My favorite annual leadership event takes place each May. It’s Chick-fil-A Leadercast. The seminar features some of the biggest names in all of leadership. This year’s theme was: “Simply Lead.” I hope you got to attend, but if not, I’ve included 12 of my greatest takeaways. Here they are:
By now there’s a good chance you’ve seen Dove’s latest ad campaign Real Beauty Sketches. Many of my female friends posted the link to the video below on Facebook, so I finally checked it out. I even shared it myself. Not wanting to get into a discussion on body image, I applauded the merits of a counter-cultural marketing strategy – one that emphasized that the consumer is already good enough just the way they are instead of fatally flawed unless they buy (and then continue to buy) the product.
It wasn’t until a recent comment by Michael Hyatt that I realized the significance this message has for leadership.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE
In recent years, we’ve seen a new emphasis placed on the art of listening. It can’t be because listening is all of a sudden more important than it ever was before. Maybe the nature of work in the information age means the the cost of misunderstanding is higher. Or perhaps the experts have been burned by poor listening one too many times and decided to produce more thought leadership on the topic.
At any rate, study after study demonstrates the importance of listening to communication, leadership and influence. We are apparently able to listen about three times faster than we can speak, but we also forget most of what we’ve heard. Listening been identified as one of the top qualities employers seek. And the ability to listen well has been tied to the ability to lead. Leadership is impossible without communication and communication is impossible without listening.
Everyone wants to be hired, to lead well and to understood. So how can we learn to listen more effectively? The first step is to distinguish between the various listening levels that exist. Here are five of the most common ones:
I don’t have too many claims to fame, but occasionally I like to tell people that I grew up in the same town as Dale Carnegie: Belton, MO. Ironically, I had to travel to the opposite side of the globe before I invested the time to read what I have since considered the greatest leadership book of all-time: Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’ve read through this book many times since then and even attended the Dale Carnegie capstone course which is over 100 years old. Therefore, I’d like to enthusiastically introduce you to one of my leadership heroes. I believe there is plenty we can all learn from the man who pioneered so much work in the area of personal leadership and influence.
Have you ever been a part of a formal mentoring program at your organization? If so, how did it go? It not, would it have been helpful? Maybe you’ve even wondered how to set up a mentoring program yourself so that you and/or others could benefit from it.
In my last post, I shared the basic principles of mentoring from a potential mentee’s standpoint that I’ve learned over the years. But I’ve also built a professional mentoring program in a previous role and also advised clients on mentoring programs they’ve set up themselves. I’d like to share some of the best practices I’ve collected.
You may remember the Mastercard commercials that ran on television several years ago. Each one depicted a family having a wonderful (and expensive) excursion together. The punchline informed us, “there are some things money can’t buy. For everything else there’s Mastercard.” The subliminal message may have been that if you spend enough money, you can buy a priceless experience. Regardless, I thought the ads were brilliant. (Who doesn’t want a priceless experience with people they care about?) But they really begged the bigger question: what exactly are the things that money can’t buy?
Several years ago I had the pleasure of participating in a 16 week leadership coaching training course with the Center for Coaching Excellence (CCE). Since that time I’ve had the pleasure of coaching a number of of business owner or organizational leaders. I enjoyed the insight and techniques I was taught, but the most significant thing I came away with was the relational effectiveness of CCE’s core values for coaching. For anyone wanting to influence others, I think it represents the bottom line.
The value that stood out the most was “believing the best” about other people. Think about that one for a minute. What does believing the best actually mean? How often when we talk or relate with someone do we believe or assume the absolute best about the other person? What could happen if we did? What would it take to get there?
One of the ideas I really latched on to when I started taking leadership courses in graduate school was John Maxwell’s quote, “everything rises and falls on leadership.” But I was also challenged by a response my leadership friends came up with, that leadership rises and falls on communication. If they were right, then it didn’t matter what I learned about leadership if I couldn’t communicate it. A quick self-assessment revealed that I could write, converse, and lead small group discussions, but I lacked training and experience speaking in front of groups.
Right then and there I promised myself I would become a better public speaker.
In my last post, I shared several reasons why you don’t have to wait until later to be a leadership expert. You can begin right here, right now, no matter who you are. If you’ve bought that idea, then let me share several practical ways you use your leadership expertise to benefit others.
At a social function recently I found myself in an engaging conversation with a psychologist and a fitness coach. We took turns sharing the interesting nuances of our professions. After my turn explaining the exciting ways I get to be involved in leadership as a consultant, coach and writer, one of my new friends commented that leadership seemed to go hand-in-hand with both psychology and fitness. I asked what he meant. He clarified that commitment to developing a healthy body and a sound mind are some of the first traits necessary to lead both oneself and others. “But,” he added, “I’d feel awkward presenting myself as a leadership expert. Who am I to say I know what leadership is and that people should listen to me?”
It was such a great question. Who are the real leadership experts anyway? Are they the people who manage Fortune 500 companies, hold elected positions, or write bestselling books? They certainly qualify, but are there others?
I’m convinced everyone can become not only a leader but an expert as well because we all have the ability to influence and to learn and grow. That means you! And it can happen much sooner than you think. What a great loss it would be for anyone to sidestep their leadership potential because they felt unqualified. So let me share my rationale with you. You can become a leadership expert from right where you are, starting today.
On Sunday, October 14, Australian skydiver and daredevil Felix Baumgartner set the world record for skydiving over 128,000 feet (over 24 miles) from a helium balloon following his ascent for over two hours far into the stratosphere.
I hope you got to see the jump. I was watching a football game with friends but we had the jump coverage streaming on the computer nearby. The fact that my friend Sean and I had gone skydiving for the first time over the summer caused me to get sucked in even further. As the countdown neared, we paid less and less attention to NFL Sunday and held our collective breath as “Fearless Felix” finally went hurdling through the stratosphere, breaking the speed of sound on his own free-fall back to earth. 4 minutes and 19 seconds later, Baumgartner deployed his parachute and soon after landed safely on the ground in Roswell, New Mexico.
Since Red Bull had sponsored the “Red Bull Stratos” project, it didn’t take long for them to begin flooding promotional materials and videos online. In particular, I found this video on YouTube, posted on 10 days before Baumgarter’s final record-setting jump, which I believe can teach us several lessons about how to live – and lead – on the edge, Felix Baumgartner-style.
How do you talk with other people about leadership?
Unless I’m already a trusted leadership advisor, most people don’t just come up and ask me to help them evaluate their personal and organizational leadership effectiveness. (And when they do, it’s a little more organic than that!) It’s true the more responsibilities people acquire, the more complicated their leadership situation gets. Executive leaders usually have access to budget, resources and personnel to address the leadership challenges they face. Everyday leaders often have to figure things out on their own. You may be able to help, but how do you get the conversation started?
