Category Archives: Leadership

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Focus on Mastery

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“They are a Jack of all trades, but master of none.”

This phrase has been used in a derogatory way to describe a person who is scattered and undisciplined.  We all know people who are so sidetracked they can’t get anything done.  Focus eludes them.  They are driven by distraction.

We know others who are overworked and trying to get so much done that they end up getting nothing done of substance because they are skimming the surface.  Mediocrity is their make-up.

We also have people that we lead who are fantastic at what they do.  They have gained experience, studied from others, listened to their mentors, and worked hard to refine their skills. They have reached a level of mastery and are continually growing.  We can easily spot these people because even when they perform at a high level, they are always trying to figure out how to be better.  They are focused on mastery.  It’s a never ending passion.

One thing I’ve noticed about people who are successful is that they have found their niche.  They are doing what no one else is doing.  There is little competition in their field and they have become so good, that any competition that arises has little chance of succeeding.

As leaders we have to figure out who masters are and what skills they have so that we can put them in the right place on the team.  Once they are there, we give them space, freedom and the tools they need to succeed.

Who are the people on your team who have reached a level of mastery?  How can you inspire them this week?

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Admit When You Don’t Know it All

Image courtesy of Nujalee/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Nujalee/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools learn in no other. – Benjamin Franklin

In almost every leadership position we hold there is a honeymoon period that allows us to get settled in and learn the lay of the land.  Very soon reality sets in and we realize there are challenges that are rising to the surface.  Our temptation is to turn on our mental autopilot and try to solve it the way we’ve solved it in the past. But then it doesn’t work.

I’ve discovered that no matter how many years of experience I get under my leadership belt, I run into issues I’ve never faced before.  Every leadership context is different.   An experienced pilot when facing turbulence can’t allow autopilot to take over. Instead, the pilot flies through it.

In the same way,  we can’t afford to go on autopilot thinking that “we’ve seen this before know what to do.”  When I find that attitude creeping in, I know it’s time to check myself.  Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture or don’t know all the facts.

The best leaders admit when they don’t know it all.  They grow with the trials, deepen their experience and sharpen their skill.

Leadership expert Jim Collins, in his famous work on how good companies became great companies, says Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark is one of the greatest CEOs of the twentieth century.  Collins says, “Smith, a man who never entirely erased his own self-doubts, later summed up his tenure by saying simply, ‘I never stopped trying to become qualified for the job.’” (http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/the-misguided-mixup.html)

Our experience informs the present to help us figure out what to do.  It begins with the attitude of humility.  Celebrity leaders rise only as high as the moment they think they know it all then they fall.

Leaders who last rise to the challenge and grow through the new experience.

Rick Pitino, championship basketball coach, writes, “The longer I live and the more I experience, the more I believe that humility is the quality essential to sustained success, and a lack of it is the major stumbling block for those who find success for a time, then lose it.” (The One-Day Contract: How to Add Value to Every Minute of Your Life­)

Could it be time to turn off autopilot and fly the plane?

What challenges are you facing that require a humble attitude and the willingness to learn something new?

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Monday Quick Tip ~ The One Who Laughs Lasts

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Laughter is the best medicine

Have you ever been a cranky leader? I have on too many occasions.  I’m currently going through a very busy season that only promises to get busier in the coming weeks.  I find myself with a bad attitude that is in need of some serious adjustment.  Here are some signs that it is time for a break.

  • No fun to be around (even when I’m by myself).
  • Frowning or grimacing most of the time.
  • Frequent headaches.
  • Mind racing through the never ending To-Do list.
  • Tired, even after a night’s rest.
  • Paying more attention to the clock than people.
  • Allowing gratitude to be nudged out by expectation or worse, entitlement.

I believe in the biblical proverb that those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed (11:25).  But I also believe that those who refresh others must first refresh themselves. Or, to use Stephen Covey’s admonition: “Sharpen the saw.” Or the airline’s instruction: Put on your own oxygen mask first before assisting others.

We all need time away from the stresses of leadership.  We need time to re-set.  We need to give ourselves the gift of time away.

Time to push the pause button.

Time to do something totally unrelated to our organization.

Time to do something fun that brings the laughter back.

