Inner Matters
Let me push into your interior in this Leading Thoughts. Let me probe around in your soul a bit and drive you to greater wholeness. In other words, let me talk to you a bit about your inner life as a leader. To keep this clear and focused, I’m going to give you a list of matters I want you to think about and act on. Are you able to describe to me what kind of leader you are and how you lead best? If not, you haven’t taken the time to reflect on your leadership style, put that style[read more]
Over-Personalizing is Death to Good Leadership
Let me describe a way that leaders can feel about their firms and you see if this is you. You love your firm and the people in it. Perhaps you started it or perhaps you came in later, but you grew it to a dramatically larger concern. You’ve invested years and cared about everything from the design of the welcome desk to the exact packaging of your product. You feel very personally all that is in it. In fact, if you were to be really honest, the firm is you. Your imprint, your spirit, your blood and sweat are everywhere.[read more]
Don’t Just Survive. Thrive.
There is a goal that many leaders are declaring these days. It sounds noble. It has an air of purpose and meaning about it. But it is actually a goal that is death to great leadership. Let’s confront this together. The goal I’m talking about is “surviving.” I have had a dozen leaders say to me recently, “I just want to survive this. If I can just survive this pandemic and these hard economic times, I’ll be fine.” Sounds good, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. The word survive means to live, to exist, to remain, or to outlast. In other[read more]
Suck the Poisons Out
It was once said of President Gerald Ford that with his kindness and forgiving ways he “sucked the poisons” of Watergate out of the country. You may not agree but hold on to this phrase “suck the poisons out,” because this is what great leaders do. There is a type of person you’ve probably had to work with. I call them Pricklies. They are gifted and have a lot to offer, but an odd combination of pride, wounds of rejection, and probably unhealthy isolation forces their toxins to the fore in work matters. This makes them state harsh positions rather[read more]
Brief Words Wisely Crafted
I’ve always found it encouraging that Mark Twain once told a friend, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” He was making a point speakers and writers know well. It is that brevity is best, but it is harder. It takes thought, skill, and time. Most folks won’t pay the price for brevity, so they choose verbosity. It doesn’t serve them well. I remind you of these famous words of Twain’s because I’m eager for you to use the weapon of few words wisely crafted. They can change history. They often[read more]
Humility
There is a condition of heart that is defining the difference between success and failure in our current crises. Let me explore it with you. You know that I deal with the “soft factors” of leadership in these Leading Thoughts. You have plenty of sources for the more technical things you need to know. It’s the soft factors I focus on here because I am convinced they make the difference between leadership greatness and leadership mediocrity. Let me show you what I mean. I’m watching a matter of character, a condition of heart really, make all the difference today. This[read more]
Symbolic Acts and Ongoing Strategy
I read a story this past week that reinforced an important lesson of leadership. Let me tell you that story and then help us all incorporate this lesson into our lives. Probably since your early school days, you’ve heard the story of Rosa Parks, the courageous African-American lady who refused to give up her seat to a white person and move to the rear of a Montgomery bus in 1955. Her actions led to huge social action and change. I was reading that story again in Douglas Brinkley’s Rosa Parks, a volume in the Penguin Lives Series. As I did,[read more]
Punctuate Your Priorities
I want to urge on you a very simple practice that will make a huge difference in your leadership life. It is this: Punctuate Your Priorities. Allow me to use a couple of personal examples to explain. During most of this summer, I’ve had reason to make a fifteen minute drive every weekday morning to a regular meeting. To use the time well, I listen to my Bible reading. A good idea but here’s the problem. I discovered that between my mental preparation for my meeting, the congestion on the road, and whatever Bev and I had just discussed before[read more]
Talk is Not Action
There is a distinction I want you to make, one that will help make you a better leader. It is the distinction between the locker room and the game. We have a culture around us that is given to much talk. We should be glad for it. We can’t be upset about the devices that enhance our communication or that a younger generation is highly verbal and eager for connection. We also can’t be upset about the tremendous avenues of media we all enjoy and learn from. Yet all of this can set us up to confuse the talking and[read more]
Leading in the Gray Areas
The times in which we live are calling us to use all of our leadership skills and step into each challenge with the full array of our leadership tools. I want to talk to you about one particular skill we’ll have to sharpen if we are going to lead and make a difference in our day. Nearly all of us would prefer that the world would only hand us choices between complete opposites. Good or evil. Forward or backward. East or West. It would be so much easier. Yet life isn’t made this way. Our times aren’t either. Instead, we[read more]