Leadership: To Get Up, One Must First Fall Down!

I spent this past weekend at the Rocky Mountain District Convention for Kiwanis, in Gering, NE. It was a great convention and a real learning experience on a number of levels. But I was really inspired by our Keynote Speaker on Saturday, Jerry Traylor.

Jerry Traylor was born with Cerebral Palsy. He has pictures from when he was a baby with casts on his legs, as his parents and the doctors tried to help him. But Jerry never let his condition deter him. Jerry knew that while he could not impact the challenge that life had given him, he could impact how he would react to the challenge.

As you might suspect, his childhood was very challenging as his condition impacted everything he could or would do. But Jerry persevered and did things that no one ever thought possible. Jerry shared with us his story of tragedy and triumph and told us how hard he had fought to ensure that his condition would not define his life. At one point, Jerry decided to run a marathon. He set out to train and eventually completed a 26 mile marathon in somewhat over 7 hours, all while on crutches. Of course, that was just the start. Since then Jerry has completed 35 marathons.

But that is not Jerry’s biggest accomplishment. You see, once Jerry knew that he could run a marathon with his crutches, he set his sights even higher. In 1985 Jerry Traylor, using his crutches, jogged across the United States from San Francisco to New York City.

Absolutely inspirational.

When Jerry spoke with us this weekend, he talked about how winners get up while others stay down. Winners don’t quit when things get tough. Winners find ways to conquer problems that many of us would let overwhelm us.

And while I was truly inspired by Jerry’s story and what he had overcome and accomplished, I was struck by a simple fact that many of us overlook. You see, while Jerry had figured out that being a winner means getting up, most of us think being a winner means never falling down. Somehow we have taken the perspective that winners routinely win, while others of us struggle. The reality is far different than that. The reality is that we all fall down from time to time. We all struggle with different types of challenges and we all fail from time to time. But winners consider any setback to be temporary in nature, something that teaches them what not to do, and as guidance for future efforts. Winners understand that mistakes are part of the game of life and accept them as natural. They don’t dwell on mistakes because they understand that never making a mistake means that they have never tried anything new.

You see, it’s not just that winners get up while others stay down. Winners know that, in order to get up, you have to have fallen down. And everyone falls down from time to time.

I hope that you enjoyed this blog and will take a few minutes to provide us with feedback and perhaps share it with a friend.


Until next time…..

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

Leadership and Management - Read to Succeed

A month or so ago I was approached by a young lady who was thinking about going into management. She asked me for some recommended reading that would help prepare her for her possible new role. Below is the list I gave her of my favorite management and leadership books, as well as why I think these books are valuable. I’d love to hear input on your favorite books as well.

1. First, Break All The Rules - Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

This is a must read book for anyone who is going into management. The title refers to the fact that the research performed by the Gallup organization clearly shows that some of the most common “rules” of management are, in fact, incorrect. By focusing on the top performing organizations Buckingham and Coffman make a clear case for a different style of management.

2. Dig Your Well BEFORE You're Thirsty - Harvey MacKay

A common sense approach to people and your career, Harvey MacKay provides us with practical, easy to read advice about ourselves and our careers. This is just one of several excellent books by Mr. MacKay.

3. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership - Revised Edition - John Maxwell

John Maxwell is the leader’s leader. His “21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” takes leadership to levels that most of us don’t even think about. This book is excellent for experienced leaders as well as emerging leaders.

4. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni

Told in narrative style, “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable” is the story of a typical business team and what is holding them back. Patrick Lencioni weaves a tale of dysfunction that applies to many teams and then clearly shows how one can overcome these challenges.

5. Working With Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman

Every leader needs to understand emotional intelligence, and Daniel Goleman is the master at explaining what emotional intelligence is and how it applies in the workplace. Complex theories are explained in simple terms and then related back to every human being. Those leaders who don’t understand the concept of emotional intelligence are not leaders for very long.

6. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

Originally published in 1937 this book is as relevant today as it was then. This is a dynamic personal development book that defines personal development. The mind is a powerful tool and Napoleon Hill demonstrates how to harness your mind for your personal success.

7. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey

This book is an all time classic and a must read for anyone who wants to be successful in their own life. Take my advice and read this book slowly. Savor the ideas presented by Covey and enjoy the new perspective that he provides.

8. How To Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie

Don’t read this book once. Read it again and again. This is another oldie (1936), but in reality it is a timeless classic. Its lessons are as applicable today as they were in 1936 and will help you understand yourself and others as well.

9. True North - Bill George

This is a newer book that will someday be considered a classic. In this book Bill George makes the case for discovering what you are all about, to create a leadership style that is 100% authentic and effective. Until you understand yourself, you can’t truly create a vision of where you want to go.

10. What Got You Here, Won't Get You There - Marshall Goldsmith

Considered by many to be the “bible of executive coaching.” Marshal Goldsmith clearly demonstrates that to succeed, we need to learn, grow, and do things differently. After being rewarded for our behavior, it can be difficult to adapt and change. But change we must. To succeed as a leader means understanding what new skills must be learned and mastered.

Please feel free to share your thoughts on these books, as well as add to this list of great leadership reads.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

Manager to Leader Or When You Come To The Fork In The Road, Take It

No doubt that many of you have heard the euphemism “Managers manage process while leaders lead people.” And, while that may be a cliché, it has its roots in truth. At the lowest levels of management it is all about the process:

- how to do things better
- how to be more efficient
- how to be more accurate
- how to produce more widgets


As you climb the leadership ladder, this begins to change for you. And this has been the theme of our last few blog entries.

How do you make the shift from manager to leader?

Or more importantly, WHEN do you make the shift from manager to leader?

The shift from thinking about process to thinking about people is a shift that happens subtly for most managers. In your first managerial job you will likely think little about the people and a lot about the process. This is especially true if you were promoted from inside your current department, as most new managers are. You are a technical expert with a substantial amount of detailed process knowledge and you got your promotion because you consistently demonstrated your knowledge of the subject matter.

When you take your second managerial job you don’t know nearly as much about the detail because this is a new department for you and you’ve never worked on the front line. Never the less, having again been rewarded for your detailed knowledge of the process, you tend to dig into the details and try your best to become a technical expert again. But this time you find that a number of people in your new department are much more technically adept than you are.

Although it goes against your nature, this is actually your first clue that you need to focus more on people and less on process.

Why?

Because the people who are now working for you are much smarter about the process than you are and, try as you might, you will never understand the detail as well as they do, because they do this work every day. At this point, the most effective use of your time is actually understanding the process at a little higher level, and understanding the people at a little deeper level.

As you begin this experiment, you discover the inherent strengths and weaknesses of all of the people who work for you. And you discover that by using their strengths effectively you can get more accomplished than ever before. You will also understand what motivates them, what they enjoy doing, and what they fear in their job and in their life. When you understand these things, you begin to understand the real person.

And that is when you begin to transition from being just a manager to starting down the path of leadership.


Until next time….

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

Leadership: "Hard Hats" Not Required Here

In our last couple of entries, we have been talking about the relationship between leadership and emotional intelligence. In our last blog we noted this rather shocking statistic:

95% of your long term success at the executive level will not be the result of how smart you are, but rather of how well you manage your own emotions and the emotions of those around you.

I state that this statistic is shocking because, for many of you, your career development has been the direct result of your "technical" talent and skills, or hard skills. The more you know, the more you have succeeded. As you face challenges, you have used your own technical knowledge and skills to overcome these problems. As a result, this idea of your success being tied to managing emotions (your own and those of other people) seems completely foreign to everything you have experienced in your career.

Take a look at the graph below. This graph represents the type of skills required (technical vs. people) to be successful at the various levels of leadership. As you can see, the higher you go up the leadership ladder, the less technical (or hard) skills you require and the more people (or soft) skills you require. This is a lesson that many young leaders (including yours truly) don’t pick up on right away. After some thought it might become more obvious, but when you are constantly rewarded for your performance, the tendency is to do more of the same.

Let’s ponder this concept for a few minutes. Could the VP of your organization do some of the technical things that you or your staff do day in and day out? For that matter, would you want your VP even trying to do some of these tasks?

Probably not.