I know what I need to do to bring back the laughter.  How about you?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

Image courtesy of jesadaphorn/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of jesadaphorn/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As leaders we want to be liked.  We want people to follow us and have fun doing it.  But one of the perils of leadership is to be so emotionally needy of the adulation of our followers that we compromise our identity.

We have people on our teams who will praise us excessively to the point of flattery.  It makes us feel good to be liked.  But in the secret places of our heart, we know that we are not that good.

We suspect that the praiser wants something from us and just telling us those nice things because they are going to want a favor down the road. They are “greasing the skids.”

As a leader, I’ve found that the people who are quickest to praise me without really knowing me are the first ones to turn on me when times get tough.  They are the first ones to blame and criticize.

To stay centered as leaders we need people in our life who love us without strings attached to what they can get from us.  Those people are rare.  It gets even more confusing when we think we have those people in our life only to find out that they had a secret agenda all along.

This is the essence of the excellent and critically acclaimed Netflix series, House of Cards.  Things are not always what they seem and the Frank Underwoods of the world will stab us in the back while praising us to our face.

Flattery from those we lead may feel good, but if we treat it as more than it really is, it will get us nowhere.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Live the Golden Rule

greeting

Image courtesy of photostock/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Do unto others, what you would have them do unto you – Jesus

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ― Maya Angelou

This quote from Maya Angelou has been running through my head a lot lately.  It applies in many arenas of life.

Much of leadership is how we make people feel.

We inspire, encourage and correct.

I will never forget a time when I was going through a rough patch while in graduate school.  Finances were limited, my course load was increasing, people I loved were having relational issues that were affecting the entire family and I was 1600 miles from home.  I felt as if I was facing these challenges all alone.

Jay KeslerJay Kesler, the then President of Taylor University, was visiting campus for some speaking engagements.  I was hurriedly going from one class to the next.  I saw Dr. Kesler coming towards me on the sidewalk.  He was by himself.  As he saw me, his face lit up with a magnificent smile and he said, “Hello, how are you today?” I returned the smile and said, “Fine, thank you.”  Of course, I wasn’t fine given the circumstances, but that day, the load seemed a little lighter.  I don’t remember any of his lectures on campus.  But to this day, I remember the sidewalk encounter and how it made me feel.  I felt that I was not alone.  An easy thing to do that had powerful impact.

Sometimes leadership is not about budgets and vision and grandiose schemes.

Sometimes, leadership is a smile on a sidewalk to a fellow human being.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Shake and Stir for Best Results

Image courtesy of Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A rolling stone gathers no moss. – Publilius Syrus, 1st century writer of Latin maxims

In the organization I lead, we’ve been going through a time of assessment and transition.  My days have been filled with charts and graphs of income and expenditures. In my research, I’ve discovered the health of the organization is not as robust as people in the organization believe. So it became my job to shake things up and (as Peter Drucker says) define reality.

We have all seen the snow globe that looks calm and serene when the snow is settled at the bottom. No disturbances and a clear view.  But that’s not what snow globes are designed for.  The beauty comes in the shaking. Flecks of snow descend, hit beams of light and beauty emerges.

That’s part of what it means to be a leader.  Leaders shake things up to see what beauty appears.

After my report to the leaders about our organization, I expected some disagreement and push back. I got some minor comments.  But the leaders among the group responded by saying, “that was exactly what we needed to hear.  Keep shaking and stirring us.”

There are a couple different interpretations of the rolling stone proverb listed above.  The one I like best says that people are always moving and looking for freshness and creativity.

There is a restless streak in leaders. We are always on the move in our own growth and in our leadership of the people we lead.  To allow moss to grow is to become stagnant.

For best results this week, shake a few things, stir a few others and watch what happens.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Get Lucky by Working Hard

Image courtesy of kibsri/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of kibsri/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Diligence is the mother of good fortune.

Very few people are lucky in the purest sense of the word.  It is possible, but extremely rare, that infrequent lottery ticket buyers hit it big. Most of the time we create our own “luck.”

I know people who win big at sweepstakes and to the outside observer they seem to be the luckiest people in the world.  What we don’t see are the many hours spent culling websites and persistently filling out entry forms.

