What's your style?

Some leaders lead by example, others by strong dictatorial style and others by a supportive approach.  I would say I spend most of my time with my support "hat" on in an attempt to be helpful to others.  This does not always work and in fact, many times people just do not want that.  They want to be directed and need someone to make the decision.  Said another way create the vision, make the tough decision and create the picture for the future.

I have been applying this supportive skill to every situation.  It may not call for it.  Our friends at the Leadership Challenge would say that there are five methods or a five factor model in leadership.  Leaders need to have skill or be able to pull from all five.


1. Model The Way
2. Inspire A Shared Vision
3. Challenge The Process
4. Enable Others To Act
5. Encourage The Heart

Today I learned that I can grow in number 2 and 3.  I tried it today.  I felt the muscle strengthen in a couple of meetings today.

What about you? What is your default? Where can you improve?

Consistent Clarity

I spent two days focusing on some great content  at the The Leadership Challenge workshop last week.  I entered the time really sensing a need for some personal clarity.  Clarity is so important to me and it mostly centers around my cause and the sense that I am living it out.

During the workshop we spent a fair amount of time focusing on vision and mission.  I realized that by reviewing my life story, I came upon the fact that my cause is about helping others win.

My vision is that I want to see others "Cut down the nets" in their own lives.  This is about team, victory and accomplishment. The phrase "cutting down the nets" refers to the ritual in college basketball where the national championship team cuts down pieces of the net to symbolize victory.  This is the greatest accomplishment in all of college basketball.

The picture to the right is Coach Everett Case who started the ritual after a championship was won.  My mission to daily seek to help others "cut down the nets" in their lives and in my own.

This has helped create some great clarity these last several days.

Great reminder

I enjoyed a nice six day vacation to sunny Phoenix Arizona this past week.  I always enjoy the opportunity to get away and reflect on my life, work and family.   I am a very introspective person and have a high need for clarity of purpose.

During one of my introspective mornings, I happened across a great article in Experience Life magazine.  The article focuses on self-esteem, yet has a strong message for us in our work life.

One of the suggestions was to Practice Self-Assertiveness.  "To practice self-assertivenes is to live authentically, to speak and act from my innermost convictions and feelings-as a way of life, as a rule."shares Branden.  Here are some questions to ask yourself regrading your life work as it corresponds to your sense of self:

* Are you living out your "cause" in your work?  You have to fight for this and live out your innermost convictions.
* Is your organization creating the "space" for you to live out your cause in your work?
* Is your work the canvas for self-expression? The article shares that the best leaders express their passion in their work.
* Finally, do you allow yourself to bring who you are to work each day?  Or are you the chameleon who simply fits in with no sense of cause?

The risk is great.  If you are simply allowing others to dictate the tempo of your life, you will end up an angry, resentful and grouchy person with little impact on others.  Those that you lead need you to live out your cause at work.

Dreams and Boundaries

I was inspired by the story of Amelia Earhart.  The movie ends with the quote of "What do dreams know of boundaries?" The challenge with dreams are that the pragmatic side of our lives come to a face off with our dreams.  We must actively remain clear about our dreams and enlist others to help us follow.  

Here are some suggestions for you as you follow your dream.

1. Write it down.  Write down the emotions you want to feel, the people you are with and what you are doing.

2.  Find a picture or portrait of the dream and look at it regularly.

3. Create a 5 year plan to get there and enlist another person to help you.

4. Fail and fail again and get back up and do it again

5. Meet the people who are living your dream currently and build that network

Face pragmatism with passion

The Career Audit

Pretty soon, I will be gathering the receipts of 2010 and starting on my tax return.  Some folks dread the process, I actually enjoy looking back at my expenditures for the year and identifying places for improvement and growth.

The end of the year causes me to do the same with my life.  I break down my life into personal and professional.  I am particularly interested in my career.  I can easily fall into the trap that where I am at currently will remain the same or that I have somehow arrived at the destination.  I find that an audit of last year will help inform the next year in terms of planning.

Just like the financial statements help inform what has passed in a concrete way, your career tends to be much less concrete.  So, I am using a basic positive / negative or plus / delta.  Here are my questions:

• What is working really well? 
• What are the work activities that have given me spirit? 
• What are the work activities that have been draining?
• How would my colleagues answer those two questions?
• As I review the transcript of my mind, what am I saying to myself each and every day? Words that bring courage or words that bring anxiety?
• Did I reach my goals? Did I have any goals? 
• Where will I be in five years? Where do I want to be? 
• Does my current situation allow me to see that picture?

I have enlisted my career coach to walk me through this process to complete the audit.  Oh and by the way, no doubt I will be using my CPA this year to complete my taxes. I can only get so far on my own.

Passion

As I completed the values exercise, I pondered how I discovered that passion was on the top of my list.  I know that I am attracted to passionate people.  I know that I want and long to be person living a cause of passion. It hit me, there were two key moments in my life where a portrait of passion struck me.

The first was the antithesis of passion.  As a 7th grade boy struggling with self-esteem, I recall an angry teacher telling me that I was a loser and would not amount to anything. You never forget those words.  The second was my experience at Cathedral High School.  I was expected to become more than I thought I could ever be and I was surrounded by teachers of passion. Lisa Ford was the portrait of passion.  She expected more and believed in me.

Recently, I went back to Cathedral to honor her with a scholarship in her name and have invited others to join with me in celebrating who she is.  It is that passion, that helped form this key value in my life.

Emotional Commitment

Stan Slap provides a great illustration regarding the importance of being emotionally committed to your work.  How do you get there?  It is more than just basic management techniques, tracking performance milestones and accountability. It is bringing your values to your work place.  How do you discover your values? Well, the values exercise in the book is one of the best I have seen.  The kicker is going back into your story to see how your values were generated.  This is where it became real for me.  My story has great moments of values being unleashed and also hardship, which pushed me to have values.

My top three are accomplishment, compassion and passion.  I will share how I arrived at these and how some key life moments helped build and shape these.

Emotional commitment is critical for true work passion and for your cause to take life.