Oct
6
Photo by law_keven
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you have ever been on a farm you will have noticed how cow paths that zigzag across the land. These cow paths are create by cows, who are creatures of habit and when one cow starts to walk across the meadow, the second one follows and the third and soon the rest follows. After a short while, the cows have created a cow path, a well worn route from point A to B. One of the most noticeable things about cow paths, is that they zigzag and twist across the land, often going nowhere in particular. The reason for this is that cows like to keep their heads down when they walk, looking for blades of grass to eat.
The interesting thing about cow paths is a that once a cow path has been created to get from one place to another, the cows will continue to follow the cow path without question. No cow is ever smart or courageous enough to try a new, potentially faster and more efficient way to the same destination again. They will continue to blindly follow the same route time and time again.
Cow Path
One day thru the primeval wood
A calf walked home, as good calves should,
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail, as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer, the calf is dead;
But still behind he left his trail,
And thereon hangs my mortal tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way,
And then a wise bell-weather sheep
Sliding into a rut now deep,
Pursued that trail over hill and glade
Thru those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
and uttered words of righteous wrath
Because “twas such a crooked path”
But still they follow-do not laugh-
The first migrations of that calf.
The forest became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road
where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And traveled some three miles in one.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The village road became a street,
And this, before the men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon a central street was this
In a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Followed the wanderings of this calf.
Each day a hundred thousand strong
Followed this zigzag calf along;
And over his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one poor calf, three centuries dead.
For just such reverence is lent
To well established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach.
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf paths of the mind;
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
- Sam Walter Foss
Leaders by definition choose not to follow the well trodden cow paths of life. Instead they choose to blaze new paths, to pioneer and innovate, to do different things in different ways. If you’re following the herd through the cow paths of life… you’re not leading!
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” - Jim Rohn
Reflect on your own life:
- Are you following the well worn cow paths left by others?
- Are you blazing your own path?
- If you’re not blazing your own path can you be called a leader?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Innovation, Management, Business, Cow, Passion, Purpose, Vision, Original
Sep
28
Photo by Hamed Saber
Jon Ferguson has a great post titled “You Know You’re Not Leading When . . .” that asks the question “Ever catch yourself not leading?” and provide the following check list.
You know you are not leading when . . .
- You wait for someone to tell you what to do rather than taking the initiative yourself
- You spend too much time talking about how things should be different
- You blame the context, surroundings, or other people for your current situation
- You choose not to speak the truth in love
- You are more concerned about being cool or accepted than doing the right thing
- You seek consensus, rather than casting vision for a preferable future
- You aren’t taking any significant risks
- You accept status quo as the way it’s always been and always will be
- You start protecting your reputation instead of opening yourself up to opposition
- You sleep a little too sound
- You procrastinate to avoid making a tough call
- You talk to others about the problem rather than taking it to the person responsible
- You don’t feel like your butt is on the line for anything significant
- You think what you say doesn’t matter
- You ask for way too many opinions before taking action
This is a great list. I think we have all, at one time or another, caught ourselves not leading. I know that I have. Two insights which struck me after reading this list:
- To lead means we are out of our comfort zone, that we lead from the front, that we take risk, that we don not sleep a little too sound. We need to lead from the front. This means we go first, we push to the edge, we take the risk. What percentage of you time do you spend out in the front? What percentage of your time is spend outside your comfort zone? If it’s less than 10% you need to take action as soon as possible!
- Leadership is not a matter of position. We are prone “not to lead” when we begin to rely on our position as “leader”, the fact that we are the manager or have the position of leadership. We must never forget that leadership is a choice. The moment we articulate a vision and take responsibility for achieving it… leadership begins.
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Lead, Management, Business, Status, Attitude
Sep
3
Photo by Hamed Saber
People fail to lead when they act from the stance of a victim. People fail to lead when they act from a sense of helplessness. You have a victim attitude and are failing to lead if you recognise any of the following symptoms:
- You take no action until you have satisfied that you have complete information. That you understand all the steps and risks involved. This means you fail to act and nothing happens.
- You wait for authority and permission to act from those higher up on the organisational ladder.
- You expect senior management to provide you with all the answers and the solution to your problems.
- You place safety ahead of your vision.
- You avoid conflict by not raising issues and concerns which need to be address for any real change to occur.
