New Year’s Leadership Resolutions

Every year I make several resolutions that seem to go nowhere.  I start off with every intention to do them, but for one reason, or another, they never get done.  Well this year is going to be much different.  I am going to resolve to change several things in my life to help me build the leader within.  Here is my list for this year:

1. Physical Readiness – This past year has been a tough one with respect to my physical readiness.  My age and poor diet choices have finally started taking their toll on my health.  This year I am going to change this by eating right and exercising at least 5 times per week.  As part of improving my health I have decided to lose another 40 pounds before June 1^st, 2011.  Getting control of my diet and exercise will have many benefits, but the reduction of my stress levels will do wonders for my leadership abilities.
2.  Better Listener – One thing I have never been good at is listening.  Throughout my career I have always said what was on my mind and it was usually when I should have been listening.  In 2011 I vow to improve my listening skills to show the people around me that their opinions matter.
3. Read Widely – Dr. Howard Lacey, Professor Emeritus Concordia University, used to always tell me that good leaders were well read and I tried to spend a lot of time reading everything I could get my hands on.  Over the last few years I have not been as diligent in my reading.  I am going to change all of that in 2011 and replace television time with reading.
4. Service – I am dedicating the rest of my life to serving others.  I am convinced that service to others, expecting nothing in return, is the only way to success.  God, my family, and my employer deserve to have my service and I vow to give it.

I hope everyone develops a realistic set of smart goals this year and I would like to hear about them if you get time to comment to this posting.  I hope the coming year is one of the best you have ever experienced and you are able develop the leader within.

May God Bless You!

"There's No Place Like Home"

    In my MBA classes at Concordia University Texas we just finished our first semester and it is good to have a few days off for our Christmas break.  In my class Leadership-self we looked at finding leadership lessons in everyday life and now I am hooked!
     My 13-year old daughter had never seen The Wizzard of Oz so we decided to watch it last Saturday night as a family.  Keep in mind that I have probably seen this movie 45 times in my 53 years on this earth, but this time I watched it looking for leadership lessons.  It was like watching it for the first time!  This movie is full of great examples of leadership and I would like to share a few of those with you today.

Teamwork
     When you look at the team Dorothy put together it is a great lesson in leadership.  Each member of her team had different reasons for getting to Oz.  The Scarecrow felt he needed a brain, the Tin Man wanted a heart, the Lion was searching for courage, and Dorothy just wanted to get home.  Many times as leaders we will face similar situations where individual members of our team will have different goals and motivations for serving, but we can use the individual talents of each member to achieve the goals of our organization.

Stay Focused
     As each member of Dorothy's team headed down the Yellow Brick Road they experienced many obstacles along the way.  They had trees trying to grab them, Poppies causing Dorothy to sleep,  Winged Monkeys stomping the stuffing out of the Scarecrow, and Lions, Tigers, and Bears frightening the Cowardly Lion.  Our teams will have all types of obstacles that get in our way when we are leaders, but it will be our job to remove them so the goals of the organization can be realized.

Join in the Fun
    It would have been easier for Dorothy to send her team down the Yellow Brick Road while she hung out with the Munchkins, but she was right there with them every step of the way.  The lesson we can learn here is our team needs us in the trenches with them.  Teams respect a leader who works with them and is not afraid to get their hands dirty.

     I'm sure there are many other lessons to be learned from this movie and when I watch it again I am going to look for them.  Actually, I will probably be doing this with any movie I watch from now on.

     As the grades are posted from our last semester I hope everyone got the one they were hoping for and they are able to relax a little during this short break we are getting.  I hope everyone has a great Christmas and is able to spend some quality time with friends and family.

     May God bless each of you.

