Leadership

Learn from past mistakes, yours or other people’s

mistakesFred Brooks wrote about his experiences managing systems development at IBM in the book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering. In his book, he reviews many common software mistakes that he witnessed and even made himself.

The book coined what is known as “Brook’s Law,” which states “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.”

Brooks discovered this law when he made the mistake of adding programmers to a project falling behind schedule, then concluded that it delayed the project even further. Using this and other examples of mistakes he witnessed in his career, Brooks is quoted as saying, “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.”

In my book, The Leadership GPS, Michael Tennyson, teaches his grandson Brian Alden, that those who have learned from mistakes – their own or others’ – are in the best position to lead.

What are you doing to prepare yourself for leadership?  Making some mistakes on your own is inevitable and one way to learn; but learning from the mistakes of others is the easier route. 

Set Your Leadership Vision In Motion

Dont shout vision, live itWhether you are starting a new team, or just became the leader of an existing one, things will be different for this particular set of people on the team.   They might all buy into the goals you set, but your vision for how to achieve those goals will be unique and new.  It will take time to establish their trust in your vision.

The best way to establish the trust you need to lead the team, is through success.  And the best type of success is that which consistently delivers many small successes for each team member.

Don’t just shout your vision from the top floor; live it on the office floor. – Denis G. McLaughlin

For your vision to be effective you have to set it in motion. These early successes are called Quick Wins.

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Leaders: Listen First and Maximize Second.

listen first and maximize secondIf you are a leader who has the passion to maximize everything and everyone, that is a great strength and a great calling. People need leaders who are in their corner, always encouraging them to be their best. In the spirit of wanting to help everyone succeed, they offer their opinions freely.

Leaders that see so much potential in every person and every situation should know that if they aren’t careful their actions can come across as being critical.

In my book, The Leadership GPS, Brian Alden learns a hard lesson about being critical while trying to maximize the success of his situation.  He freely offers his opinion before he knows all the facts. This experience stays with him and guides him through his future successes.

If you are one of these passionate leaders, and want to avoid having a hard lesson of your own, here’s what you should do.  When you really feel that passion to maximize someone or something, before you offer your opinion, follow the advice of Blaine Lee who said,

“Before you attempt to set things right, make sure you see things right.”

The Best Leaders Are The Ones With The Best Information

knowledge is powerBenjamin Disraeli was a prominent member of the British government during the 1800s. He served in leadership positions for three decades including twice as prime minister. Disraeli said:

“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes…The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.”

In order for you to be a success as a leader you need to understand the conditions in and around your team:

  • What internal and external pressures HAS the team faced in the past?
  • What internal and external pressures IS the team facing now?
  • What internal and external pressures WILL the team face in the future?

Once you’ve obtained that knowledge – use it to enthusiastically go after your goals.

In my book, The Leadership GPS, Brian Alden learns the three step process to gain understanding and knowledge, and uses it to achieve success.

1) Look for information that already exists in books, surveys, or websites. This is a great place to learn what did happen and what is happening.

2) Listen to people with information gained through experience. Talk to your team, your boss, experts in the industry.

3) Learn what people need by analyzing the two together. Make a decision on how you will achieve your goals now that you understand the conditions.

The information you gather by looking, listening, and learning will be that on which you base all future steps to successful leadership.

Purpose: If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know if you’ve arrived

PurposeWithout a purpose, there is no way to measure your success.  This applies to everything you set out to accomplish.  You must have a firm picture of the What, When, and the How:

  • A project at work – What is the end goal? When is it scheduled to be completed? How many resources do you need?
  • A vacation drive – What is the destination? When is your vacation time? How are you going to get there?
  • Your dream house – What neighborhood do you want to live in?  When do you want to move? How will you pay for it?

Dwight Eisenhower said, ‘We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective.’

In my book, The Leadership GPS, Brian Alden learns the What, When, and How of his purpose – in work and in life – and achieves great success.

Can you share some examples of goals that you have achieved by knowing the What, When, and How?

Great leaders look at people’s potential greatness

committed to their successAs leaders we are not creating other great leaders.  We are encouraging others to realize that they already have the potential to become great inside of them, and assisting them on that journey.  Our job is to see where they can go and open the right doors for them to pass through.  Our job is to focus on what is there – their strengths – and remove the focus on weakness – what is not there.

Michelangelo said, “A great statue already exists inside a block of stone. The sculptor’s role is to uncover it.”

If you want to achieve success as a leader, you have to intentionally focus your leadership efforts on unleashing the greatness inside of everyone you influence. Once your team knows you are committed to their success, they will commit to our vision.

In my book, The Leadership GPS, we read the story of Brian Alden, whose potential is unleashed by his grandfather. In turn, Brian opens the doors of success for his new team and many others.

Do you remember who recognized greatness in you?  Who told you that you could be anything you set your mind to? Was it a parent, grandparent, teacher, coach, pastor, boss?

The Three Phases of Leadership

Relationship quoteIn 1965 the American folk rock band The Byrds recorded the song Turn! Turn! Turn!  The message of the song is, to quote from one line, “There is a time to every purpose under heaven.” We can all think of examples of this timing:

  • – The phases of the moon always move in the same order from new moon to new moon.
  • – The farmer has to till before planting and water before harvesting.
  • – The seasons always come in order – spring, summer, fall, and winter.