This is not a leadership attitude. Leadership happens when we make the decision that what is happens around us is our responsibility. One of the hallmarks of effective leadership is the willingness to accept responsibility, to become the change we want to see in the world. Truly empowered leadership occurs when an individual comes to the realisation they they are the problem! That they are responsible for the problems in their life, the frustrations they feel, for their responses to circumstances and for how they feel.
Leaders adopt an empowered response toward life, they do not allow life to just happen to them. They have decided to own their life and their future, by acting everyday to create the future they want. The have accepted their responsibility to act to make the difference.
- Do you have a vision for your life?
- Are you acting to create the future you want?
- Do you act as an owner of life’s circumstances and your future or more like a victim?
- Have you decided to begin the journey of learning how to act on your vision and create the future that you want?
Technorati Tags: Vision, Victim, Owner, Responsibility, Management, Business, Leadership, Leading
Aug
31
Photo by by dbking
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness." - Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit
As leaders we can be given accountability and we can given authority, but we cannot be given responsibility. We have to take responsibility. Leadership is a choice we make. The attitude of responsibility, is a leadership mindset. We do not become leaders because we have authority and are therefore accountable. We are leaders because of how we choose to respond. Leadership rests on our responsibility, not our authority.
Leaders take responsibility, whether or not they actually do have responsibility. Great leaders are not afraid to take responsibility for things that are out of their control. Leaders don’t wait for permission or for authority, before they take responsibility and act to make a difference. When a situation needs to be improved, leaders make the choice to take responsibility. They choose to make different choices, to take difference actions and change life’s situations.
- Have you made the choice to take responsibility?
- Where can you take responsibility for changing?
- What are the first few steps that you can take?
Technorati Tags: Responsibility, Accountability, Leadership, Management, Business, Covey, Quote
Jul
29
A Brief Guide to World Domination
Filed Under Personal Leadership | 4 Comments
Photo by mercurialn
“It’s a lonely road for those of us who choose to be remarkable, and the path of convention can sometimes be appealing. That path is paved with safe lives, middle of the road monotony, and little chance of failure. But where’s the fun in being like everyone else out there?” – Chris Guillebeau
I stumbled across a really great blog “The Art of Non-Conformity” by Chris Guillebeau, who has written a manifesto titled “A Brief Guide to World Domination”, it has really got me thinking and I encourage you to download a copy and read it. It will challenge your thinking and encourage you to greatness…
“If you want it badly enough, and are willing to make some changes in your life to cause it to happen, you too can take over the world… or do anything else you really want to do. Yes, you really can have it all. The only things you’ll need to give up are assumptions, expectations, and the comfort zone that holds you back from greatness.“
Consider the following “11 ways unremarkably average” from Chris’s manifesto:
- Accept what people tell you at face value
- Don’t question authority
- Go to college because you’re supposed to, not because you want to learn something
- Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England
- Don’t try to learn another language; everyone else will eventually learn English
- Think about starting your own business, but never do it
- Think about writing a book, but never do it
- Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it
- Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work
- Don’t stand out or draw attention to yourself
- Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.
Looking at the above list, how many of these ‘ways’ describe you? I think that if you find more than two or three, you need to read this manifesto! Can you clearly and succinctly answer the following two questions…
- What do you really want to get out of life?
- What can you offer the world that no one else can?
A true leader is an original, he is not and cannot be a copy! Download and read this manifesto, it will challenge and inspire you to be the change you want to see in the world…
Technorati Tags: Mediocrity, Attitude, Manifesto, Leadership, Vision, Purpose, Passion, Career, Life
Jul
20
“You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of.” - Jim Rohn
Responsibility is a choice that a leaders as in how to respond to life’s situations and circumstances. As leaders have two choices regarding our respons-ability in life…
- We can respond as a victim. We respond as victims when circumstances are the driving force in our life and in the choices we make. As victim you’re taking action based on the circumstances in which you find yourself. The circumstances are the cause of your actions.
- We can respond as an owner. When we respond as owner, we make a choice to respond with our ability to create a new future. Responsibility stems from a belief and a decision, that we can respond and be the cause and to never be a victim of a circumstance, and that one can act to create a new future without requiring the permission to act from any external sources. Response-ability is the recognition that as a leader you are able to author new and better circumstances, it’s a choice we make.