You want your VP focused on strategic concepts, focusing on the future and preparing your organization for its newest challenges. This type of work is not done in a vacuum, but rather in conjunction with other leaders both inside and outside of the company. For your VP, building relationships and getting along well with others is the key to their success. That doesn’t mean that they have to like everyone that they deal with, but they must learn to deal with disagreements and conflict in a way that builds teamwork and does not damage it. And while they certainly have to understand the technical concepts of the business, they won’t be applying them on a day to day basis.

The metamorphosis from technical expert to expert in human behavior is the critical point in the development of any executive. It starts when you begin to use your knowledge of human behavior to get the most from your team. That means:

• understanding what your team members do best
• knowing that everyone is motivated by different things
• figuring out what motivates those team members
• communicating beyond the facts to touch each person
• not trying to teach a pig to sing (i.e. enhancing team members' strengths, not trying to develop their weaknesses)

And the more you progress up the leadership ladder, the bigger the role these elements play in your success.

We will have more on this next week.


Until next time......

Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

Leadership and Emotional Intelligence

In last week’s blog (The Single Most Important Leadership Lesson Ever) I introduced you to the concept of Emotional Intelligence. In short, I demonstrated that those bosses who had the most positive impact on your life were usually not the most technically brilliant or even technically competent bosses, but those that touched you in an emotionally positive way.

When I introduce the term Emotional Intelligence (EI) to executives in workshops, I’m often met with a series of chuckles and guffaws. “I never thought I’d see the words emotional and intelligence used together in the same sentence” they say. “Aren’t those a contradiction in terms?” is another common retort.

So what is Emotional Intelligence?

In short, Emotional Intelligence is your ability to understand and manage yourself and others around you, knowing your own strengths and weaknesses, identifying what you do well and don’t do well, and relating to the world around you through your emotions.

In other words, how well do you know yourself? How well do you manage yourself? How well do you understand others? How well do you manage the emotions of others?

Here is a rather shocking statistic: 95% of your long term success at the executive level will not be the result of how smart you are, but rather of how well you manage the emotions of those around you.

The primary reason for careers stalling on the way up, or for executives failing in their roles, are directly related to Emotional Intelligence. When an executive possesses these skills (knowingly or unknowingly) they are taking full advantage of themselves and the talented people around them. When they don’t possess these skills, they are limited by their own intelligence. And while they may be highly intelligent, none of us is as smart as all of us.

Let’s take a brief look at how and why this happens.

As you start your career you are an individual contributor. As an individual contributor, you have a certain amount of control over your destiny. The smarter you are, the better you perform your job. The better you perform your job the sooner you are promoted to a higher level position, including that of a supervisor.

As a supervisor, you are somewhat dependent on those around you to accomplish their tasks and complete their assignments on time and with the appropriate level of accuracy. But should they fail, you have the personal expertise to understand what went wrong, why it went wrong, and you can even fix the problem yourself. So even as a supervisor you have a lot of control over your future. If your team performs poorly, you can often make up for it through your personal efforts. Ideas for improvements and changes may come from the team members, but more often than not, they come from the supervisors themselves. Hence your ability to control your fate is still largely in your own hands. And, if you do well, you can and will be promoted to manager.

This is where things begin to change.


More on this next time.....

Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

The Single Most Important Leadership Lesson Ever

When it comes to leadership, there are basically two kinds of people in the world. Those that study leadership and work constantly to improve their leadership skills, and those that think leadership is a given. For this second group of people, if you are the boss, you are the leader. It’s really that simple.

Of course, the truth is far different from that. As many eventually discover, being the boss has nothing to do with real leadership because the title of “boss” is given to you by someone higher in the organization, while the role of “leader” is bestowed on you by your followers. As John Maxwell says, “If you think you are a leader but no one is following, you are just out taking a walk.”

Those people who study leadership and spend a lot of time reading about leadership concepts and techniques, often focus on such things as Vision, Intelligence, Risk Taking, etc. And while these are certainly important concepts, they overlook the key quality of a leader that creates followers.