“Luck” is what we are forced to rely on when we don’t do our homework.  Showing up to practice and hone our craft gives opportunities we wouldn’t get otherwise.

In leadership I’ve sometimes been guilty of impatience and hoped luck would bail me out. When hiring new employees, I could have done more to check out their background or spent more time with them to insure a proper fit with the organization.  Instead, I congratulated myself on “filling the position so quickly.” Big mistake.

I’ve been on the other side too.  I’ve accepted employment in which I knew I was not the right fit but hoped my uneasiness would work itself out in the form of luck. Instead, I got an example of what not to do for this blog post.

At the start of a new “work” week, I’m asking myself, “Where do I need to get busy working and quit trying to take shortcuts?”

When we are diligent, it’s amazing how lucky we can be.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Take Stock of What Matters

hands together

Image courtesy of stockimages/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven…

 A time to plant and a time to uproot.  Ecclesiastes 3:1, 2b

My current leadership responsibilities include helping the organization I lead to take stock of how it is doing in light of the current reality.  To do that, we are closely examining our programs and people.

I’ve been thinking about what is important and what isn’t important in the life of the organization I lead.  I’m challenging the organization with the questions found in Peter Drucker’s small yet powerful read, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization. Here are the 5 questions:

  • What is our mission?
  • Who is our customer?
  • What does the customer value?
  • What are our results?
  • What is our plan?

The questions get to the heart of what is most important.  Not a bad thing to examine, both in organizations and in our personal life.

Answering the questions lead us to make some decisions about what to uproot and what to plant.  They help us move forward in why we are here.

The beauty of the questions is that they also apply to our personal relationships.  Our mission in life is to be as loving as possible.

Our “customer” is our friends and family.

Our friends and family value time with us, laughing, having fun, and sharing great experiences.

The result is ever deepening and more meaningful relationships.

So what is your plan to build the relationship with those who love you most?

Loss of relationships can come swiftly and unexpectedly.  All the success in business can’t make up for the time we lost with those we love most.

Build relationships and the rest will take care of itself.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Take Down Your Worst Enemy

Image courtesy of Gualberto107/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Gualberto107/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

We have met the enemy and he is us. – Pogo, comic book character

In a recent post I talked about “stinking thinking” that we can fall prey to in our role as leaders.  (Read it here.)  The same phenomenon also happens in our self-leadership.  Self-doubt can grip us in its scaly tentacles and we find it hard to break free.

When I find myself in this state, I know it is time for me to check out “the view from someone outside my head.”  It’s like staying inside the same house all the time.  Our view becomes only what we see from that limited perspective.  Soon we believe that is reality, but in fact it is only our perception.

The voice of self-doubt shouts to us to err on the side of safety. It says:

  • You can’t
  • You shouldn’t
  • You won’t
  • You will never
  • That won’t work
  • You must not
  • That’s too risky
  • What are you thinking?

It’s helpful to pay attention to our emotions when we are caught in periods of self-doubt.  The voice of self-doubt becomes louder during times of stress, exhaustion, risk, and as deadlines draw near.

Our best strategy for silencing the voices of negativity is to listen to our cheering section, our fans, our positive partners and our encouragers.  They give us the perspective we need to break free from the hold of self-doubt.

No one makes it alone.

These treasured people remind us of what we have going for us and how far we’ve come.  Sometimes we need them to come along side to give us a good swift kick in the behind to get us back on track.

Take down the voice of self-doubt. Go find your eagles, so you can soar once again.

Who are your positive partners?

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Monday Quick Tip ~ We Are What We Think

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. ~ Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor & Philosopher

Our life is what our thoughts make it ~ Marcus Aurelius

It’s true that garbage in leads to garbage out.  We can get a serious case of “stinking thinking” when we continually think about what could go wrong instead of the potential of what could go right.

As leaders, our thinking is critical to the attitude and morale of the people we lead.

If we feast our minds on a diet of the worst case scenario our actions will reveal our thoughts.  Playing it safe instead of going for it or giving up on pursuing our dreams started when we tasted the fruit of negativity.

