The black and white dogs in each of us

"Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected a moment and replied, the one I feed the most." It's not really clear who first spoke this quote, but I think each of us struggle with feeding the right dog every day. As leaders our goal should be to always feed the white dog within us. This week I would like to discuss self esteem and how it affects our lives.

 

Bob Proctor wrote "You are the only problem you will ever have and you are the only solution." I know this is especially true in my life. When I look back on many of the problems I have faced I can clearly see that I, and the low self esteem I possessed, were the major causes. If you were to analyze the winning people you have known I am certain you would find that they have a healthy self esteem. On the other hand if you were to look at all of the low achievers you have been around you would notice that they are plagued with low self esteem. Luckily for all of us self esteem can be improved because it is in our hands. It is an inside out process that we can develop through daily self-improvement exercises.

 

Here are some of the ways we can improve our self-esteem:

 

• Dump early events in our lives, or careers, that cause us to have doubts in our abilities
  
• Think about productive things
  
• Promote respect for variation
  
• Form relationships that nourish
  
• Accept yourself from the inside out
  
• Seek out mentors
  
• Forgive people who have wronged you
  
• Be grateful for the good things in your life
  
• Get rid of self-degrading remarks
  
• Accept all compliments with a simple thank you
  
• Enjoy initiating new contacts and acquaintances
  
• Develop a feeling of your own self worth
  

 

How is that for short list? Do you think that any of these things would help you? I know they are all something I could work on. Someone told me a long time ago that "you can't be valuable to others until you value yourself." Good luck this week in everything you do. Please add some comments if you can think of anything else that should be on this list.

 

Have a great week!

 

Who are the real leaders in an organization?

Every organization has people who are by job description leaders, but actually do very little leading.  Their days are filled with meetings, appointments with other leaders, and a lot of other “stuff” that has nothing to do with leading.  Does this sound familiar with any place you have ever worked?  I had an assignment a few years back where I was a General Manager of a contract manufacturing facility with locations in Texas and California.  The CEO of this company decided that I would spend every other week at each location.  Even though I was being paid to be the leader of both organizations I was only at each location 26 weeks of the year and was not actually leading either for much of the time.

Even though I was absent from both of the organizations half of the time they still flourished.  They experienced remarkable growth and it was not because my leadership skills were so great.  The reality is that every organization has silent leaders.  That is to say there are leaders in every organization getting things done behind the scenes.  I know you have seen these people in your organizations, and you might even be the silent leader for your group.

In 2003 Ken Johnson wrote The Role of Leadership in Organizational Integrity and Five Models of Ethical Leadership for the Ethics and Policy Integration Centre.  In this article he discussed five different modes of ethical leadership and two of those modes, Inspiration and Facilitation, are essential to developing silent leaders in your organization.  Ken describes Inspiration as “setting the example so that other committed members will contribute their fullest capabilities to achieve organizational purposes.”  He describes Facilitation as “supporting other committed members, and guiding them where necessary, so they are able to contribute their capabilities as fully as possible.”

Are you doing everything you can as a leader to inspire and facilitate the people you lead?  I would like to hear of some of the things you are doing in this area, and if you feel you could use a little help doing this better I hope you take some time in the next few weeks to see where you can improve.  I know I have a lot of work to do in my journey to be a better leader.

Have a great week!