Your Goals or Bad Habits Are Contagious

Reblogged from Gary Ray's Blog:

If you have ever been inspired by some radical set of circumstances then you will appreciate this blog post. You may have been inspired to make a change by just sitting next to someone in the next booth at a restaurant who is ridiculously overeating or you may know an office colleague who has lost 100 pounds and is running their first half marathon. Our environment or friends are catalyst in shaping our own willpower. It may have started earlier in life by admiring your parents or an older brother or …

Updated version – posted unedited version by error

Your Goals or Bad Habits Are Contagious

If you have ever been inspired by some radical set of circumstances then you will appreciate this blog post. You may have been inspired to make a change by just sitting next to someone in the next booth at a restaurant who is ridiculously overeating or you may know an office colleague who has lost 100 pounds and is running their first half marathon. Our environment or friends are catalyst in shaping our own willpower. It may have started earlier in life by admiring your parents or an older brother or sister who pushed the limits to achieve something great.

Peer pressure has many redeeming qualities. It is the pressure of our peers, after all, that gives us the support to try things we otherwise wouldn’t have.” ~ BILL TREASURER, Right Risk

Peer pressure can play a huge role on personal motivation. I can’t tell you how many times I have been inspired by successful people or I was motivated by a colleague’s public failure . When we see people working hard – we are quick to try to figure out what’s their real goal or motive. If we perceive it to be something noble – then it has an opportunity to inspire us.

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Peer pressure can also make you do something stupid and risky ( like in high school.) As we grow older, we are defined by office cultural expectations. After all, it is said that culture eats change for breakfast. We all want to fit in, right?

Have you ever stop to think that great leaders don’t just blend in and often have work habits that makes them different. That’s why they stand out.

I heard a story about Woody Hayes, former football coach at Ohio State. During his 28 year tenure, the Buckeyes won five national titles, narrowly missing out on four others. Woody was interviewing a possible assistant coach and they were sitting at a restaurant table. When they brought the food to the table, the prospective coach reach for the salt and applied it to his food before he tasted it. Woody didn’t hire him after watching him salt his food. He didn’t want to hire someone who overlooked the simple details. This notion was confirmed by salting his food before tasting it. The attention to the simple details made him a great teacher and coach.

“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.” ~ Dale Carnegie

I was looking in the biography section of the bookstore recently. People like Steve Jobs, Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela and others were not the type of people who just blending into the company landscape. They took risk and set higher personal goals which impacted those who worked with them.

Have you ever been inspired by someone who gave you strength to try something new? What made them different from others?

The Value of Humility in Leadership

I was driving home recently and heard a radio account of a prominent leader in Dallas who has a book on his coffee table in his office that was engraved with gold letters on the cover that said: “My Humility, and How I Achieved It.” As you opened the book, the pages were blank.

“Our ego hinders our ability to influence more than anything else under our control.” ~ Michael McKinney

Every leader is giving a certain level of authority or power. A successful leader is always tested by how well they handle the praise they receive. When you become overly confident in your own ability – leaders tend to get ahead of the supply chain of valuable input from others around them. They can also become more focused on driving others to build a reputation for themselves.

In this dash for more success and greater reputation, their ego can create more trouble instead of just expediting company success. A true leader starts with a people-first focus and then targets vision and strategy.

An effective and humble leader will balance the following characteristics:

1. They admit their mistakes instead of blaming others
2. They understand the value of saying “thank you and well done” since it builds confidence in their ranks.
3. They don’t waste time talking about themselves or their past success. In fact, they tend to deflect it.
4. They share the necessary hard facts while showing true leadership strength to encourage the team to prevail in the end.
5. They use their words wisely because they realize they have enormous power to shape the development of others. A leaders word can influence, build confidence, or manipulate others.
6. They see humility as a sign of strength and transparency and they never allow their false sense of worth or pride to lead to their derailment.
7. They regularly seek out the advice of others in important decisions as a way to develop leaders around them.
8. Their legacy is not defined by personal accomplishments but by reaching team goals and developing successful leaders around them.
9. They always show respect and value to everyone throughout the chain of command.
10. They learn to listen more than they talk which allow them to notice and use the contributions of others.

Leading any organization to excellence while remaining modest is what humble leadership is all about. Those types of leader have the greatest chance for professional influence and long term success.

Why do so many leaders push for a reputation for themselves over those they lead? Can you think of a leader or political figure that has made this mistake? I look forward to hearing your comments …

Running to Win…GTR

Working With Difficult People

Why does every workplace seem to have one or two individuals who seem to get on your last nerve? They can operate in leadership, at peer level or even can be a direct report. You may even describe them as natural office bullies, arrogate, obnoxious, can’t trust, no tact, or they can even retaliate with long term grudges. They could be people who work at much slower pace or they push hard for selfish policies that are bad decisions for the office.