Examples of stinking thinking include:

  • Overgeneralization – using words like “always” and “never”
  • Habitually looking for and finding the negative in people and situations
  • Discounting the positive
  • Predicting negative outcomes before giving it fair trial

When we give our minds clean, wholesome positive information and images, positive words and actions will follow.

The bottom line is that we become what we think about.

Think good thoughts this week and the people we lead will thank us.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Help Team Members Get Over Their Mistakes

Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The burnt child dreads the fire – Greek Proverb

On a beautiful sunny summer day at southern California’s Coronado Beach, I was enjoying people watching near the water.  The idyllic scene was pierced by the sharp cry of a 5 year old girl.  She was walking along some rocks, slipped and cut her toe.  She collapsed in a heap on the ground, refusing to get up.  Her friends came running to her aid.  One of them saw what was wrong then bolted away to get her parents.

Soon her burly dad shows up.  He bends down, examines her toe and says, “It is going to be okay.  It is just a little cut.”  She is not convinced.   She says through her tears, “I can’t walk.”  He repeats, “It’s gonna hurt but you will be okay.”  With that he scoops her up in his arms and carries her to the spot where he will bandage her wound.  As he walked past me I heard him repeating, “It’s going to be okay. It’s just a little cut.”

As I thought about the incident, it hit me that parents, as leaders of their families are given the task of helping their children process their bad experiences.  Leaders, in any arena do the same.

We get to help our team members move through their mistakes and failures in a way that leaves them better.  We don’t want team members who, like the child in the above proverb, dread taking a risk. We want team members who are willing to get out of their comfort zone.

Our job as leaders is to give our followers the truth: Yes, you messed up.  Yes, you were walking where you shouldn’t have been walking.  Yes, it is going to hurt.  Yes, the fire burned you.  Yes, you didn’t meet expectations.

The other side of our task then is to bring comfort and perspective: It is going to be okay.  It is just a small cut.  We will do it better next time. We will learn from this and go forward.

Bad experiences don’t have to hinder team members.  Rather, they can be used to propel them further if we give them truth and comforting perspective.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you balance truth with comfort.  You can leave a comment below.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Don’t Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

horse

Image courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This week we’re celebrating another Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.  An attitude of gratitude is a positive leadership quality, not just during this week, but every week of the year.

Gratitude attracts, entitlement repels.

“Gift horses” come our way regularly if we have eyes to see them.  The phrase “gift horse” refers to being given a horse as a gift.  As horses get older, their gums recede, showing their age in their mouth.  Inspecting a horse’s teeth is considered ungrateful.

Often our team members, like the proverbial gift horse, come bearing presents.  Here are a few gifts they give to us leaders:

  • The power to influence them
  • Feedback about our leadership
  • Morale reports from fellow team members
  • Their trust
  • Their commitment
  • Their presence
  • Their respect
  • Their attention
  • Their best efforts

None of these gifts we receive are taken lightly.  They afford us the honor and privilege of leading.

What gifts have you been given as a leader?

What gifts do you recognize from your team members?

When they come your way this week just say thank you.

Giddy-up!

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Don’t Become a Dull Person

Image courtesy of Apolonia/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of Apolonia/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fans of writer Stephen King will remember one of his main characters in The Shining repeatedly typing the phrase, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”  It’s a phrase that serves as a good reminder to us in our “get to work” world.

We struggle with “work-life” balance as leaders.  The people we lead struggle with it too.

If we don’t take some regular time off for rest, renewal and recreation, we will become boring and bored.  Life is more than a one dimensional existence.

Do you have some outside interests that restore your depleted energy?  When we take time to recreate our creativity is “re-created.” Our energy is renewed.

I recently attended the funeral of a 90 year old man.  His was a life well lived.  On the altar at the front of the church his family placed some personal mementos that symbolized his life.  A Pittsburgh Steelers cap, an American flag and a worn tennis racquet stood as gentle reminders that there was more to his life than the 9 to 5.

For people in the United States, today is the celebration of Veteran’s Day.  It’s a great day on many levels, the greatest of which we celebrate and remember the millions who have preserved our freedom in America. One of those freedoms is the pursuit of happiness.

We won’t take today for granted. If you are fortunate enough to have the day off we’ll use it to do something fun and remember the price that was paid to allow us to do it.