Moral Leadership

     Last night was my last class in Leadership of Self which is part of my MBA program at Concordia University Texas and the focus centered on Moral Leadership. Our professor Dr. Don Christian asked us to share our thoughts on what we felt was the definition of Moral Leadership and the discussions that followed were pretty amazing.  Dr. Christian also mentioned that many times when a discussion takes place on Morals it usually ends up on death, murder, and various forms of abuse.  The question I thought about for most of the night is why do discussions on morals end up being about death, murder, and abuse?  I think I might have an answer and would like to share it with everyone here with hopes that I will get some good comments.

     I think our society’s morals have changed so much, and so many things that used to be immoral are now accepted, that we have become jaded.  Watch one night of television, listen to the radio, watch the evening news, and you can quickly see that our society, as a whole, is accepting of many things once thought unacceptable.  Television is glamorizing many things that not long ago were shunned by society.  Reality television lets us see people in all kinds of acts that only ten years ago would have had serious consequences for the broadcaster.  With the moral fiber of our country being manipulated to try to make us think these things are acceptable it will take strong leaders in families, workplaces, and communities to keep our compasses headed in the right direction.  So many bad things have become the norm that when a discussion starts up about morals the only things that everyone can agree on being unacceptable are death, murder, and abuse.

     Last night when the discussion started the thing that jumped into my mind was Enron.  I thought about the blatant disregard for what is right and wrong.  I think there are so many things that we can work on with respect to morals that fall well under the death issue.  I think everyone, less the mentally disable, would agree that murder is not acceptable.  We need to work on the other issues that are quickly eroding our quality of life and are more in our control.

     One of the ways I can help is for others to see great examples of Moral Leadership in me.  I hope to do that for the rest of my leadership journey.  Will anyone do the same?

     Have a very Merry Christmas.  Yes, I said Christmas!  It will always be Christmas to me.

Thoughts on Servant Leadership

    Earlier this year our leadership team here at work reviewed the book The Servant by James C. Hunter.  Our team learned in this book review that the true foundation of leadership is not power, but authority, which is built upon relationships, love, service, and sacrifice.  The Servant is an easy read and I would recommend it for anyone wanting to work on becoming a true servant leader.  The problem I had with this book, and many others that I have read, is putting the things I have learned to good use.  We finished this book review and I placed it on my book shelf where it was collecting dust.

     Now here I am in a leadership class as part of my MBA degree program at Concordia University Texas.  Each week we are given reading assignments on various aspects of leadership as it relates to ourselves.  I have made a vow to myself that I am not going to just put these books on the shelf when I am finished with them, but I am actually going to try to put them to good use.  As part of trying to honor my vows I have expanded my study of the area of servant leadership.  I truly believe that a servant leader is what I want to be when I grow up.  Keep in mind I am 53 years old and still have a lot of growing up to do.

     I recently read an essay by Robert K. Greenleaf titled The Servant as Leader.  In this essay, he states: "The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first; perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature."  Think about this for a minute.  Let Mr. Greenleaf’s quote sink in.  I am overwhelmed by the power of this one quote!  What would our communities look like if all of our leaders were servants first?  I just wonder what my personal life would have been like if I had chosen to serve instead of worrying about what I could lead and when my next promotion was coming.  I agree with Mr. Greenleaf that if I had dedicated my life to service then my opportunities to lead would have found me.

    

      I am going to look at this servant leadership thing in a lot more detail over the last years of my life.  It is a shame that I started so late, but I am excited about the prospect of finishing better.  I hope everyone that reads this blog takes a little time to consider servant leadership and the positive changes it can make in people, corporations, communities, and families.  I plan to dedicate more time to it in this blog and make every effort to try to become a better servant.  Maybe I can inspire others to do the same.