Respons-ability is a choice, not something that happens to you. You have the choice to be the victim or owner and author of the situation. An owner will look for solutions, whilst a victim will search for a persecutor or a rescuer. Peter Senge in the Introduction to the book “Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership” makes the following observation:
"In the West we tend to think of leadership as a quality that exists in certain people. This usual way of thinking has many traps. We search for special individuals with leadership potential, rather than developing the leadership potential in everyone. We are easily distracted by what this or that leader is doing, by the melodrama of people in power trying to maintain their power and others trying to wrest it from them. When things are going poorly, we blame the situation on incompetent leaders, thereby avoiding any personal responsibility. When things become desperate, we can easily find ourselves waiting for a great leader to rescue us. Through all of this, we totally miss the bigger question: ‘What are we, collectively, able to create?’…… we forget that in its essence, leadership is about learning how to shape the future. Leadership exists when people are no longer victims of circumstances but participate in creating new circumstances" - Peter Senge
As a leader are you taking respons-ability to own and shape the circumstances in which you find yourself?
Are you helping other to become respons-able?
Technorati Tags: Responsible, Leadership, Management, Business
Nov
11
Positive or negative: What world view are you creating?
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
This post from Curt Rosengren really struck a cord with me… It’s a great question for leaders….
If we’re going to make a positive change in the world, hope is a prerequisite. And that sense of hope can be either fed or depleted by what you choose to let into your brain to begin with……. Two simple questions.
- What information am I choosing to focus on? Does it feed or drain my sense of hope?
- Who do I surround myself with (literally or through reading their blogs, etc.)? Do they feed or drain my sense of hope?
Then, of course, comes the all important step of taking action….
- What steps can you take to bring more of what feeds that sense of hope into your life?
- What steps can you take to reduce or eliminate more of what drains it?
It’s important for leaders to give people hope, the French General Napoleon Bonaparte knew this too he is quoted saying that "leaders are dealers in hope". Hope is one of a leaders greatest possessions, without it a leader ceases to lead! What worldview are you creating?
Technorati Tags: Hope, Pessimism, Optimism, Positive, Negative, Quotes, Question, Leadership, Attitude
Jun
30
Leaders communicate with their actions and attitude
Filed Under Uncategorized | 5 Comments
The February 2007 issue of the Leading Effectively e-Newsletter, from CCL, discusses leadership and communication. I believe the communication is a leaders most powerful tool, a good example of the power of communication is Martin Luther King Jr. who put an extraordinary amount of time and energy into communication with significant results. An article in the newsletter makes the following observations on the importance of communication to leaders:
Effective leaders master the art and craft of language. They speak clearly and present logical and compelling arguments. They make wise use of communication tools and practices. But skilled leaders also know that communication goes beyond words. “Your actions and attitude send powerful messages,” says CCL’s Gene Klann…… “The way a leader communicates reveals much about his or her character,” Klann says. “Communication can disclose the leader’s authenticity, sincerity, genuineness and virtually every other aspect of a leader’s character. When a leader is all talk and no substance, people see right through the official message.” What does a leader’s communication style say about his or her character? Effective, respected leaders:
- Often give encouragement and reassurance.
- Handle resistant audiences well.
- Understand the symbolic value of personal visibility.
- Ensure that nonverbal and verbal messages are aligned.
- Listen to individuals from all levels of the organization.
- Encourage direct and open discussion.
- Initiate difficult, but needed, conversations.
- Are clear about expectations.
- Disseminate information quickly and clearly.
- Ask good questions.
- Solicit information and opinions from others.
- Involve others before developing a plan of action.
How much attention are you giving your communication?
Technorati Tags: Communication, Leadership, Listening, Character
Mar
17
Adopting a learning attitude
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
I have been reflecting on the importance of having a learning attitude after reading the book “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 7 Powerful Tools for Life and Work
Mindsets
| Judger | Learner |
| Judgemental (of self and/or others) | Accepting (of self and others) |
| Reactive and automatic | Responsive and thoughtful |
| Know-it-already | Values not knowing |
| Inflexible and rigid | Flexible and adaptive |
| Either/or thinking | Both/and thinking |
| Self righteous | Inquisitive |
| Afraid of difference | Values difference |
| Personal perspective only | Considers perspective of others |
| Defends assumptions | Questions assumptions |
| Possibilities see as limited | Possibilities seen as unlimited |
| Primary mood: protective | Primary mood: curious |
“We all have both mindsets, and we have the power to choose where we operate from in any moment.”