Take a few minutes now and think back to the one person in your life that you personally experienced and believed to be a great leader. It may have been a boss from one of your jobs, or maybe it was a scout leader from your youth, a minister from your church, or even a sports coach or teacher from high school. But my guess is that there is someone tha you looked up to and admired as a leader and who you would, if you could, model yourself after.

Visualize this person in your mind’s eye and immerse yourself in the thoughts you had when this person was such a huge influence in your life. Go as deep as possible in recreating the feelings and thoughts from that time period.

Now, get out a piece of paper and quickly write down the first 5 attributes that come to your mind about this person.

Let’s take a look at your list and mark each item on that list with the following codes:

1. If the attribute had something to do with their technical skills, knowledge of the subject matter or expertise, or quick decision making, mark those items with a “T”.

2. If the attribute has something to do with the “softer skills” of leadership (like the way you felt listened to or appreciated by this person, or maybe the way they inspired you with their vision and made you feel included), mark those items with an “E”.

3. If the item doesn’t fit into either of these two categories, mark them with an “O”.


If you are like 98% of the adult population of this country, at least 3 of the 5 items on your list are now labeled with an “E”. For many of you, all 5 will be labeled with an “E”.

What is the message here?

Those people who we view as outstanding influences in our lives, those people we look up to and admire, are held in that esteem not because of how “smart” they were, but because of the way they made us feel about ourselves, our jobs, and the world around us. The same will be true of you. It’s not how smart you are that will make you a great leader, but how you invest in others and how they invest in you.

This concept is called Emotional Intelligence. We will talk about this more next week.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/

If Leadership is Easy, Why Aren't There More Great Leaders?

A few weeks ago I posted my “10 Things Every Leader Should Know” (http://ecilearning.blogspot.com/2010/02/10-things-every-leader-should-know.html) and as I mentioned, that list generated a lot of interesting off line discussion. In one such discussion a reader made the following observation.

“This really is a simple list. The things on here are important, but there’s nothing here that really is rocket science. So if leadership is this easy, why aren’t there more great leaders?”

That really is a great question, especially in a society that really seems to be screaming for leadership in business and in politics. As a result, we spent quite a bit of time discussing this issue, dissecting various leaders that we knew and trying to determine if they were great leaders, good leaders, or even bad leaders.

She brought up her current boss as an example and described him as someone who was not nearly as good a leader as he seemed to believe he was. What was he missing? “Trust” she replied “and listening; he pretends to listen but he really doesn’t.” Those were the two things that really jumped out at her. The other items on the list were things he did really well, but without these two key ingredients he was someone that she only followed because he was the boss.

We discussed other examples of people that seemed to miss the mark on leadership.

One cared only about results and not about the people, another person wanted to be the smartest person on the team and hired people that would never challenge her or make her stretch and think. Another boss tended to horde information and left most of the team in the dark.

There were more examples, but you get the idea.

The point is that leadership is not complex or complicated, but it does require a variety of skills and ALL of these skills have to be present or the leader may fall short, far short of the kind of leader that they want to be. If you can't do all of these things, then you aren't a good leader, much less a great one. And so many leaders fall short in one or more of these areas.

Here’s the worst part. Most leaders who fall short don’t realize that they are falling short. Like most people, leaders do not see their own blind spots. And since they can't see what they are missing they assume that they really are doing what needs to be done.

How does this happen?

One example would be a leader who has a vision and believes that he/she is communicating that vision to the team. But for a variety of reasons, the team is not getting the message. And since the team is not receiving the message, it is not really communicated. Hence the leader is falling short without realizing it.

What are some ways for leaders to discover their blind spots?

There are a number of ways. Ideally someone can point out theblind spots to them. But that requires that the leader be open to honest feedback and has someone in their inner circle who is willing and able to communicate with them. If not, coaching can be a great way to uncover weaknesses. But even then the leader must be in contact with the coach and be determined to uncover any blind spots. Another alternative is a professionally administered 360 degree assessment. Done by a professional, 360 degree assessments are a powerful tool. Done by someone who is untrained or unqualified, a 360 can lead to false results and a loss of trust in the organization.

If you are interested in taking the next step in developing yourself and becoming the leader that you truly want to be, contact ECI Learning Systems today.


Until next time.....

Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/