In my book The Leadership GPS, Brian Alden learns that leadership also has a time to its purpose; it’s called the Three Phases of Leadership.

Relationship – Through the forming of a trusting relationship, the team will follow as the leader shows them how to be successful.

  • Understanding – By modeling after the leader’s example, the team will understand how to achieve their own success.
  • Knowledge – Through mentoring, the team will gain the knowledge of when to apply what is understood.

For your leadership journey to be successful, follow the Three Phases of Leadership Development with every team.

The picture of a wise mentor.

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I have had several great mentors in my life, and I have tried to be a great mentor to others. The mentors I remember the most poured their wisdom into me in the hope that I would go further and accomplish more than they themselves did. I learned in this process that only the most confident of leaders can help their team shine brighter than themselves.

If you have a mentor, how can you be sure you are receiving wise counsel? If you are a mentor to someone else, how can you be sure you are giving wise counsel?

In my book, The Leadership GPS, Brian Alden is in just this situation. He needs someone to mentor him in his new leadership role, and there are people in his life that need a mentor. Brian looks to his grandfather, Michael Tennyson, for a solution to each of these needs.

How could Brian be sure he would receive wise counsel in this situation from his grandfather?

– Brian and his grandfather had common principles – honesty, integrity, respect. Most importantly they believed in helping others succeed.

– Michael Tennyson was a successful business man who had started and grown many companies in his career. He was a mentor to each leader in his organizations.

– Brian’s grandfather knew first-hand the pitfalls of mistakes he had made. These mistakes became lessons for his next choices and for others he would mentor.

– The wisdom of the generations was not lost on Michael Tennyson. He was a student of historical leaders and could apply their experience to his own and to others’ situations.

How could Brian be sure he was giving wise counsel to those he mentored?

– One rule: Pass on the wisdom he receives from those like his grandfather who have earned his trust through their example.

Whenever Possible, Follow the Road More Traveled

GPS and MentorI have traveled quite a bit in my adult life.  Some for family vacation and a lot for business.  I have also moved often over my career.  I am telling you this to explain why I rarely get into a car (mine or a rental) without having the GPS on.  I am in so many different cities over the span of a few years, that it just isn’t possible for me to memorize every street and every set of directions I need to navigate to appointments, hotels, or in some cases my new home when I have recently moved.

What I really like about the GPS systems is that I don’t a have to memorize all of the directions – I don’t have to figure it all out on my own.  Someone already mapped out all the possible ways to get from where I am to where I want to go, and programmed them into my GPS.

“Keep on the outlook for novel and interesting ideas that others have used successfully. Your idea has to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are currently working on.” I was surprised that this quote came from Thomas Edison. Yes the same Thomas Edison that is the holder of 1,093 United States patents.  It gave me comfort in my use of the GPS when I drive because it explained what I was doing – using someone else’s ideas and adapting them to my current situation.

As an executive leader, I applied the thought of the GPS to leadership. So many times leaders feel they need to blaze their own trail; which is sometimes the right answer, but sometimes not. “Why couldn’t I simply follow the path of successful leaders who traveled before me?” I thought.  Well I did, and it brought me great success.  So much so that I wrote a book titled The Leadership GPS to share what I had learned.

In my book, Michael Tennyson is mentoring his grandson Brian Alden, a new leader.  He says “In my many years of business I discovered that most people are genuinely convinced that their situations are so unique and so difficult that no one has faced quite the same circumstances before, let alone found a way to solve them.  In some way I think it is a bit of pride in the human condition that makes people want a difficult solution for their difficult problems.  But it doesn’t need to be difficult.  Eighty percent of most problems have been solved before; the other twenty percent is taking the initiative to accept the solution given to you and implement it.”

If you want to learn more about the many leaders who traveled across history and built successful teams and how you can follow this same path, The Leadership GPS is the answer.

 

Words from leaders only work when they are connected to actions.

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It’s true that great leaders are great communicators. You have to connect with people to share your vision. But words will only take a leader so far until actions that back up the words have to kick in.

Here are three thoughts for leaders on the importance of actions in addition to words:

Should, could, or would don’t equal did.
There is a Chinese proverb that says, “Talk doesn’t cook rice.” You might be the most talented speaker ever, but unless your words lead to actions in you or in the listener, not much happens.

Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold – but so does a hard-boiled egg.

Inspiration doesn’t always proceed actions, but some action always proceeds more actions.
Most people imagine that history’s greatest composers were overflowing with inspiration and simply wrote music after they were inspired. Musicologist Ernest Newman tells us a different story, “Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn’t waste time waiting for inspiration.“

If you want to be inspired then get to work. The actions you take will inspire more action.

In the choice between say and do – do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Your actions speak so loudly I can’t hear what you say.” Of course people hear your words, but they feel your actions and that drowns out your words, positively or negatively.

So given the chance to influence people through your words or through your actions, focus on your actions.

“As I grow older I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.” – Andrew Carnegie

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