I think that this is a great tool for leaders. If we are able to reflect on our thinking style and deliberately choose to operate from a learner when in conversation and during meetings we will be much more effective.
“Accept judger, practice learner…..You’re never going to be pure learner. but you can learn to make choices about where you put your attention.”
The mindsets we operate from is important as our mindsets shape our relationships, communication, behaviour and therefore ultimately our results. In the high pressured lifestyle we live today it’s difficult at times to focus on acting from a learner mindset. This is especially true when things go wrong.
Spend time over the next few weeks and consciously focus on leading from a learner mindset. Reflecting on how much time you’re spending in judger and how much time you spend in learner. Notice to difference it make when you interact with people and run your meetings from the learner mindset.
Technorati Tags: Attitude, Lifehacks, Management, Mindset, Leadership, Business, Communication, Book
Feb
20
Sheepwalker?
Filed Under Leadership Practices | 3 Comments
Seth Godin has a great post on “Sheepwalking” which he defines as:
“..the outcome of hiring people who have been raised to be obedient and giving them a braindead job and enough fear to keep them in line.”
This is true of many organisations today, looking for people who can “fit in”, get with the programme and not rock the boat. Conformance to the organisation’s expectations is what’s required. Seth goes on to say that…
“many organizations go out of their way to hire people that color inside the lines, that demonstrate consistency and compliance. And then they give these people jobs where they are managed via fear. Which leads to sheepwalking. (”I might get fired!”)…… What a waste.”
The solution…..?
“Step one is to give the problem a name. Done. Step two is for anyone who sees themself in this mirror to realize that you can always stop. You can always claim the career you deserve merely by refusing to walk down the same path as everyone else just because everyone else is already doing it…… The biggest step, though, comes from anyone who teaches or hires. And that’s to embrace non-sheep behavior, to reward it and cherish it.”
I think that this post impacted me because I see sheepwalkers at work everyday! People content to conform to the expectation of management. In so doing we lose, in that we settle for second best, we trade our passion and vision, for the perceived safety and security of a job. The result is wasted potential, we fail to fulfill our purpose, we live a life of mediocrity and apathy. I think the price we pay is huge. It’s definitely a greater price than I’m willing to pay!
“As long as we wish for safety, we will have difficulty pursuing what matters” - Peter Block, “The Answer to How is Yes“
Recognise that You Are Powerful Beyond Measure
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be - brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so small
that other people won’t feel insecure around you.We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in us, it’s in everyone.
As we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.- Marianne Williamson, 1992
So, Are you a sheepwalker?
Technorati Tags: Hiring, Leadership, Management, Culture, Business, Quote, Sheepwalking
Jan
28
Your Boss Has an Attitude Problem
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
An interesting article from Fast Company, “Marcus Buckingham Thinks Your Boss Has an Attitude Problem” by one of my favourite business researchers and authors Marcus Buckingham, he works at the Gallup Organization and his research focuses primarily on making the link between people, their performance, and business results. He the co-author of two best-selling books: “First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently“, with co-author Curt Coffman, and “Now, Discover Your Strengths“, with co-author Donald O. Clifton.
Buckingham’s research has involved sifting through 1 Million Gallup surveys seeking to answer the question “What does a strong and vibrant workplace look like?”, his research resulted in identifying 12 key questions, referred to as the Q12, represent the strength of an organisation or work unit.
The 12 Questions That Matter
Marcus Buckingham’s research revealed that a “vibrant workplace” requires that people within an organisation or work unit can provide compelling answer to the following 12 questions. These 12 questions are important in determining whether people are engaged, not engaged, or actively disengaged at work.
- Do I know what is expected of me at work?
- Do I have the materials and equipment that I need in order to do my work right?
- At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
- In the past seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?
- Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
- Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
- At work, do my opinions seem to count?
- Does the mission or purpose of my company make me feel that my job is important?
- Are my coworkers committed to doing quality work?
- Do I have a best friend at work?
- In the past six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?
- This past year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
(c) 1992-1999, The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ. All rights reserved.
The research resulting from answering these 12 questions speaks for itself:
The link between people and performance was vivid. The most “engaged” workplaces (those in the top 25% of Q12 scores) were 50% more likely to have lower turnover, 56% more likely to have higher-than-average customer loyalty, 38% more likely to have above-average productivity, and 27% more likely to report higher profitability.
