Tag Archive - leadership model

Balancing the Leadership Challenge.

February 11, 2010 in Leadership with 46 Comments

Leadership Challenge 300x299 Balancing the Leadership Challenge.Leaders who attract quality people, know that the key is to become a person of quality themselves.  Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as a parent, as a manager, as a business owner. I’m going to go ahead and call leadership the great challenge of life.  It seems that what is important in leadership is refining your skills.  All great leaders keep working on themselves continuously until they become effective.  And once they become effective, they continue to grow in all aspects of life.

Here are some specifics that the late Jim Rohn showed us during his journey into the leadership horizon.

1) Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach.  Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.

2) Learn to be kind but not weak.  We must not mistake kindness for weakness.  Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength.  We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth.  We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line.  We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3) Learn to be bold but not a bully.  It takes boldness to win the day.  To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group.  You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.

4) You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid.  You can’t get to the high life by being timid.  Some people mistake timidity for humility.  Humility is almost a Godlike word.  A sense of awe…a sense of wonder.  An awareness of the human soul and spirit.  An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life.  Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars.  So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease.  Timidity is an affliction.  It can be cured, but it is a problem.

5) Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day.  It takes pride to build your ambition.  It takes pride in community, it takes pride in cause, in accomplishment.  But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant.  In fact, I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance.  It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know!  Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable.  If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that’s just too much to take.

6) Develop humor without folly.  That’s important for a leader.  In leadership, we learn that it’s okay to be witty, but not silly.  It’s okay to be fun, but not foolish.

Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth.  Save yourself the agony, just accept life like it is…life is unique.  Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique.  The whole drama of life is unique.  It’s fascinating and I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another.  But the overall fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.

The Ego Factor

February 1, 2010 in Business, Leadership with 11 Comments

Ego The Ego FactorAfter studying a leadership model called “The Ego Factor”, I noticed it pointed out that torpid growth, lost market share, and panic response management are more likely to occur if growth objectives are Ego driven vs. Profit driven.  This often leads to personal needs getting ahead of business needs and is a common symptom of the lack of leadership within an organization.

A servant leader makes a conscious choice to lead by being a servant first.  He or she is noticeably different from the person who is leading first, because of the need to alleviate an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions.

Good managers get employees to respect them, effective leaders get employees to not only respect them but more importantly they get them to respect themselves.

It has been shown that effective leaders go through a never ending development process that includes education, self study, training, experience and coaching and mentoring from one or several individuals that have a very positive influence on their personal development.  Leadership is the ability to influence, inspire and motivate others to accomplish specific objectives.  It includes creating a culture that helps direct the organization in such a way that it makes it consistent and coherent keeping short term goals and objectives in alignment with long term strategic initiatives.  The success of leadership in this process is directly influenced by the individual leaders’ beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge and skills.

Position and title may give one power but power in itself does not make one an effective leader.  To become an effective leader there are specific skill sets that one must understand and master.  This does not come naturally. It takes dedication, passion and commitment to the process.  That commitment, dedication and passion includes a tireless effort to improve on specific skills and the development of a personal leadership methodology.  This is referred to as your personal leadership model.

What is your personal leadership model?