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These difficult people operate like they hold inflated power and are known to abuse the chain of command when they get charged up. They may be complainers or whiners that talk behind people’s back. I think you may have the picture, right? You may have someone who comes to mind?

The question now is how can you manage these relationships?

1. We must become pragmatic in our tactics to overcome these moments of personal tension with difficult people. It all starts with emotional self management – this is the skill to transform draining negative forces in to more positive behavior. Choosing the way to handle a particular issue is always a choice. (Positive or negative)
2. They may not realize that their behavior is so annoying to others.
3. Their bad behavior may be related to personal issues outside of the workplace. Try to understand the motive for their behavior. Spend some time with them.
4. As hard as it is, resist the temptation to talk about them behind their back unless you have the guts to say it to their face. You usually will get that opportunity if you have a habit of talking about others.

You must understanding that some of your own behaviors can be as difficult to others. Humility always comes before honor. This is great a great starting point to remember when tension happens. Try to always maintain a professional demeanor that is respectful to others. Leaders strive for an atmosphere of honest feedback and constructive criticism. If you can encourage this as a leader, it will not always solve the problem but it will give the best chance for success.

What if your actions were the catalyst in your office to restore proper respect, patience and right professional tone? What if you could make a difference? Attitude is everything!

How do you handle conflicts with difficult colleagues?

Preparation is the Key

Everyone wants to become better at what they do. Winning or quality work always draws more support and respect. So why do so many people settle for less. The answer is hard work and preparation. If you could pick one thing to become the “best” – what would you choose? What time and effort would it take to get you to that next level.

Before anything else, preparation is the key to success. ~Alexander Graham Bell

The time you spend in getting ready for that moment should give you the confidence to dance when you reach that moment. When you are running a race – the practice runs have prepared you to run with the others who have put in the same hard work.

 

“By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail. ~ Benjamin Fanklin

You can’t expect to perform well if you have not put in the time, hard work or effort. No matter how positive or confidence you are – it won’t happen.

“It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.” ~Whitney M. Young, Jr.

The focus of a champion is your preparation – what are you striving for today?

Keep On, Keeping On

Author Unknown

Article republished/Source – Sent to you as a courtesy of…

http://www.AsAManThinketh.net

Colonel Sanders went to more than 1,000 places trying to sell his chicken recipe before he found an interested buyer. The fact that we can buy Kentucky Fried Chicken today attests to his perseverance. Thomas Edison tried almost 10,000 times before he succeeded in creating the electric light. If he had given up, you would be reading this in the dark!


The original business plan for what was to become Federal Express was given a failing grade on Fred Smith¹s college exam. And, in the early days, their employees would cash their paychecks at retail stores, rather than banks. This meant it would take longer for the money to clear, thereby giving Fed Ex more time to cover their payroll.

Sylvester Stallone had been turned down a thousand times by agents and was down to his last $600 before he found a company that would produce Rocky. The rest is history! To truly succeed requires a total commitment to your goal. Too many people make the mistake of quitting just short of success. Keep going no matter what. If you really believe in what you are doing, give it all you’ve got and don’t give up.

You will succeed. There is no such thing as failure. Every action produces an outcome. It may not always be the outcome you are looking for, but it is an outcome nonetheless. If you monitor the results of your actions and keep correcting what is not working, you will eventually produce the outcome you are looking for.

Be Persistent . As was said about President Calvin Coolidge: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with great talent. Genius will not. Un-rewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not. The world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”


Don’t quit before the miracle happens!

This is a great reminder to never give up your dreams….GTR

Lessons From A Big Leadership Mistake

If you have been following this Italian cruise ship disaster, it was reported that the ship wreck was caused by poor leadership judgment. Eleven people are dead and 21 are still missing in the Costa Concordia cruise ship accident off the Italian coast. When leaders make mistakes, assessing the full nature of the problem is critical to executing a proper response.

Results of Leadership Mistake

Look how this captain handled this huge mistake:

Mistake #1 – The crew made repeated announcements saying, “There’s no problem. Nothing is wrong. We just have an electrical problem with the generator.” http://www.kcra.com/r/30265121/detail.html

Mistake #2 – Captain abandoned his post: “I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there.”

Leadership lessons from this disaster:

1. Honesty played a critical role in getting timely help.

2. A leader can’t escape his responsibility to lead – even if he doesn’t want it.
3. Leadership failure is usually the result of poor discipline and/or bad procedures.