The research has also highlighted important “attitude adjustments” that management need to make to increase the levels of employee engagement.
Key Attitude Adjustments
Buckingham offered an overview of his research and identified five attitude adjustments that redefine the essence of leadership in business:
Attitude Adjustment #1: Measure what really matters. (By the way — the numbers you’re using now don’t matter.)
You can divide any working population into three categories: people who are engaged (loyal and productive), those who are not engaged (just putting in time), and those who are actively disengaged (unhappy and spreading their discontent). The U.S. working population is 26% engaged, 55% not engaged, and 19% actively disengaged.
In essence, then, the CEO’s job is to improve the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged workers. But here’s the problem: Few of the CEOs in our study could say which work units in their company were effectively engaged and which weren’t. They didn’t know where their culture was strong and where it was weak, whether it was getting better or getting worse.
Attitude Adjustment #2: Stop trying to change people. Start trying to help them become more of who they already are.
You can’t standardize human behavior. Of course, that’s precisely what most leaders attempt to do. That goal — standardizing human behavior — is the driving force behind most executive-training programs and leadership-development courses. What’s the quickest way to build a coherent culture? Get everyone to manage the same way…. The best managers don’t even try to fight that fight. We studied 80,000 of them from 400 different companies — people who excelled at getting great performance from their people. These managers followed the same basic set of principles: People don’t change that much, so don’t waste your time trying to rewire them or trying to put in what was left out. Instead, spend your time trying to draw out what was left in. When it comes to getting the best performance out of people, the most efficient route is to revel in their strengths, not to focus on their weaknesses.
Attitude Adjustment #3: You’re not the most important person in the company. (Believe it or not, your middle managers are.)
Our research tells us that the single most important determinant of individual performance is a person’s relationship with his or her immediate manager. It just doesn’t matter much if you work for one of the “100 Best Companies,” the world’s most respected brand, or the ultimate employee-focused organization. Without a robust relationship with a manager who sets clear expectations, knows you, trusts you, and invests in you, you’re less likely to stay and perform.
Attitude Adjustment #4: Stop looking to the outside for help. The solutions to your problems exist inside your company.
Talent is a multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield will be. That’s why the best leaders are relentless at seeking out, shadowing, studying, and highlighting the lessons of their own top performers. The funny thing is that most CEOs spend their time benchmarking best practices in other companies. They want to know how they’re doing relative to their peers. I tell my clients, Don’t go on a tour of Disney, Southwest Airlines, or Discover Financial Services. You have some of the world’s best managers working inside your own company. Look to them first. Learn from your own people first.
Attitude Adjustment #5: Don’t assume that everyone wants your job — or that great people want to be promoted out of what they do best.
We say that we want to build world-class organizations. That’s meaningless if we don’t value world-class performance in every role. Yet the people who touch customers the most — hotel housekeepers, outbound telemarketers — get the least respect and the lowest paychecks. The assumption is that anyone can do that job and that nobody would want to do it if they were given a choice to do something else. Frontline talent has a prestige problem, and it’s turning into a corporate-performance problem…. Unfortunately, the only way we have to reward excellence on the front lines is to promote people out of the very roles that they do best. We turn great housekeepers into supervisors, virtuoso shelf stockers into salespeople, and managers into leaders.
Technorati Tags: Engagement, Research, Management, Leadership, Business, Human Resources, Strategy
Aug
29
Are you practicing positive leadership?
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
An article from Gallup Management Journal titled “The Impact of Positive Leadership“discusses the benefits of positive leadership. In the article Tom Rath Coauthor of “How Full Is Your Bucket? Positive Strategies for Work and Life” discusses the importance of positive interactions in the workplace.
Over the past decade, scientists have explored the impact of positive-to-negative interaction ratios in our work and personal life. And they have found that this ratio can be used to predict — with remarkable accuracy — everything from workplace performance to divorce. This work began with noted psychologist John Gottman’s exploration of positive-to-negative ratios in marriages. Using a 5:1 ratio, which Gottman dubbed “the magic ratio,” he and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce by scoring their positive and negative interactions in one 15-minute conversation between each husband and wife. Ten years later, the follow-up revealed that they had predicted divorce with 94% accuracy.
