Leadership Requires Narration
One of the most important truths of effective leadership is also one of the most overlooked. It is this: Leadership requires narration. Said another way, “He who tells the story frames the world.” This is simple, really. Great leadership narrates. It interprets the world. It explains why things are done. I first learned this from my mother. She was a narrator. She explained the world as she herded her three children through it. Every time the US Army reassigned her husband to some new post and a long trip in our Ford Country Squire station wagon began, Mom would make[read more]
Story Telling
Storytelling is the medium of our age and one of my favorite stories is that of the Guinness family. I captured this story in The Search for God and Guinness: The Biography of the Beer That Changed the World and its meaning and power has never left me. It is a story of beer, of course, but it is also a story of philanthropy on a massive scale, of religious passion, of business genius, and of my beloved Ireland. Recently I sat down with my friends at Dave Ramsey’s wonderful organization and recorded a podcast about Guinness for their EntreLeadership series. The[read more]
Berlin Trip
Not long ago I had the privilege of taking my two children to Berlin, Germany, where I spent the majority of my teen years. We visited my old house and school and talked by the hour about what my life was like in those days, living as I did behind the Iron Curtain and in a huge international city like Berlin. We also looked at old photos and pondered the lives of my father and grandfather, both war heroes and stalwarts for freedom. It was the trip of a lifetime. I’m grateful beyond words. Yet something kept needling me as[read more]
Dreams don’t make you master
I wrote an article a few years ago that I want to bring back around for you to read. It’s been very much on my mind, and I think it might be more relevant now than when I wrote it. It’s titled, “Don’t Make Dreams Your Master.” Read it, and even if you’ve seen it before, do a scan of your life and heart based on its content. Only good things can come of this. _____________ One of the most piercing bits of advice I’ve ever heard comes from Rudyard Kipling’s inspiring poem, “If.” He wrote, simply, “dream,” but don’t[read more]
GOP Debate
I don’t know Marco Rubio. I have friends who are close to him and who say he’s a good man, but I can’t attest to it for myself. So you can trust that I’m not mentioning him here for any political purpose. What I do know is that Mr. Rubio learned an important lesson this past week. It will help us to learn it with him. In the GOP debate just before the New Hampshire Primary, Mr. Rubio kept repeating some lines he had memorized. He did it four times. When one of the other candidates started attacking him, Mr.[read more]
Great Leaders Launch
I believe two things that guide nearly everything I do. First, I believe that every person has some form of gift, greatness, or grace that is exceptional and that is meant to improve the lives of others. Second, I believe that every person needs to be coached, mentored, or trained to be their best. In other words, you are gifted, but you won’t see the gift fulfilled if you walk alone. Because I believe these things, I put together some mini-courses that will help you begin to rise to your best. I’ve decided to share this for now only with[read more]
Maya Angelou
There is a bit of wisdom that I first heard from Maya Angelou that has come to be very useful to me. It has also helped me to understand one of the strategic mistakes leaders often make. Dr. Angelou said simply, “When people show you who they are, believe them.” What she was trying to correct was a very human tendency we all have. It is the tendency to ignore what people reveal about themselves through their words and deeds, to instead lean to a more hopeful view. In other words, we ignore reality and live in light of distortions[read more]
Communication
When people live or work together for a while, they usually start communicating in a private short-hand. Just a few words can invoke an experience they shared or a story they heard, even a joke that always prompts a knowing laugh. All the meaning of the original moments is captured in a few words that never seem to lose their significance. Bev and I do this, like most married couples. There are phrases we can say to each other that inspire courage or offer comfort or move us to nearly uncontrollable hilarity and yet no one who heard us would[read more]
The Importance of Making your Bed
His name is Admiral William H. McRaven and he is one of the men I admire most in the United States today. He has had a distinguished military career, which included command of USSOCOM and thus Operation Neptune Spear, the special ops raid that took out Osama bin Laden. He is now the chancellor of The University of Texas System. Let me tell you, Admiral McRaven is a man! One of the reasons I admire the Admiral is the graduation speech he gave in 2014 at the University of Texas. His talk was built upon ten life lessons he had[read more]
Power of Memory
Let me tell you a story about the power of memory. I have a friend who was known for complaining about his horrible father. To spend any time with him at all was to hear the bitter stories and to hear them often. The shouting, the punishment, and the humiliation. It was always front and center in his mind, kept accessible by a thousand angry retellings. Not long ago, this friend was talking about cars and he said these words: “You know, it was just like that time my father and I went on that road trip.” Sometime later he[read more]