Monthly Archives: August 2015

What is the measure of a leader?

measure of a leaderThe only true measure of a leader is in the followers.

John Maxwell once asked, “If you’re all alone as a leader, are you really leading?” He went on to say, “If you think you are leading and no one is following, you are only taking a walk.”

With all due respect to social media (I use it myself), but the measure of a leader is not just in the number of followers; it is in the success of followers.

Why do followers follow leaders? In the short run it could just be the latest fad – everyone else is…or it could be that they are looking for something big. In the long run, if you see a leader with committed followers it’s because they are successfully fulfilling these three needs of every follower:

Strategy – Opportunity – Priority

Strategy. Everyone wants to be a success in their life. Each of us wants personal success along with all that we are involved in to be successful. We want the team to win, and we want to be a winning part of that team. The first measure of a leader is their ability to devise a strategy for that to happen for every member of the team.

According to Tom Rath, author of six NYT and WSJ bestsellers on the role of human behavior in business, health, and well-being, “Followers need to see how things will get better and what that future might look like.”

Opportunity. Each person is gifted with abilities unique to them. The key to individual and team success is to use the abilities of each person. The second measure of a leader is how well they connect their followers to opportunities that use their strengths.

Sochiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motors, talked about a Japanese proverb that says, “Raise the sail with your stronger hand,” and explained that it meant, “You must go after the opportunities that arise in life that you are best equipped to do.”

Priority. There are always more ideas and projects than any team can accomplish in limited time with limited resources – and do them well. Prioritization is a requirement of winning people and teams. The third measure of a leader is do they give their followers permission to not do some things so they can do great things.

Bestselling author and expert on high performance human achievement, Denis Waitley, says this about prioritizing, “Don’t be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to the ultimate goal becomes a mini goal in itself.”

Successful communication requires a relationship

communication and relationshipCombining communication with a relationship requires preparation. Mark Twain said, “It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.”

There are three questions you must answer to prepare for successful communication:

Who are you communicating with? If you don’t have a relationship, then communication is about building one. If you do have a relationship then communication is about building upon it.

“When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.” – Stephen Covey

Why are you communicating?  Never communicate without a purpose. Sharing, teaching, learning, entertaining – all good reasons to communicate. Each one comes with an expectation of an action being taken which builds upon the relationship.

“The two words information and communication are often used interchangeable, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.” – Sydney J. Harris

How are you communicating?  Communicating in a relationship is a dialogue not a monologue. Success is not in the giving, but in the receiving. Put yourself in the seat of the audience (one person, or many people) and communicate in the way they need to hear so they understand.

“To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.” – Tony Robbins

Are you really ready for a change?

change machineIt has been said that people are only ready to accept the need for change when the pain of not changing is greater than the pain of changing. Robert Brault opined, “We want the life we have now, only happier,” but alas, it doesn’t work that way.

When change comes, and it comes to everyone, we all react. There is a Chinese Proverb that separates our reaction into two extremes, “When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.”

I think we make change harder than it has to be. George Carlin had the right idea when he joked, “I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.”

Now it’s not that easy, but there are steps you can take if you are really ready for a change:

Identify what you need to change.

I had a doctor who once told me that my headache was not due to a deficiency in ibuprofen. The headache was the symptom, the cause was the way I was exercising…that is what needed to be changed.

If you are really ready for a change, don’t settle for symptoms. Dig in and get to the root cause and change that.

“Do not let circumstances control you. You change your circumstances.” – Jackie Chan

Identify what you need to do to change.

The only thing we can control is ourselves, our actions, and our reactions. Any type of action that is taken in an effort to change anything must therefore involve you.

Focus your efforts of change on yourself and being the best you, you can be.

“I think the most productive thing to do during times of change is to be your best self, not the best version of someone else.” – Seth Godin

Identify what you will do after you change.

Congratulations! You are new and improved. Your life is better, you see things more clearly, and your outlook is positive. Now that you have changed, what’s next?

Change can’t be just about you. Take advantage of what you have learned, and what you can now do and help others with your newly developed talents.

“The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.” – Peter Drucker

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