Leadership

Bring Balance To Your Life

Published on by Tom Northup

Do you have balance in your personal life? We don’t control over much. Our personal balance is one area we do total control. Build balance in your life.

Leading requires a great deal of physical and emotional energy. You have to persuade and say “let’s go” to people who don’t want to go. You make tough calls that directly affect the lives of other people. You have to solve difficult problems. You have to serve as a mediator, encourager, and coach. For this we need balance so we can re-energize ourselves.

Balance is about making the right choices. We all make many choices every day starting first thing in the morning. Do you eat a healthy breakfast? Or do you start with a specialty Starbucks loaded with extras?

As the day goes along, our decisions generally get more complicated and difficult to make. In our position choices don’t come with all the facts leading to simple conclusions.

Our balance begins with an accepting self-image. Be realistic in acknowledging who you are and where you stand now. Have a healthy self-respect.

Know what you stand for. Be aware of your values. Be confident they are ethically sound and bring out the best in you. People respect the leader with strong values and will enthusiastically follow their lead.

When you have a positive self-image and strong values you don’t have to make compromises to please others. Your choices even when difficult will be understood and respected by your team.

Leaders face stress and strain every day. Positive mental attitude is a key trait of successful leaders. For us a positive attitude is a tough attitude. Toughness makes it possible for you to resist great strain without coming apart. A tough mental attitude keeps us from losing heart. We do not fall into doubt or give up in despair.

Attitude defines us. We have choices every day regarding the attitudes we embrace. Do you frequently complain or are you positive always looking for solutions? A positive attitude is not something that magically happens. It needs to be cultivated and strengthened.

How do you create and maintain your attitudes and balance? Marshall Goldsmith in his latest book, Triggers, discusses how our environment may impose continual stress on us. He suggests building a personal structure to recognize and then control how we react to circumstances outside our control. A good book to read.

Leaders with balance are realistic about their self-image, have integrity, strong values and a positive attitude. They manage their environment as they recognize and react appropriately to challenging situations that arise every day.

Trust Is A Two Way Street

Published on by Tom Northup

Trust is a two way street. You are trustworthy; your people trust you. Your people are trustworthy; you trust your people. The relationship is symbiotic. Both take positive leadership.

In this article let us focus on how we develop trust in our people?

There are two foundations. First hire outstanding people; people that fit your culture and exhibit your values.

Second help employees reach their potential with a strong development program. People are the change agents in your organization. To change results you must help your people develop the expertise to carry them out.

Once you have the foundations your leadership is key to trusting your people. Good is the enemy of great. When we aspire to meet industry average we accept mediocre performance. Strong people expect to be highly successful. Mediocre is not in their DNA.

Build a culture where excellence is expected. One way to do this is to develop best thinking in your team.

Best thinking is not an event but a continuous thought process. When you share and build from a combined base, you end with knowledge greater than the sum of the parts. Communication is open and honest, positive and constructive, leading to a trust relationship.

We build trust by giving people responsibility and authority to succeed. Employees want to participate in setting direction and to know their work is valued. An effective leader understands sharing power is the most effective way to get their intellectual and emotional commitment.

Lastly develop your trust by building a culture where accountability is expected. Trust the team to do the work and hold themselves accountable. Avoid becoming the accountability taskmaster. In this environment people don’t fear personal attack and retribution.

Strong development programs are foundational. Build an “I’m always learning” culture. Make a personal commitment to improve 1% per month. Through compounding we double our effectiveness in about five years. Trust grows exponentially as you watch others continually grow and improve.

Mutual trust is a necessary component in building a high performance organization. You become an organization managed by an enthusiastic, motivated, confident team working together to reach the vision of the organization. The increased value you and your team build personally and organizationally is impressive and long lasting. Over time you develop strong “unfair” competitive advantage.

Outstanding Organizations Develop Personal Leadership

Published on by Tom Northup

An effective leader succeeds because he knows what he wants and has a plan of how to get it. He also understands he needs leaders throughout the organization.

Pervasive leadership brings strong organizational success.  As employees reach new heights of achievement so does the organization.

An effective leader must first develop leadership in his personal life. We cannot lead others if we cannot effectively lead ourselves.

Anyone, whether CEO, manager, supervisor or employee, can develop personal leadership and make it a dynamic force in his or her life. We must change; our attitude, our actions and the way we think today if we desire to create a future that is different from our present.

We exhibit personal leadership when we take responsibility for leading ourselves to reach our personal vision. We impact our lives to reach new heights of achievement and lead a life that is positive and fulfilling.

Position is unrelated to responsibility. Everyone who believes in themselves can become a leader.

The key leadership attitudes are:

  • Be a great role model.  Forget the old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  Your actions are the most important messages that you send to others.
  • Maintain a great attitude about people.  Believe that your people are self directed and will work for personal growth and increased responsibility.
  • Be personally motivated. Think of yourself as a thoroughbred that runs to win. You act to meet your personal needs and desires.  Motivation is internal, not external.
  • Inspire people to build their internal motivation by challenging everyone to be the best.
  • Improve yourself even just 1% a month, a tiny amount. Through compounding, you will double your effectiveness in about 5 years.  This is a powerful motivator. It can double your effectiveness several times over during your career.
  • Finally, work for yourself.  Once you discover the great truth that your employer is paying you to work for yourself, you will realize that work is a blessing, not a burden.

With strong personal leadership we develop a great success attitude and have lasting personal rewards.

Strong leadership throughout the organization leads to a results oriented culture where enthusiastic, motivated, confident employees are working together to reach the vision of the organization.