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I thought that this was a great quote on leadership from a system’s perspective:

“From a systems point of view leadership is crucial because the most effective way you can intervene in a system is to shift its goals. You don’t need to fire everyone, or replace all the machinery, or spend more money, or even make new laws - if you can just change the goals of the feedback loops. Then all the old people, machinery, money, and laws will start serving new functions, falling into new configurations, behaving in new ways, and producing new results.” - Donella H. Meadows - The Question Of Leadership

Reading this reminded me of the very interesting ChangeThis manifesto by Chetan Dhruve “Why Your Boss is Programmed to be a Dictator“, which was written from a systems perspective.

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Systems, Systems Thinking

Life is about creating and sustaining momentum. Think about it, anything worthwhile, be it personal development, business development or relationships takes time. Nothing of substance is created without persistence and an investment in time. We live in an instant world with instant coffee and even instant cash.

Everything else, requires a commitment, persistence and time. This works as follows:

1. You make a commitment, you decide that to achieve something of substance. Improve your financial situation, increase your emotional intelligence or to become physically fit.
2. You begin to take small steps towards this goal. This is the difficult part, it requires persistence in the face of seemingly little improvement or benefit.
3. You’re about to give up, you’re persistent, so - you press on. This is usually the worst time to give in as you are about to breakthrough to the next level and see the results.
4. You breakthrough to the next level, gaining momentum for the next stretch.
5. Go to 1! The cycle starts again.

When we want to change something in our life, we usually find that after giving it our best shot that seemingly nothing happens, this can be explained by understanding the boiled frog syndrome. If you wish to boil a frog, you cannot place the frog directly into hot water, it will quickly jump out. Instead, you place the frog in cold water and begin to heat it slowly. The water temperature starts to rise, its rising so slowly that the frog barely notices the increase in temperature. After a while, the water is boiling, and the frog is, well, history! This is what happens to us when we embark on personal change. The changes are happening so gradually, that we rarely notice any difference. In the end, we usually notice the difference after we have created the necessary momentum……… if we persist.

Momentum is built through time and effort. You don’t run up to a large boulder and start pushing it a high speed. You have to begin slowly, first rocking the boulder gently back and forth. Finally, the boulder moves out of the rut, breaking free from it’s stationary position. Moving ever so slowly, the boulder starts inching forward. You push harder, you feel the resistance, you feel the strain, it’s hard work. Slowly, the boulder picks up some speed, you can feel the momentum building, it does not seem much, you consider giving up, this is just too difficult. Committed to this action, you continue to push, grunting and groaning, you feel foolish, your effort does not seem to be making any significant different, your press on anyway. You begin to feel the momentum building again, this encourages you, you push harder, the boulder is picking up speed, it’s easier, you begin to run!

This is how it works in the real world, it is going to require hard work, you will need to persevere before seeing any results, you will feel like giving up. But remember, you’re creating momentum, it will become easier and something is changing!

This all starts with a commitment and perseverance, over time you’ll see the results. So what commitments have you made? What are you chipping away at on a daily basis (momentum is created incrementally), seeking to develop momentum?

• Are you committed to physical development? Do you exercise daily?
• Are you committed to develop your emotional intelligence? Developing an emotional positive response to life
• Are you committed to your financial independence? Do you invest on a monthly basis?
• Are you committed to improve your thinking?
• Are you committed to meaningful relationships?
• Are you committed to family time?
• Are you committed to spiritual fulfilment?
• Are you committed to resting?

Are you committed to invest in building momentum in these areas daily?

Technorati Tags: Momentum, Leadership, GTD, Lifehack, Personal Leadership, Commitment, Breakthrough, Perseverance

Peter Drucker the founder of management science and origionater of the concept of the “knowledge worker”, author of more than 41 books, died on the 11th November 2005 at 95 years of age. There is a timeline outlining his life and achievements available here.

Some of the favorite Druckerisms from Leadership. Now. are:

• What everyone knows is usually wrong.
• Popularity is not leadership. Results are. Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is responsibility. There may be ‘born leaders,’ but there surely are too few to depend on them.
• Leadership is not magnetic personality - that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not ‘making friends and influencing people’ - that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
• Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard and the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.
• Of all the decisions an executive makes, none is as important as the decisions about people, because they determine the performance capacity of the organization.
• In today’s marketplace, productivity is the true competitive advantage.
• The effectiveness of an organization depends on work being done at the lowest possible organization level.
• The one truly effective way to cut costs is to cut out an activity altogether. There is little point in trying to do cheaply what should not be done at all.
• The best way to predict the future is to create it.

