Leadership Journey

Those who have learned from past mistakes—their own or others’—are better prepared to lead than those who have never experienced mistakes at all.

 

(Photo credit: elycefeliz)

Fred Brooks, the man who managed the development of IBM’s System/360 family of computers knows a thing or two about good judgment, he wrote the book on it. Brooks wrote about his experiences managing systems development at IBM in the book The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering.

The book coined what is known as “Brook’s law,” which states that “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” Brooks discovered this law when he himself added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, then concluded that it delayed the project even further. Using this and other examples of what he learned in his career, Brooks is quoted as saying, “Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.”

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.  Are you reading books?  Do you have a mentor?

You have to know where you’re going. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never know if you’ve arrived.

Without 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 trip – 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?
  • Your goal to lose weight – What is your desired weight? When do you want to reach your desired weight? How will you achieve your goal (stop what, or start what, or both)?

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.’

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

To be the best, Invest more than the rest. Are you investing in yourself? Are you continuously growing in knowledge and wisdom?

As a leader, you owe it to your team to run the race just as fast, if not faster, than they are.

I attend conferences all over the country to hear from the best.  I recently attended a conference in San Diego where I had the pleasure of hearing great leaders fill me with their wisdom. Leaders like Les Brown, Sharon Lechter, Gene Landrum, Frank Shankwitz, and others, all spoke from their experience.

We were in a packed room sitting close enough that I could see each of these special teachers in their seats before and after their time to speak.  As I was busy taking pages of notes, I could see out of the corner of my eye that each of them was taking just as many notes as I was.  At one point Gene Landrum asked the people at my table if anyone had more paper so he could continue taking notes.

Along with the knowledge I gained from each leader, I learned a life lesson that day:

No matter how much you know; there is always room to grow!

Denis Waitley said, “All of the top achievers are life-long learners…Looking for new skills, insights, and ideas.  If they’re not learning, they’re not growing…not moving toward excellence.”

As a leader, you owe it to your team to run the race just as fast, if not faster, than they are.

What have you done today to invest in yourself?  What will you do tomorrow, the next day…How are you continuously growing in knowledge and wisdom?

To Everything Turn, Turn, Turn

 

In 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 seasons always come in order – spring, summer, fall, and winter
  • 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.

I have found that leadership also has a time to its purpose.  I call it the Three Phases of Leadership Development:

  • 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 new team.

Whenever Possible Follow the Road More Traveled

“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 when I first read this quote from Thomas Edison. Yes the same Thomas Edison that is the holder of 1,093 United States patents and the inventor of the phonograph and the incandescent light bulb among many other inventions.  Leaders are many times told to blaze their own trail; which is sometimes the right answer, but sometimes not.

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.  Often, eighty percent of a problem has been solved before, the other twenty percent is taking the initiative to accept the solution given to you and implement it.

Sometimes, we don’t need a better mousetrap; we just need to understand how to use the ones that are already out there.

The Journey of Successful Leadership

Early in my career I thought there would be a point where I could officially call myself a successful leader.  Read one more book, attend one more seminar, or learn from one more mentor and I would know everything.  If I could develop one more team I would have experienced everything.  I have long since realized that leadership is not a destination but a life long journey.

One of my current mentors says, “From this point forward you will go so far, it will take binoculars to see where you started.”  Imagine that, after twenty five years I still have exciting journeys in front of me.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery a French aviator and the author said, “If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

On your Journey of Successful Leadership, don’t settle for just what you learned today; long for the endless pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

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