     I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

A Time For Thanks

     I want to take some time this week to thank everyone who makes my life special.  First I would like to thank my wife for putting up with me all year.  She should get a humanitarian award for her efforts. 
     I also want to thank my kids for being great.  They make great grades, cause very little trouble, participate in extracurricular activities, and love me for who I am. 
     Next I want to thank all of my friends.  Friends are what makes life special and mine do that to the max!  Some of my friends are also co-workers and I want to especially thank you folks. 
    One of the best things that has happened to me over my long life is finding Concordia University.  I always valued my undergraduate degree from there, but my MBA program is a true blessing.  The relationships I am building with both fellow students, and staff, are amazing.  The MBA program is hard, but it is causing me to think again which was something I was needing very much.
     I would also like to thank everyone who has been reading this blog each week.  This blog is my therapy and I hope that people can find some small bit of insight from it that will help them in their lives.
     Lastly, and most importantly, I want to thank GOD for loving me even though I don't deserve it most of the time.  HE is amazing!
     I hope everyone is safe over this holiday and I look forward to us getting back at it next week.

Happy Thanksgiving

Our Quiet Place

     I hope everyone had a chance this week to look at how negative self-talk affects their lives.  This week I want to explore an activity that many feel is an excellent way to reduce stress and counteract its effects.  All throughout history people have used meditation as a way to calm themselves and as we are trying to develop the leader within us it would be a great tool to add to our daily regimen.

     If you are anything like me when I first heard about using meditation as a leadership improvement activity I had visions of Buddhist Monks sitting cross-legged in a monastery.  I couldn’t imagine any practical use for meditation in the business world, but I was totally wrong.  Meditation has been used by every religion, and others, since the age of antiquity and means something different to almost all of those groups.  I’m not really advocating any specific religious practice in this blog, but merely suggesting that developing your own form of meditation will have many positive effects on your life.

     The type of meditation I am advocating can best be described as relaxation, concentration, an altered state of awareness, a suspension of logical thought and the maintenance of a self-observing attitude.[i]  The type of meditation I try to practice, as often as possible, is basically finding a quiet place, taking a few deep breaths, and trying to clear my head.  It doesn’t involve a certain posture, chanting, or any other practice usually related to religion.  It is merely my way of clearing my head.

     Some of the benefits of meditating are the positive changes in the body after a session.  Meditation has been shown to improve heart rates, blood pressure, respiration, brain function, and metabolism.[ii]   Clinics have used meditation to reduce stress and pain.[iii]

     Leading From Within exists to help all of us become better leaders by first helping us lead ourselves.  With all of the positive benefits listed above why don’t you give it a try this week?  If you are having rough days why not find a quiet place and relax for a few minutes?

     I would like to end this week with a big thank you for my professors and classmates at the Concordia University Texas MBA program.  This program has brought my creative side back to life.  I had forgotten my love for learning and my classmates and teachers have made me remember.

  I hope everyone has a blessed week!

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[i] Perez-De-Albeniz, Alberto; Jeremy Holmes (March 2000). "Meditation: concepts, effects and uses in therapy". International Journal of Psychotherapy 5 (1): 49–59.

[ii] Lazar, S.W.; Bush, G.; Gollub, R. L.; Fricchione, G. L.; Khalsa, G.; Benson, H. Functional brain mapping of the relaxation response and meditation" NeuroReport: Volume 11(7) 15 May 2000 pp. 1581–1585

[iii] Kabat-Zinn, Jon; Lipworth L, Burney R. (1985). "The clinical use of mindfulness meditation for the self-regulation of chronic pain". Journal of Behavioral Medicine 8 (2): 163–190

Accept Yourself from the Inside Out

    

     One of the things that I have always had a problem with is negative self-talk.  This is a problem I have had to work on as long as I can remember.  I have heard these patterns usually start in childhood and can color our thinking for years.  Self-talk actually makes us what we are. 

    Self–talk is the conversations that go on inside our heads when we are faced with problems or even simple issues that happen throughout the day. We do not always notice it, but we are constantly talking to ourselves and when it is negative it creates a lot of stress in our lives.