A few of my favorite from Marketing Headhunter.com are:

• There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. He alone gives employment.
• It is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass.
• You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, where people trust one another. In military training, the first rule is to instill soldiers with trust in their officers — because without trust, they won’t fight.
• Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.
• Luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential.
• There are keys to success in managing bosses. First, put down on a piece of paper a “boss list,” everyone to whom you are accountable. Next, go to each person on the list and ask, “What do I do and what do my people do that helps you do your job?” And, “What do we do that makes your life more difficult?”
• A decision is a commitment to action. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody’s responsibility.
• It’s much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away. Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free.
• Just go out and make yourself useful.

And this Drucker quote from Management Craft:

“In every executive job, a large part of the time must therefore be wasted on things which, thought they apparently have to be done, contribute nothing or little. Yet most of the tasks of the executive require, for minimum effectiveness, a fairly large quantum of time. To spend in one stretch less than this minimum is sheer waste. One accomplishes nothing and has to begin all over again… To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.” - Peter Drucker, the Effective Executive, p. 29

What’s most interesting to me about Peter Drucker, is how his influence and productivity increased as he aged. I took a list of his books and the dates they were published as listed on Wikipedia (listed below), the interesting thing is, he published more than 70% of his books between the ages of 61 and 95! Let no one say you’re ever too old!!!

The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism(1939)

The Future of Industrial Man (1942)

Concept of the Corporation (1945)

The New Society (1950)

The Practice of Management (1954)

America’s Next 20 Years (1957)

Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New ‘Post-Modern’ World (1959)

Power and Democracy in America (1961)

Managing for Results: Economic Tasks and Risk-Taking Decisions (1964)

The Effective Executive (1966)

The Age of Discontinuity (1968)

Technology, Management and Society (1970)

Men, Ideas and Politics (1971)

Management: Tasks, Responsibilities and Practices (1973)

The Unseen Revolution: How the Pension Fund Came to America (1976)

An Introductory View of Management (1977)

Adventures of a Bystander (1979)

Song of the Brush: Japanese Painting from the Sanso Collection (1979)

Managing in Turbulent Times (1980)

Toward the Next Economics and Other Essays (1981)

The Changing World of the Executive (1982)

The Temptation to Do Good (1984)

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Practice and Principles (1985)

The Frontiers of Management (1986)

The New Realities (1989)

Managing the Non-Profit Organization: Practices and Principles (1990)

Managing for the Future: The 1990s and Beyond (1992)

The Post-Capitalist Society (1993)

The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition (1993)

The Theory of the Business (1994)

Managing in a Time of Great Change (1995)

Drucker on Asia: A Dialogue Between Peter Drucker and Isao Nakauchi (1997)

Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management (1998)

Management Challenges for the 21st Century (1999)

The Essential Drucker (2001)

Leading in a Time of Change: What it Will Take to Lead Tomorrow (2001; with Peter Senge)

The Effective Executive Revised (2002)

Managing in the Next Society (2002)

A Functioning Society (2003)

The Daily Drucker (2004)

Managing Oneself (2005)

Lastly, The Wall Street Journal has a good selection of opinion pieces by Peter F. Drucker available….

Technorati Tags: Peter Drucker, Management, Leadership, Author, Leader

We can learn about leadership formally, through training or informally through conversation. There are times when opportunities to engage with successful leaders present themselves unexpectedly. How many of us make productive use of these opportunities? If you were invited to meet a successful leader over lunch, what questions you would ask him or her?

In his leadership book “On Becoming a Leader“, Warren Bennis, lists some questions he uses to explore, as he put it: “how people learn, how they learn to lead, and how organisations help or hinder the process - or, to put it succinctly, how people become leaders“. The questions are interesting, and worth using as a tool when we have the opportunity to spend time with a respected leader. The questions mentioned in the book are:

• What do you believe are the qualities of leadership?
• What experiences were vital to your development?
• What were the turning points in your life?
• What role has failure played in your life?
• How did you learn?
• Are there people in your life, or in general, whom you particularly admire?
• What can organisations do to encourage or stifle leaders?

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Book, Personal Leadership, Management, Reflection

“Great leadership, actually builds not just purpose, but energy.” - Michael Bayler

I guess this leads to the obvious question, “how much energy is your leadership creating? Is the energy positive and sustaining or just a burst lasting only a short while?

Technorati Tags: leadership, quote

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