So what is the optimal positive-to-negative ratio in organizations? A recent study by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada found that work teams with a PNR greater than 3:1 were significantly more productive than workgroups that did not reach this ratio. Positive emotions, however, need to be grounded in reality: Their research also uncovered an upper limit for positive-to-negative ratios of 13:1. When workgroups exceed that PNR, things are likely to worsen; completely blind optimism can be counterproductive — and downright annoying — in some cases.
But managers shouldn’t worry about breaking the upper limit. The levels of positive emotions in most organizations are woefully inadequate and leave substantial room for improvement.
Leaders need to be very conscious of how their emotions and behaviour impacts their followers. As mentioned leaders need to actively manage the tension between “being positive” and the need to “face reality”. To manage this tension positive leaders remain engaged, but focus on the future they’re trying to create. Always accepting responsibility to be the difference they want to see in others.
How positive are your interactions? What’s your ratio? Have you consciously chosen to be positive?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business, Role Model, Attitude, Research, Teams
Aug
9
The importance of a leader’s attitude….
Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments
The practice of leadership requires that we focus on our leadership skill, knowledge and attitude. Leadership skills are the abilities we have developed through training, leadership knowledge is what we know about the practice of leadership and leadership attitude springs from who we are, it is the sum total of everything that makes us who we are, our beliefs, values, emotions, experiences. In our leadership practice, attitude is the most important, its our attitude that determines how effectively we can use our skills and knowledge to influence our world. It’s our attitude that releases our leadership potential! We can gain knowledge from books, mentors and observation, there is tons of information on leadership, skills are gained from practice, practice, and yes, more practice. It’s practice that makes permanent. A person with superior skill and knowledge cannot contribute as much as a leader with appropriate skill, knowledge and a great attitude. The interesting part is that attitude is a choice and it’s the leaders secret weapon. How are you using yours? Does you attitude limit or empower you? If it’s limiting you make a decision to change it today…….
What others have said on the importance of attitude……
“Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” - Lou Holtz
“We who have lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances - to choose one’s own way.” - Viktor Frankl
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you… We are in charge of our attitudes.” - Charles Swindoll
Technorati Tags: Attitude, Skill, Knowledge, Leadership, Change
Feb
11
The Fred Factor
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The small book titled The Fred Factor
The book proposes three simple yet powerful principles:
1) Everyone Makes a Difference
The fact is that everybody is already making a difference every day. The key question is, What kind of difference is each of us making?
To be someone who makes a difference everyday, you need to be doing something that you love and are passionate about. To make a difference you need to be aware as you journey through your day, looking for opportunities to “make a difference”. Audit your day asking, “What kind of difference did I make today?”
As Tom Peters says, he doesn’t want his tomestone to read….
“Thomas Peters, He Would Have Done Great Things, But His Boss Wouldn’t Let Him.”
2) Success is Built on Relationships
What percentage of your interactions with others is transactional as opposed to relational?
Relational interections as opposed to transactional interactions recognise that how people are treated is as imporatnt as the outcome! Relationships require an investment of your time, however the higher quality results produced by strong relationships is well worth the effort.
3) You must continually create value for others, and it doesn’t have to cost a penny.
The truth is that you compete against your own potential every day. And most of us fall short of what we are capable of doing and being.
Look for ways to add that which will create value for others by adding the good stuff and subtracting the bad stuff!
Tom Peters recently posted manifesto states:
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
How about you?
Technorati Tags: Book, Attitude, Management, Personal Development
Feb
11
Preparing Mentally for the Leadership Challenge
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Some say the first challenge of leadership is to know whom you lead. I say the first challenge of leadership is to know who you are.
So says Louis S. Csoka, from the Wharton Leadership Digest article “The Inner Game of Leadership”, he goes on to say:
“Elite athletes who compete against one another are often not all that different in physical abilities. Yet some consistently dominate others, and the difference can frequently be traced to their exceptional mental preparedness. Peak performance for athletes depends on having control over one’s emotional and physiological states, and much the same is true for business leaders.”
Louis suggests the following for leaders as a means of mental preparedness:
- Setting the Target - Eyes On the Prize: The Cheshire cat in Wonderland said to Alice “if you don’t know where you’re going, any path will do,” and Oliver Wendell Holmes once remarked, “The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.” A journey starts with explicitly appreciating where you want to end up. Embracing and living your mission provide the essential foundation for persevering when challenges and roadblocks get in the way.
