Musings on Leadership

 During my campaign for International Director, I am frequently asked about my views on the challenges facing Toastmasters. I thought I might take a break from my leadership posts to talk about my views on the future of the organization and the challenges facing us. Retention In my opinion, the biggest challenge facing Toastmasters isn't COVID - it's member retention. It's only natural that a club will lose a certain number of members every year. People move, they experience life changes, their priorities change, etc. The number most commonly mentioned in Toastmasters is that we lose 40% of our membership every. single. year! If you run a business, and you lose 40% of your customers each and every year, you won't be in business for long. People in sales know this adage but, the least expensive customer to get is one that's already purchased from you. While we may not spend actual money to get guests to attend our meetings (although some may), we spend time contactin...

 One of the biggest lessons I learned, as a leader, was to say "no" without feeling guilty.  As a leader there seems to be a never-ending demand on your time. Someone wants to talk with you. Someone else wants you to attend their meeting. Someone has a great idea for a new project. And on and on. It feels like the more you do, the more you're asked to do. If your plate is full, what they're asking doesn't take priority over what's on your agenda, and it doesn't absolutely HAVE to be done by you, it's okay to say, "no". In fact, saying "no" can be an excellent delegation opportunity! " That sounds like a GREAT idea but I don't don't have the bandwidth to take that on right now. Could YOU head that up for us? " (You'll find out quickly just HOW good of an idea THEY think it really is! LOL!)

 ( This post is inspired by an article I read on the Trello blog. If you're not familiar with it, Trello is a web-based collaboration tool. At one glance you can see what's being worked on, who's working on what, and where something is in a process. Think of it as a white board, filled with sticky notes, with each sticky note being a task. ) If you're not familiar with them, one-on-one meetings are meetings between a manager and a team member to discuss how things are going. Do we really need more meetings? Let's face it, most meetings could have been better handled by an email. In fact, 67% of employees say that excessive meetings get in the way of them making an impact at work! One-on-one meetings CAN be very helpful - and not just for the team member! They can also help YOU improve YOUR performance. For the team member, use them to discuss priorities, challenges, and professional development. For you, the leader, these meetings provide an opportunity to: build...

To be an effective leader, you essentially need two traits: 1) the skill and competence to be promoted to a leadership position and, 2) the ability to attract willing followers. John Maxwell says, " If you think you're leading, but no one is following, then you are only taking a walk. " I was very careful, in that first paragraph, to qualify "followers" with "willing". You can absolutely be a leader with unwilling followers. I've often heard it said that the most difficult type of leadership is leadership in a volunteer organization. At your job, you HAVE to follow what your boss says or you'll be fired. In a volunteer organization, they don't HAVE to do ANYTHING you say. You have to MOTIVATE them to WANT to do what you ask. Good leaders, on the other hand, spend their time ensuring that their "followers" actually WANT them as their leader. Lieutenant General Hal Moore, the solder on whom the movie " We Were Soldiers " w...

This post  is inspired by " Above The Line: Lessons in leadership and life from a Championship program " ( here ). The author is former Ohio State University head football coach Urban Meyer. This book chronicles Ohio State's 2014 championship year when they won the very first College Football Playoff championship. But it also gives a lot of information about what goes into creating an elite program like Ohio State's. The Power of Belief My slogan during my campaign for Division Director was "Believe and Achieve". I truly believe that you can't achieve ANYTHING without first believing that you can achieve it. Belief is EXTREMELY important to a leader. They have to believe in themselves. They have to convince others to believe in them. They have to convince others to buy into their vision of where the organization can go. But it all starts with belief in yourself. When you believe in yourself, you find a strength of will within you. Strength of will isn...

I've written on the subject of defeats before but I came across a quote by Maya Angelou that I love: "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it." We've all suffered defeats. You didn't get the promotion or raise you felt like you had earned. You didn't get the job for which you were SO right. You asked someone out and they turned you down. Failure is a fact of life. I don't know of ANYONE who hasn't had at least one or two failures along the way. A study by Claudia Mueller and Carol Dweck, researchers at Columbia University, found that it's MUCH better to praise a child for his or her EFFORT instead of their RESULTS. They studied 412 fifth graders, ages 10 - 12, and found that when you praised children for being smart, they began to focus solely on results and began to resist trying anythin...

  This week's tip comes from the classic book by Dr. Spencer Johnson,   "Yes" or "No": The Guide to Better Decisions . In earlier tips I've said that, as a leader, most of the decisions you'll make will be difficult ones. Sometimes these decisions have no "right" answer. So what's a leader to do? In Dr. Johnson's book, he puts forth a 4-step system that you can use to make the best possible decisions. Make a tentative decision. Ask 3 practical questions: Am I pursuing the real need? Am I informed about my options? Have I thought this through to a better result? Ask 3 private questions: Am I telling myself the REAL truth? Does this decision feel right to me? Do my actions show I believe I deserve better? If all 6 answers are "Yes", proceed. If ANY answer is "No", rethink the decision. The first 3 in step #2 questions are "head" questions and they help you gather and analyze information. The second 3 question...