 

What else would you add to the list from this story?

 

Work for Those Who Work for You

I recently purchased a leadership book at a local ministry store when I went in to donate some clothes. The book was called “the Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership” by Steven B. Sample. He was a very successful college president at the University of Southern California. The title of this post is one of the chapters in the book. It has some great principles that I have followed as well in my career.

One of my earliest introductions to real leadership came when I became a school principal in Atlanta at age thirty. The chapter stated that hiring direct reports, evaluating them and praising them should only take 10% of your time. The remaining 90% of your time should be spent doing everything you can to help your your leadership team succeed.
This means:
- returning their calls promptly
– answering their email promptly
– listening carefully to their plans and problems
– calling on others at their request
– help them to formulate goals and finally helping them to develop strategies for achieving those goals.

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Great leaders know effective day-to-day leadership isn’t much about himself , as much it is about those to whom you lead.

“The best executive is the one who recruits the most competent men or women around, tells them what he wants done, and then gets out of the way” ~ Teddy Roosevelt.

I believe this quote too but actively assisting them and forge them into an effective team can be better. Throughout history, the best leaders have not been the one who operates high above their followers but ones who could recruit great talent and could mold it into a collective and compelling vision.

A challenge for most new leaders is hiring people who are “not” similar to themselves, but rather hiring skills that make up for the leader’s own weaknesses. The advantage of having this talent diversity is worth the pain and effort.

One of the greatest gift you can provide is to protect your direct report from their own support team. Many people have good and bad intentions in communicating up the chain of command. It is not uncommon for a leader to quit because of followers are getting the attention of his/her boss too often.

I will never forget the complaint letter that I was sent by my Atlanta boss who was responding to a school parent. My boss’ letter indicated that he was directing them back to me and I would given the first opportunity to address the problem. It is easy to skip the leader in the chain with email today. It is not good practice for leaders to take on problems that have skipped your direct report. We should try to show them respect in the way we respond.

Great leaders work for those who work for them.

Making Impact Decisions

This is my 100^th post since I began this leadership blog in March 2010. I have put some serious thought on what topic to write on for this particular post milestone.  Great leaders are created from making impact decisions.  One of the toughest decisions you make as a leader is which ones to delegate and which decisions you should step up to make yourself.

There is a fine balance of not taking decisions that your leadership team is capable of making or even should be passed on. However, there are decisions that can have great impact on the organization. You know them when you get them because they make you uncomfortable.  In some cases, they can be controversial because they can impact workloads, job security, and even profit margin for the company.

“It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions.” ~Jim Rohn

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Impact decisions are moments when others expect you to draw on their input and your own past experience to make a tough call. The quote that says “it is lonely at the top” means that you take ownership for the outcome. Navy ship captains understand this principle well. This doesn’t mean you should make tough decisions alone. It means you are willing to own the decision publicly after making the final call with all the information possible.

Great leaders build teams around them that encourage honest feedback even if it is opposite of what the boss is thinking. This level of communication provides the “check and balance’ that is necessary to making impact decisions.

Tips for making tough decisions

1. Learn to think “gray” in making decisions – this means you try not to form a decision too early until you have all the facts from both sides.
2. Waiting to make a decision, if it is possible, will often reveal new important information that will help you to make the right decision. Use this additional time when you can.
3. Making impact decisions means you are always thinking what is best for the long term vision. Some decisions will impact future decisions – so always consider that in the process.
4. Some advice you get will be in what is best for them and may not be best for the company. Be tough enough to take a new direction when needed.
5. Finally, always ask yourself if there is a direction that is not on the table that could be considered. In some cases, it will be the best or only option.

What advice would you offer in making big decisions?

The Price of Change

The difference between what we pay for something and the price we would sell it is called the endowment factor. The value of something may vary widely among different owners.

The value of a selling price may vary

Let me give you an example. Let’s say you drove a Ford Mustang in high school and you decide to buy another one just like it years later. You find a great deal on the car and really enjoy driving it. A year later someone offers to buy the car at a price that is more than you paid. You turn down the offer but quote a much higher price. The big difference in the selling price can be related to our values, ego or past experiences.

Leadership style is developed the same way. There are things that you hold onto because they have proven successful. In most cases, they are simple things or methods that many others don’t see why they have higher value. These values or habits are often the things that help you to be successful or a failure.

The key to long term leadership success is knowing when to make a change. Somethings really do need to change – while others should never change.

What habit or method are you holding onto that will never create the return you expect? 2012 is a new opportunity for change…

Running to win, …GTR