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Monday Quick Tip ~ Silence is Golden

Man with tape

Image courtesy of Stockimages/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Silence is golden and I want to be rich” was my teacher’s way of getting us 2nd graders to be quiet and listen.  The phrase, “silence is golden” has been around for centuries.

Wise leaders know when to speak up and when to give their tongues a rest.  It is no secret that our mouth gets us into trouble. That’s not only true about our work life, but all of life.

Jacqueline Whitmore, an etiquette expert, writes about getting along with the significant people in our life.  I love the three questions that she says we need to ask ourselves before we speak our mind:

  • Does this need to be said?
  • Does this need to be said by me?
  • Does this need to be said by me right now? 

“If the answer is yes to each one then it’s time to sit down and have a reasonable discussion. If it’s no then let it go.” (Check out Jacqueline’s post here)

We encounter circumstances daily when it is best to say nothing.

Silence is golden when:

Speaking will not help the situation but may make it worse.

We need to think clearly about an issue or problem we are facing.

We need to pray.  Prayer is not always talking, but about listening for the “still small voice.”

We need to focus and get undistracted quality work done.

We need sleep.  Noisy neighbors and barking dogs can make sleep a challenge.

This week there are opportunities for us to “be rich.”

Take time to enjoy the benefits of silence.

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Guard Your Heart

heart-of-L-10-linkThis is a guest post from Mark Miller.  Mark’s latest book is, The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow.

Originally Posted on greatleadersserve.org on Wednesday, September 4, 2013

GUARD YOUR HEART!

The Heart of Leadership is built upon a simple premise: unless your heart is right, no one cares about your skills. This may sound harsh, but it’s true. If people don’t trust our heart, they don’t trust us. If they don’t trust us – they won’t follow our leadership.

That’s the idea the book is built upon, and when we demonstrate leadership character, others see it. They see it as leadership character in action. They see it when we…

HUNGER FOR WISDOM

EXPECT THE BEST

ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY

RESPOND WITH COURAGE

THINK OTHERS FIRST

But why does this matter? Aren’t we just supposed to get results? If you’ve been leading long, you know you can get results without creating follow-ship. Results can be the byproduct of a very toxic workplace and poor relationships with those you lead. The irony of this approach is two-fold. It is not the way to maximize results. And, it is not sustainable over the long haul.

There is a vast reservoir of untapped potential in most people and in turn, most organizations — potential that goes unused and wasted. It resides in the discretionary efforts of our people. The day of the hired hands is dead. Leaders operating from that perspective are the dinosaurs of our day. As Peter Drucker said, “We are all knowledge workers.” The implications for leaders…

For every pair of hands you hire, you get a free brain.

Our challenge is to create the context and the work environment to mine that potential, to capitalize on that FREE brain. It starts with us. People don’t leave organizations, they leave their supervisor. Are we becoming leaders people want to follow? Or, are we driving talent away from our team?

Yes, we need the skills of leadership. I’ve devoted decades of my life to helping leaders acquire the requisite skills to lead well, but skills alone are not the answer. I’ll go back to where I started this post and to the premise of the book. If your heart is not right, no one cares about your skills. You and I will be dismissed as a leader if all we bring to the table are skills.

Leaders rarely fail for lack of skills. Certainly you can find examples of this, but in my experience, for every leader who fails because she can’t build a team or cast vision, countless others disqualify themselves for issues of the heart. The good news, we can change the condition of our heart. If we couldn’t, I wouldn’t have written the book.

So, what’s my point? I want to encourage you to be vigilant and diligent – give adequate attention to matters of the heart. It is much more important than most leaders think – it is critical. These are not soft issues; these are issues that ultimately determine our impact on the world!

There is an ancient proverb that summarizes why the matters of the heart matter so much – it captures my thoughts as well as I could ever hope to…

ABOVE ALL ELSE, GUARD YOUR HEART. EVERYTHING YOU DO FLOWS FROM IT.

MarkMiller_About_179x240_050813Mark Miller, well known business leader, best-selling author, and communicator, is excited about sharing The Heart of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow with those who are ready to take the next step. You can find it on Amazon and in bookstores everywhere.