Leadership Lessons

I've been in discussions with many people of late on the topic of leadership; role vs. way of being, competencies, performance appraisals and every other perspective you can imagine.

I'll be part of a panel of leaders to discuss Understanding the DNA of a Good Leader at the DPI conference in May and was thinking about the approach I'd like to take to really dive into this conversation with participants.

This morning's Leading Blog post on Avoiding the "Mediocre Me" Mindset is one great perspective to discuss with the panel. What we do as coaches is help people shift their thinking about how they do what they do, why they do what they do and how they show up to the world in the process.

It's about being reflective, a self-observer to synthesize and process experiences as they emerge rather than worry about performance, what people think and how you are perceived by the masses. In other words, how can you let go of the need to please and impress people to cultivate your authentic self?

Cultivating Authenticity

I hear so many people tell me they want to be taken seriously and viewed as a strong leader. If you try to please the world and be the end all and be all to everyone, people are going to start to wonder about who the true you is and you know how you feel when that happens to you. It starts to erode trust.

Are you willing to let go of what other people think? My motto is "What someone else thinks of me is none of my business, It's theirs. 

Other's Views of Human-Based Leadership

Recently, Will Lukang wrote about Authentic Leaders and stated "Authentic leaders have integrity and lead with compassion for their people.  Like all other leaders they have the vision, insight, influence and followers.  But the difference between a regular and authentic leader is that the authentic leaders care.  They truly care about their constituents"....."The world is changing and competition is all around us.  The need for authentic leaders is more important than ever.  If you’re in position of authority, ask yourself the question: Is doing the right thing your way of doing things?  Are you there to serve or be served?  Hopefully your answers are doing the right thing and to serve your constituents." Read on...

And Dan Rockwell writes:"How do you want others to feel when they are around you?

• Like you are smart or like they are smart?
• Like they have great ideas or like you have great ideas?
• Like they are stars or like you are a star?"

Be intentional is his overall theme. Read on...

The bottom line is people take jobs because of people and they leave jobs because of people and that applies right across the board.

In Leaders: Their Stories, Their Words, John Spence speaks to just that when he says "When I was hired, my first boss was mean and aggressive and paranoid. I loved my job. I loved the people I worked with. I was absolutely enthralled with the work I was doing. But I would get up every morning, shaking as I put my clothes on, and drive home from work crying every day because my boss, my “leader,” was so tyrannical that it was just painful. 

I learned a huge lesson about the impact leaders have on other people’s lives. Whether you lead two people or 20,000 people, you have a huge obligation, responsibility, and incredible impact on the joy, the balance, the love, and the fun in people’s lives. You can either make their work exciting and fun or make their lives a living hell."

It's all about choice; Human-Based Leader or Power-Based, command and obey leader.

Commitment - Part 2

"The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." - Goethe

Years ago I adopted the motto "I live my life in direct proportion to the commitments I make and keep". That applies to my life...personal and professional. We seem to live in a throw-away world where we throw away people by disrespecting or ignoring them, throw away jobs as we run from what might be difficult, rather than learning from difficulty, run towards something we might think is easier, when it usually isn't and throw away things when they lose their novelty.

When we honour our commitments, we honour ourselves and those we've committed to. If for some reason the status quo has changed, then we still honour ourselves when, if need be, the commitments are redefined and not ignored or not thrown away.

For me, that's called authenticity.

But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, am I?