Tag Archives: leader

1 part angst

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ANGST – it exists in even the most chiseled of leaders. 

your 20′s will contain periods of time where you doubt your education, your professional choices, your internal make-up and your external deliveries. the pain and process of leadership development will cause you to pause time and time again with the self-evaluation of whether you are cut out for your current pursuits.

what is your driving life passion?

why did you place yourself in your current situation?

what was your dream when you first headed in the direction that you are going?

these are the things that you MUST keep in front of you. don’t follow some other person’s dream or plan for your life. let your passion and your values guide your life commitments. allow yourself to learn from the challenges inside of your current context — pull out the nuggets that will make you a better leader and person — then apply those to your next leadership opportunities.

Losing your training wheels in Leadership

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when you first learned to ride, what was the color of your bike?

RED?

Mine was. Ok, it wasn’t my bike. My friend Brian from down the street had a small red bike. Mine was a full-sized, used, hand-me-down bmx. I am not even sure how my dad could have found training wheels for it. The top tube (middle bar for those of you who don’t ride) was almost as far up from the ground as I was. However, the red bike Brian had fit just right. It was a perfect height from the ground for a 5 year old. It had training wheels too! But the greatest thing about his bike is that it gave me confidence to build on for riding my own bike. A few spins on that puppy taught me that I could possibly learn to ride without the training wheels. His dad set us free the very next week. Sure, he held the seat and started us down a small hill near his house to help us get going, but by the end of week two we were flying — skidding to stops AND MOST IMPORTANTLY I was getting the courage to step up to my full-sized bmx.

Leadership is like learning to ride a bike. You will start slow, it will come to you over time, once you learn you won’t forget AND you will gain confidence with each success to step up into bigger situations. Akin to bike riding, you can gain some confidence and some assistance by tapping the experience offered by others who have learned to ride and are out there ‘enjoying the sport’. Save yourself some early pain by dedicating yourself to learning about leadership and easing your way into it, possibly even getting a mentor.

That is what these blog articles will be for… to help you get going. I don’t have all the answers, so you won’t find me writing all the articles. My goal is to make the early experiences in leadership more beneficial. Odds are you will still have some crashes that will cause some pain – those are unavoidable, even with training wheels and assistance. But as you come to experience the thrill of leadership and glean from the insights of others, I am betting you will in turn become a leader who is reaching your potential.

I am looking forward to counting you in as a leader who is learning and making positive impacts in your world!

  • keep reading here
  • apply what you are learning
  • read from other great sources
  • start processing WHO will make for a great mentor

axiom A

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Last fall, I wrote that it is a great exercise to develop a handful of leadership axioms that you live and lead by – link - watching to see if they prove themselves out over time or need to be refined. These axioms don’t need to be original to you. Here is my first one…

| SIMPLICITY | freedom from complexity, intricacy, or division into parts

The goal I have in mind is to lead ministry, business and personal pursuits that are straightforward, purpose oriented, no frills, easy to understand and engage with. With recurring evaluation, I try to take each of these areas of my life and strip away the non-essentials only striving to leave the core functions entact. However, I don’t believe that needs to strip away the beauty of item, pursuit or individual. Just as a plain, well designed  black dress can be stunning or elegant, so can our lives, our leadership and our businesses.

So, ask yourself about your business, “What is the core purpose?” Other than money/income, what are you trying to acheive and also what is there that is holding you back? What do you find yourself doing that is taking away from the original personal excitement that you had about your endeavors when you first began?

In your personal life, what focus and personal enjoyment have you lost with your wife, kids or family because you are entangled with other things less meaningful? What is one item that you can strip away this day or week to put the priorities back on the reasons for all of the busyness?

I offer these excellent things as samples of simplicity that I use as a model for work and life: Crank Brothers | Google | In-&-Out | Brand You 50 | Henri Nouwen

Go take something away from a key area of your life that makes it more complex, less enjoyable, more confusing, and harder to do than it needs to be.

Here are a few more axioms that I hold onto by summarizing them with one word:

  • personable interactions
  • excellence in everything
  • consistency in performance & delivery
  • innovation in your field 
  • create environments for the mission
  • develop other leaders

 

so you want to be mentored?

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In search of self improvement or a desire to move forward professionally, young people land on the idea that they need a mentor. However, wanting a mentor or teacher is a whole lot easier than the process of being mentored. Here are a few quick things to consider on the subject:

- go look for one – It sounds too absurd, but it is all too true that most people want a mentor to come looking for them. ANY individual that you would want to have as a mentor is not just sitting around bored. They have things going on and lots of people who want their time — that is in fact the reason that you want them! They know something that you don’t about your job, about life or about how to lead their families. If you want some of their time, go ask for it. Don’t sit in your office crying about the fact that no one will invest in you. No one will invest in you because you haven’t asked them to.