     Becoming aware of negative self-talk is the first step in taking charge of our lives and reducing the amount of stress we experience.  If our lives are bombarded with negative stuff all day the automatic reactions we have limit how we handle life’s challenges.  I know you’ve heard this stuff in your head throughout your life; I’m not good enough, this is not for me, this is way too hard, I can’t finish this, I’m too dumb to do this, change is too hard, etc.  Your parents or teachers may have told you this stuff or it could have been reactions to certain events in your life.  I know in my own life I heard these things from coaches, my parents, drill sergeants, friends and others.  After hearing this all our lives it becomes part of our personalities.  Basically all of these negative people live inside our heads today.  

    How many times have your negative thoughts got in the way of something you wanted to do?  Have you ever really wanted something, but your mind told you NO?  These thoughts surface when you are faced with doing something that is counter to what your mind thinks you can do, or has a negative opinion about. It happens to all of us at least a few times in our lives.

     The good news is we can change this negative self-talk.  All we really need to do is become more aware of it.  Last week I wrote about a great way to work on this by journaling.  When we write down our feelings throughout the day we can go back later and analyze them.  It can help us detect patterns in our thoughts.  People who go to counselors are actually paying someone to journal for them.  Life coaches pretty much do the same thing.  Journaling is an excellent tool for us to use to examine the Leader From Within.

     Another thing we can do if we notice negative thoughts running through our mind is to tell ourselves NO!  We can also tell ourselves to STOP!  This works better if you do it out loud when that is possible.  Saying STOP or NO out loud is more effective because it helps us notice how many times we are doing it.

     I hope everyone thinks about this over the next week and looks at how negative self-talk is affecting your lives.  Next week I will list some good activities that help us overcome the negative thoughts and things we say to ourselves.  Ridding ourselves with this negative garbage will improve our self-esteem and help us to become better leaders.  Working on the stuff running around in our heads is what the Leader From Within is all about.

     I hope everyone has a blessed week.

Startin' With Me

     Have you ever been driving along when a song came on the radio that just spoke directly to your heart?  I had one of those moments driving home from work one evening last week.  Jake Owen has a song out titled "Startin' With Me."  Most of the song seems like it was written just for me, but the verse " If only I'd've known, that later on down the road, I'd look back and not like what I see I'd've changed a lot of things startin' with me."  That is a powerful verse that probably speaks to many hearts when they hear it.

     I know I wrote last week that I would be discussing journaling this week and you are probably thinking what does any of this have to do with journaling.  I truly believe it has much to do with it.  I think we all hear songs, read books, watch movies, or just hear conversations that touches our hearts.  The feelings, or thoughts, we get from these experiences are a very important part of our personal development and us writing them down helps us clarify them.

     Through the years I have known several engineers that keep logs on every activity they participate in every day of their lives.  Journaling is a much different process.  Journaling is the practice of keeping a diary or journal of our thoughts and feelings about what is happening in our lives.  Journaling helps us gain clarity about life's situations.  It is the first step in every problem solving method in existence.

     If you're thinking that Journaling is just too much work think about the fact that another great benefit of practicing this art is Stress Management.  I wonder how many reading this have stress in their lives?  I bet the answer would be close to 100%!  There is strong research out there that shows journaling has the following health benefits:

1. Decreases the symptoms of asthma.
2. Reduces negative effects of stress.
3. Boosts the immune system.
4. Improves cognitive functioning.

     Journaling is also an effective tool to use when trying to change a pattern of negative self-talk, but I will save that for another day.  Like the song says "I'd've changed a lot of things startin' with me." I have vowed to write those things down each day so I can start changing them now.  I forget who told me that we can't change others and we can only change ourselves, but that is so true.  I think to be effective leaders, in our spheres of influence, we have to change ourselves and that is one of the basic pillars of Leading From Within.

May God bless you and I hope you have a great rest of your week.

