Musings on Leadership

If you ever want a quick test to figure out whether or not you’ve grown as a person, look back on a former version of you. Are you annoyed with that version of you? Are you embarrassed by them? How about ashamed? You are? Congratulations, you’ve grown as a person! If you aren’t, then what are you doing today so that a future version of you will be a better version of you?

This post comes from Marcia Reynolds, author of, “ Coach the Person, Not the Problem ”. As leaders, we know how difficult it can be to lead people through difficult times, through times of radical change. As Ms. Reynolds says,  “ Emotions shape our reality more than facts and trend charts. The less we know for sure, the more we imagine the worse and believe it exists. ” When people’s worlds are being turned upside down, it’s hard for them to eliminate fear and focus on facts. It’s difficult to get them to focus on solutions and moving forward. These four practices though can help tremendously: Listen to their story  - This isn’t about you, it’s about THEM. So be patient, don’t judge, and accept their perspective as how THEY see the world right now. They need to feel heard and valued before they’re anywhere NEAR ready to examine their feelings and beliefs with you. Play back what you hear and notice  - Repeat back to them, in your own words, what you heard...

There is no question that this is an unprecedented time for leaders. They are being asked to make decisions that no one has had to make before. There simply are no game plans or rule books on how to keep an organization motivated when an entire society has to essentially shut down for an indefinite period of time. But here’s the thing. Crises, and challenging times, are when good leaders shine. They’ve taken the time to build trust with their teams. They get input from as many people as they can. They think through proposed solutions. When they decide on a course of action, assuming there is time, they explain the course of action to everyone and why they chose it. No, not everyone is going to agree with them BUT, because they took the time to build that trust with their people, they’ll trust them. During any crisis there will be two kinds of leaders - “ because of ” and “ in spite of ” - leaders. “ because of ” leaders focus on why they CAN’T succeed during the cris...

What IS the change? Self-evident but you should be able to clearly and concisely state the change in a short sentence. Who is responsible for leading the change? Not only who is responsible for leading the change but who will be doing the actual work as well. What does success look like? Probably the most critical thing to define. If you can’t objectively define what success looks like then people will become frustrated. Who is impacted by the change? Some changes impact primary, secondary, and tertiary groups of people. It’s important to understand EVERYONE that will be impacted by the change. How will we know when we’re successful? This is similar to #3 but more related to the overall organization and the overall change. Who needs to be trained; and on what? Consider creating a training plan to make sure everyone gets trained so that you have a record of it. Also consider refresher training just before going “live” in case the change has taken a while t...

Jennifer I. Lim, actress and author, has a quote I just stumbled across today. “ Mistakes are proof that you are trying. ” I LOVE THAT! If you keep doing the same things you’ve always done - you’ll keep getting the same results you’ve always gotten. If you want to grow, then you need to try new things, or try doing things in a new way. Thomas Edison allegedly made 1,000 mistakes before he invented the light bulb. It’s not that he made mistakes, it’s that he persevered. Abraham Lincoln made mistake after mistake, suffered failure after failure, until he was finally elected President of the United States at a pivotal point in our country’s history. He persevered and, as a result, secured his legacy as one of this country’s greatest Presidents. So get out there and make a mistake today. And keep making mistakes until you’re a success!

Understand something, you don’t really grow until you realize that other people are not, and never have been, your “competition”. Dana Lamon  was a keynote speaker at one of our District Toastmaster conferences. He said something that has stuck with me to this day. “ Don’t BE the best, DO your best. ” What I took from that is not to worry about whether or not I’m “better” at something than those around me. All I need to worry about, all I can control, is whether or not I’m doing the best possible job that “I” can do. Are you being the best possible you that you CAN be?

I’ve said before that leadership, at its very core, isn’t that difficult. It’s having a vision of where you’d like to go and being able to communicate that vision to others so that they buy into it. With that in mind, here are four tips to being a good leader. Delegation As a leader you have a lot on your plate. You should make it a priority to delegate EVERYTHING that you don’t absolutely, positively HAVE to do yourself. This doesn’t make you lazy. This doesn’t mean you’re trying to get out of doing your job. As a leader, your job is to make decisions, to make sure your team is doing their jobs. Your scarcest resource is time. Delegating that which you don’t HAVE to do, frees up time to do the things you must do. Not only that, it helps build new leaders by giving them greater responsibilities. Communication Communication is probably the most important part of being a leader. Your team wants to do a good job for you. In order to do that, they need to know exactly what it is you expect...