- make it a priority, not a leftover – since this is more than likely something you are doing outside of the scope of your paying job, there might be a tendency to treat this like a personal friendship or a hobby — don’t do that. Treat this like a meeting with your boss who’s opinions should have significant impact on your reality. For starters, SHOW UP ON TIME OREARLY! If you are unavoidably running behind, at least call. Next, get the appt. on your calendar as a ‘can’t miss’item; do not treat it as something that you will wipe out if some other meetings come up. For peet’s sake, this is your personal & professional development we are talking about, don’t let that become a third tier item. Also, bring at least one discussion item to the table each time for them to weigh in on. Don’t expect your mentor to lead every conversation; bounce stuff off of them that is important to your situation.

- don’t play games with reality - You aren’t ready to be mentored if you aren’t ready to be honest; about yourself, your situation, your work ethic, your morals, your finances, your family, your priorities, your ambitions —- ALL of it. There is no bigger waste of time on this earth than to trying to mentor a person who is blowing smoke about who they really are. Don’ bother meeting if you can’t be truthful about your reality. Mentors aren’t afraid of your reality, in fact they embrace it. Helping you move forward is why they are there.

- be ready for some pain - Once you have been honest, brace yourself for to hear things that no one else is telling you. Your gut reaction will be that “this guy is wrong and/or mean”. Not so. What is going to take place when you have found a good mentor are a series of questions, reality checks, performance penatrating observations and soul searches. After that, they will also tell you the truth in a way that likely no one has before. You want them to do this… trust me. If they didn’t do this you wouldn’t need them. If others were doing this, you wouldn’t need a mentor. Don’t shy away from what they need you to hear. Don’t flinch. Don’t whine about it to others. Take it. Think on it. Watch to see if what they tell you isn’t truer than you first thought.

- practice the advice that they give – Now, here is the rub. – Nothing up to this point matters if you don’t TRY THE PRACTICAL ADVICE that this person gives you. You might as well go talk to a therapist if you just need someone to talk to and are interested in hearing back some reflections. In fact, I will go so far as to say that you don’t need to meet a second time until you have practiced and tried some of the practical advice from your first meeting with them. Here is a  test of whether you have found a good mentor = they will give you some pratical things that you can implement into your life. Nice people are great, but far too many people operate in the land of ideas. You want someone who will practically help shape your life in the most important areas. When you find this person and the challenge you to do something, for goodness sake and the sake of their sanity, DO IT!

- invite feedback – You can practice this without mentors + this is a sure fire way to get what you really need to hear. Don’t just simple ask, “how am I doing?” but ask more detailed questions about specific performance related areas of your life. Let trusted people know that you want to grow, how your trying to grow, that their critique is welcome, and then don’t get defensive when it comes. For your mentor, invite them to ask follow up questions about the advice that they have given you (hopefully you have earnestly put it into action). Ask them follow up questions that get you more specific data on the areas where you know you need to grow. But, DON’T, DON’T, DON’T get defensive! You don’t need to win a mentor over because they are already on your side. So, when the feedback comes, listen, take notes, and then go at it again.

- pay for lunch, but nothing else - Professional coaches are helpful, but they’re also motivated by the money that you are sending their way. You know you have found your mentor (we will look at “qualities of a mentor” at some other time) when they are motivated by helping you grow – period. However, practice the old axiom, who ever has the agenda for the meeting ought to be the one buying the breakfast, coffee or lunch – so in this case, that means YOU!

Lead your life like you want to be lead.

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As a young leader, you must live out the very principles and nature of leadership that you desire to receive from the leaders that shape your current reality.

 

Becoming a leader requires the exercise of you determining the DEFINING PRINCIPLES that will govern your life and leadership ::: you must know WHAT & WHY people will follow, then go through your environments practicing those principles with as much integrity as possible. HOWEVER, if you should ever find a principle that you have adopted does in fact not have merit, you must be willing to admit it, alter it and move on.

 

Young leaders ache for leadership to be relational. They want a  personal connection with the one(s) from whom they take direction, even going so far as to desire a “buddy” sort of status.

[we can examine the positives and negatives of this hope at another time]

However, here is where the axiom comes into play… A young leader should not expect something from his/her leader which they are NOT willing to live out themselves, even if it scares them.

 

You can’t treat your leader as an emotionless robot when making “your” decisions that affect them and then hope to receive empathy and understanding in the highest degree when they are making critical decisions that will have a personal impact on you. You shouldn’t expect a corporation to have sensitivities, patience and grace with regards to the end of your partnership together if you would quickly exchange your partnership with them for one that is slightly more affirming or lucrative or personally beneficial in some way.

 

BOTTOM LINE: to become a leader with defining character & principles, you must live out your early convictions in every environment possible to test them and to help develop and shape the very environment of which you hope to receive the value of your principles being lived out by others – - – - you ALWAYS lead by example.