about our own strengths and weaknesses. Some of these are techniques we can choose to practice, such as prayer, meditation or long walks in the park. These are methods by which we pay attention, in very specific ways: with intention, in the present moment and non-judgementally. Keeping a journal can also be a way to learn more about yourself. Other learning experiences are less voluntary; pain, for example, can provide invaluable insights but is rarely a method that people would choose for themselves.

The important thing is to make the commitment to self-knowledge, through whatever means works for you, and to accept and use to your advantage the results of this discovery process. You see, you can't be a good leader if you only compare yourself to others. You have to look into yourself. Your greatest strengths as a leader are those qualities that are unique to you. As you discover them, use them to your advantage. Different people find their ways through different paths, and if you take someone else's path, you may not like where you end up.

Here three (3) ways to learn more about your strengths and yourself:

#1 Choose Your Own Path: It doesn't have to be the path less traveled or the one of least resistance. What matters is that it's the right one for you.

#2 It's Not a Failure If You Learn Something: Be open to the learning process. Whether its pain, mistakes or success, every experience can teach you something. Sometimes the hardest lessons are the most important.

#3 Practice Continuous Renewal: Continuous, disciplined self-examination internalizes the lessons you're learning about yourself and allows you instinctively to play to your own strengths.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Self-Leadership #2 Look the Truth Straight On

“Just be honest with yourself. That opens the door”

(Vernon Howard)

A key building block in the process of self-discovery is your willingness to look at the truth straight on. If you answer one or more of the tough questions mentioned in the first lesson without being fully honest, you gain nothing. Goals built on half-truths are almost certain to fail when push comes to shove. If you can’t act on your convictions in a crunch, then success is out of the question.

A person who is grounded in truth doesn’t have to look very far to find the right thing to do. When you are guided by the truth, you are the same person in private as you are in public. Looked at from the other end of the telescope, you know that what you do in private matters. Any talk of being able to “compartmentalize” your life, so that what you do in private has no bearing on your public life, is a friction. Even madness. Your principles only count if you live them on and off your field.

If you’re still not persuaded, consider this. As a leader, you can’t build a team, organization, or company that’s a whole lot different from yourself – well, who are you? Do you want your organization to have shaky foundations built on dishonest goals? If the answer is no, then make sure these things aren’t part of you, either. The researcher can’t help but influence what he’s observing, and the inventor can’t take himself out of his creation.

Honesty also plays an important role in the interactions between a leader and his organization. Without complete honesty, there can be no trust, and if your people don’t trust you, you can’t lead them. Trust is earned through patient investment and a consistent track record, and it can be destroyed in an instant. As a leader, you will be closely watched, and everything you say will have meaning for your people. Actions that contradict your message – or dishonest messages – will destroy trust and be used as an excuse not to take you seriously.

Here are three (3) things to consider in your search for truth:

Don’t Try to Fake It: People have an unerring nose for dishonesty, fraud, and pretense. To be successful, you must be honest with yourself and others.

Expect to Be Observed: As a leader, you’re being watched 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can’t build a team that’s different from yourself. So be honest with yourself and with your team.

Don’t Compartmentalize: Your conduct matters at all times. If you compromise your principles in your private life, it may well affect your public life as well.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Self-Leadership #1 Ask Yourself Tough Questions

Leadership is founded on the belief that you can only become a leader after developing your character – that is, after building integrity, honesty, and commitment. The way to develop these attributes is through self-knowledge. You can't improve what you don't understand.

The first steps on the road to self-knowledge involve asking ourselves tough questions. For example; Is there an overriding purpose in my life, a purpose that is vivid and precise, a purpose I am committed to, a purpose that makes sense in everything I do?

It is sometimes helpful to recall the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: "What is my job on the planet? What it is that needs doing, that I know something about, that probably won't happen unless I take responsibility for it?"

We can only identify this purpose by taking a hard look at ourselves and giving ourselves the quiet time necessary to seek the answers. But answering the question of purpose begs other important questions. For example; Am I going to allow my life to be controlled by the crush of daily activities, or will I live my life in accordance with my purpose? Do day-to-day urgencies always have to shove higher-order concerns to the side? Always?

Sometimes a purpose and a career are incompatible, and something has to give (I don't think one could be both a cop and a bank robber for very long). But sometimes a particular purpose can be squared with a particular career. It may take nothing more than re-examining your career, asking some questions, and discovering a purpose you have overlooked in the past.

Here are three steps you can take on the road to self-knowledge:

Get to Know Yourself: You can't improve upon something you don't understand. The more questions you ask yourself, the better you'll know yourself.

Learn from Failure: Failure can bring some of the toughest questions of all. If you answer them fully and honestly, you may learn more from failure than you do from success.

Don't Run for the sake of Running: Make sure you're headed somewhere. If you're going all out without a clear destination in mind, slow down and ask some more questions.

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.

Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life (2012) Book Review

Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life (2012)

by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller

After reading their best-selling book The Secret, it is right for me to continue reading Great Leaders Grow. I just can't get enough of their wisdom on leadership. And since it is written in a story form, I enjoy myself as I learned. Why do leaders need to GROW? "Growing for a leader is like oxygen to a deep-sea diver: without it, you die. Unlike the dive, you may not physically die – but if you stop growing, your influence will erode, and over time, you can even lost the opportunity to lead at all." They concluded that "The failure to grow sabotages the career of more leaders than anything else." The way to increased influence, impact and leadership effectiveness is through personal growth. "Our capacity to grow determines our capacity to lead."

Debbie Brewster – the protagonist from Ken and Mark's The Secret – returns in this book to mentor her mentor's son, Blake, as he begins his career and wanted to grow in leadership. As accomplished leader herself, Debbie shows Blake how to grow as a leader and as a human being are inseparable. "How well you and I serve will be determined by the decision to grow or not," she says. "Will you be a leader who is always ready to face the next challenge? Or will you be a leader who tries to apply yesterday's solutions to today's problems?" As Blake confronts the challenge as an emergent leader, he turns to Debbie for guidance. Step by step, Debbie, and Blake explore the GROW model – four ways that leaders must challenge and stretch themselves, both on the job and off, to fulfill their highest potentials. Remember this always: Your capacity to grow determines your capacity to lead. If you stop growing, you stop leading.

To be a great leader, simply you must GROW:

G = GAIN KNOWLEDGE involves constantly seeking information in order to improve one's leadership skills.

R = REACHING OUT TO OTHERS as leaders grow by helping others grow.

O = OPEN YOUR WORLD by having new experiences both in one's personal and work life.

W = WALK TOWARD WISDOM. One can gain more knowledge through rigorous self-evaluation and receiving honest feedback.

With every point, both authors give it in details with explanations, examples and practical to-do lists. There are good questions and memorable quotations in this book. The question is not, "Do you want to grow as a leader?" but the question is, "Are you growing as a leader?" Because leadership is a never-ending pursuit, one must continuously grow. Your capacity to GROW determines your capacity to lead! One way to learn this is by reading this book! I highly recommend! Wow!

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.