- Positive Thinking - We Become What We Think About Most: People carry around images of themselves of who they are and how they perform. These pictures incorporate both our successes and failures and our interpretation of what caused them. Sometimes the memories of failures can overwhelm the images of successes, and it is essential to foster a positive mind set to build confidence in one’s own ability to set and reach leadership goals.
- Stress Management - Thriving Under Pressure: Most people can perform reasonably well when all is going well, but some do far less well when conditions become less favorable. Personal stress on some results in diminished performance and even weakened health. Elite athletes and military professionals have shown that the ability to handle themselves in a highly stressful situation depends upon systematic training in stress management before entering the situation.
- Attention Control - Concentration Amidst Distractions: Thomas Davenport and John Beck have noted in The Attention Economy that “the new scarcest resource isn’t ideas or talent, but attention itself.” While attention demands have escalated in recent years, the way that we tend to respond has changed little. We still learn primarily through trial-and-error experience, but explicit training methods from sports psychology and other areas can be combined to train attention control by emphasizing the methods of attention rather than the targets of attention.
- Visualization and Imagery - What You See Is What You Get: A key device for achieving a goal is to image it achieved. By visualizing the end state, one develops greater energy, concentration, and confidence for reaching the end state, and this capacity too can be developed through systematic training.
Technorati Tags: Leadership Practice, Personal Leadership, Leadership, Management, Leadership Development
Sep
9
The Solutions Focused Way
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I believe that a positive approach to life is the most effective. There are some downside to an overly-optimistic worldview, but the upside out weights the downside in most day-to-day situations. The primary benefit of a optimistic approach is the increased proactive response to circumstances, pessimism creates passivity and withdraw.
An interesting article mentions three key principles to working in a solutions focused way (de Shazer and Berg, 1995):
- If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
- Once you know what works, do more of it.
- If it’s not working, do something different.
I like the positive approach, it encourages experimentation whilst keeping focus on what’s working.
Technorati Tags: Business, Management, Focus, Success, GTD, Lifehack
Jul
29
The High Cost of Pessimism
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As described by Martin Seligman in his book “Learned Optimism
- Pessimism promotes depression.
- Pessimism produces inertia rather than activity in the face of setbacks.
- Pessimism feels bad subjectively.
- Pessimism is self-fulfilling. Pessimists don’t persist in the face of challenges, and therefore fail more frequently - even when success is attainable.
- Pessimism is associated with poor physical health.
Optimism and pessimism towards life is a daily decision we all need to make. Given the high costs of pessimism I think the choice is clear!
Technorati Tags: Personal Leadership, Pessimism, Learned Helplessness, Optimism, Book
Jul
7
Learned Helplessness
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After reading Learned Optimism : How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin P. Seligman, I was struck by the concept of learned helplessness and it’s impact upon people’s lives. Martin describes learned helplessness as:
“the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn’t matter”
Each of us begins our lives in helplessness, this feeling of helplessness is often reinforced by our families, schools, organisations and society. This thinking style is created through exposure to uncontrollable events and can additionally be developed by failure and defeat. The more we feel we are not able to influence or produce the results we want in organisations and society, the more likely we are to adopt a helpless style of thinking. Learned helplessness manifests itself in our thinking process, specifically the habitual way in which we explain bad events. There are three crucial dimensions in our thinking which affects our tendency towards helplessness, these are:
- Permanence This is thinking that bad events which happen to us are permanent, and that they will always affect our lives. Those who resist helplessness see the cause of bad events as temporary. Do you think in always’s and never’s or sometime’s and lately’s?
- Pervasiveness: Specific vs. Universal Whereas permanence is about time, pervasiveness is about space. People who suffer from learned helplessness tend to catastrophize, seeing failures as affecting the whole of their lives and not just a specific area of their lives. They give up everything if a bad event strikes one area of their lives.
“People who make permanent and universal explanations for their troubles tend to collapse under pressure, both for a long time and across situations.”
- Personalization: Internal vs External This is about who we blame for bad events, either blame ourselves or other people and circumstances. People with a tendency towards helplessness internalize and blame themselves for bad events.
The key to breaking out of the learned helplessness style is to change our thinking.
“Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.”
I found the book really helpful and would recommend it to anyone who can identify with the learned helplessness thinking style and requires additional assistance.
Technorati Tags: Optimism, Book, Personal Development, Personal Leadership
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