The End in Mind

  I think it was back in the early 90's, in my last years at IBM, that I attended a class about this new book that was written by Stephen R. Covey titled The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php.  One of the things in the book that I have never forgotten is Habit 2 Begin With the End in Mind.  At the beginning of that chapter Mr. Covey tells a story and asks the reader to imagine being at their own funeral.  He asks us to think about what the people who stand up to talk at our funeral would say.  I would recommend that anyone interested in Leadership read this book, but more importantly think about Habit 2.  What are our friends going to say at our funerals?  Will our church family have the same things to say about us as our co-workers?  Will the way we lead be the same no matter what our job titles are?  I hope that when it is my time to go anyone that gets up to speak ( assuming anyone shows up at my funeral) has pretty much the same story to tell about me.  I truly believe that should be the goal of everyone.

     Last week when I wrote about SMART goals I think I might have jumped the gun a little bit.  I really should have mentioned the story above before writing about goal setting.  How much more effective would our goals be if we thought about our legacy when we were creating them?  Remembering this story is really making me think.  It is a very exciting time in my life right now.

     After graduating from Concordia University sixteen years ago I became very interested in leadership.  At first I read every Leadership book I could get my hands on, but life began to get in the way.  The more I became responsible for "STUFF" the less time I set aside to read and grow.  Now I'm back at Concordia University working on my MBA in Organizational Leadership and Management and my thirst for knowledge is back.  I am excited again about the prospect of learning more about Leadership and putting that learning to use. 

     I am currently in the process of forming my goals for the coming year and one of those goals will be to read and journal every day.  Using a journal benefits us in many ways and next week I will begin a discussion on that very important Leadership skill.

     I want to close this week with one request.  As you look at your goals for your life will you think about the end?  I feel confident that after last week's entry your goals will be SMART and hopefully after this week you will develop those goals by remembering to Begin With the End in Mind.

I hope everyone has a great week.

SMART Goals

I can't remember where I first heard the presentation on goal setting, but I do remember the instructor telling us our goals need to be SMART.  I instantly thought to myself "who would create dumb goals", but I quickly found out that SMART was merely an acronym for Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-based.  The first use of the term I could find occurred in the November 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran.[1]

Over the years this word has helped me remeber to focus the goals I set for myself in a way that is smart.  Recently I have also seen where E and R have been added to remind us to always Evaluate and Reevaluate our goals even after we feel they have been accomplished.

You might be saying to yourself right now "I would rather have a set of dumb goals and am tired of trying to be smart all of the time."  Well it just happens the experts have developed a mnemonic just for you.  Doable, Understandable, Manageable, and Beneficial goals have been developed by the personal development folks but they are far from dumb.  Any tool that will help us focus our goals is SMART even if the name is DUMB.

Have a great week!

[1] Doran, George T. "There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives." Management Review, Nov 1981, Volume 70 Issue 11

Tomorrow's Leaders

Through the years I've heard many people say things like, "I can't do anything about this because I'm not in charge" or " if I were in charge we would do this a lot  different."  I think you can make a difference no matter where you serve your organization.  Most organizations know the only way to be successful in today's highly competitive markets is to empower their employees.  The old days of a manager dictating every move the employees make are over.

Several year ago I read a really good book titled, MENTAL DYNAMICS, POWER THINKING for PERSONAL SUCCESS.  The author, K. Thomas Finley, offers several suggestions for developing personal power through leadership.  Here are a few of his pointers for you to think about:

1.  Set realistic personal goals.  Remember that motivation is essential to success.
2.  Recognize your own strengths and weaknesses.  Build on your strengths.  Try to correct your    weaknesses.
3.  Know how to be a good follower as well a a good leader.

There are 7 more pointers in Mr. Finley's book for you to review, but what I think is important to take away from all of it is we must have goals.  Goals motivate us to reach a certain level and without them we have no frame of reference.  Over the next few weeks I am going to be discussing goals and their importance to us as leaders.

Time to Begin

For some time I have been subscribing to several blogs and have gotten quite a bit out of it.  I am starting this blog to share information with others who have found themselves at the bottom of the organization and hoping to become better leaders.

I welcome any comments that will be of help to anyone reading this blog.