4 Things You Need to Know about Change

1. There is no “new normal.” Things don’t stay the same long enough to normalize. And once you start thinkingthings are normal, you quit paying attention and get blindsided by the next change, big or small.

2. Singular solutions don’t exist. You can’t focus just on customer service and build a world-class company. Operations, finance, sales and marketing are just a few of the other truly critical areas that require ongoing attention.

3. Mastery of change requires both ability and speed. Given enough time, almost anybody can change. The key is to change faster than your competition or the demands of the marketplace.

4. Nobody will do it for you. There are no magic bullets. Sure, lots of people will help, advise, counsel and encourage. You might even hire a terrific coach or consultant to help you in needed areas. But ultimately you do the work.

Read more; http://www.marksanborn.com/blog/4-things-you-need-to-know-about-change/?utm_content=buffer6e3d3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Do You Have What It Takes To Be President?

How would you like to be the president of your company/organization? It is easier than you think!

Most of us in business desire success, almost as much as we need air.

From the moment we are born, we are looking to Do More, Get More and Be More.

The good news is that you are already president of YOU INCORPORATED - which means you are totally responsible for YOU and your SUCCESS.

You are in charge of and master of virtually all you do. In short, you are a lot more than meets the eye.

So, what are you already in charge of, Mr./Madam President?

You are responsible for sales - your income.

You are responsible for the books you read.

You are responsible for your moods and attitudes.

You are responsible for the time you get up.

You are responsible for your willingness to work hard.

You are responsible for your discipline.

You are responsible for who you hang around with.

You are responsible for your enthusiasm.

You are responsible for product knowledge.

You are responsible for your fitness.

You are responsible for your ethics. (Never lie, cheat or steal - ever!)

You are responsible for how you dress.

You are responsible for your language.

You are responsible for the questions you ask.

I'm sure you get the picture...

As president of You Incorporated, you are fully responsible for all you do - EVERYTHING! PERIOD!

The motto of Amazon.com: "Work hard, play hard, change the world."

Woody Allen once said, "Ninety percent of success is showing up."

So, for tomorrow, show up as president of you and conduct yourself that way. It won't be easy.

Try it for 120 days. Smile a lot, transform your life, be positive, be interesting, return phone calls, set big goals, dream big dreams, hang with other presidents and learn.

Philosopher William James once said, "Belief creates verification in fact."

"Your belief in yourself and your company and your place in the world may be the main determination of your success." – Tom Butler-Bowdon

So, go get 'em, Mr./Madam President.

Your future awaits.

Read more; http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dd06a025cdd9b3464c1c2e433&id=b875b61bef

25 Leadership Quotes And Lessons From McFarland, USA

McFarland, USA is absolutely incredible and a movie everyone should see.  This movie chronicles the story of coach Jim White’s, played by Kevin Costner, relocation of his family to the Mexican-American farming community of McFarland, CA where he became the town’s high school cross country coach.

If you are looking for a family-friendly, inspirational movie about perseverance, family and the power of community, look no farther than McFarland, USA.  You will not be disappointed.

The following are 25 Leadership Quotes And Lessons From the absolutely wonderful McFarland, USA:

1. The Only Difference Between Anger And Danger Is A “D” – Leaders often lose influence when they lose control of their emotions.  Coach White’s only option for employment was a school in one of the poorest cities in America after his anger resulted in a teenager getting injured.
2. Leaders Want Options – After Coach White’s family arrived in their new McFarland home, he said despondently, “We’ve got to make it work.  We don’t have another choice.”
3. The Power Of Persistence – One of the runners said to Coach White, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight.  It’s the size of the fight in the dog.”  To which Coach White responded, “Depends on the size of the dog.”
4. Leaders Build The Self-Esteem Of Those They Serve – After being removed from an assistant football coach job after just one game, one of the runners told Coach White, “They’re treating you like a picker.”
5. There Is A Fine Line Between Success And Failure – There was a striking parallel in that a federal prison (failure) was right next to the high school (opportunity).
6. Churches Should Prioritize Ministry To The Next Generation – One of the schools teachers told Coach White, “These kids, this is the best years of their life.  If we’re going to reach them, now is the time.”
7. Out Of Great Calamity Comes Great Opportunity – Coach White made an interesting observation.  What better place could you find a cross country team than with kids who eat the right foods, pick in extreme heat and running is their primary mode of transportation?
8. Great Leaders Recruit Influencers First – After identifying which students would make the best members of the cross country team, Coach White recruited one of the Diaz brothers because he would bring his two other brothers with him.
9. Great Leaders Give People A Picture Of A Brighter Tomorrow – Coach White gave the team a picture of how running could benefit them and their families.
10. The Chain Is Only As Strong As Its Weakest Link – The Diaz brother enlisted to recruit his brothers was the slowest runner on their team.  However, by the movie’s end, his contributions were critical to the team’s success.
11. Losing Is Never Easy For Great Leaders – Coach White told the team after losing their initial race, “What is hard is watching someone pass you on a hill…What is hard is losing.”
12. Great Leaders Trust Their Preparation – They lost their first race because of how they ran the hills.  But after training differently, Coach White confidently acknowledged, “When we see a hill we’re going to smile.”
13. Going To A Higher Level Requires A Different Set Of Skills – To help the team cope better with racing through the mountains, Coach White demanded they “change gears going up a hill.”
14. Leaders Get Better With Focus – Sometimes a lack of options is good for leaders.  It eliminates distractions.  Coach White told Thomas Valles, “Running is all you got.”
15. Great Leaders Connect With Those They Are Called To Serve – Coach White took a day to pick cabbage with three of the Diaz brothers and their families.  This brought him credibility with the Diaz family.
16. Great Leaders Provide Solutions – After working a day in the fields, the exhausted Coach White worked out a schedule which allowed the Diaz family to continue making income while also racing.
17. Even Great Leaders Make Mistakes – Coach White forgot his daughter’s birthday.
18. Great Leaders Do Not Focus On Negatives – To relieve some of the team’s pressure, Coach White said, “Quit staring at the mountain.  It’s not going anywhere.”
19. Great Leaders Give Their People An Identity – One of the runners wrote, “When we run we own the earth…We’re not immigrants anymore.”
20. Great Leaders Have High Pain Tolerance – When comparing his team to others, Coach White reminded them of what they face everyday and said, “It comes down to which runner can handle the pain.”
21. Great Leaders Give Their People New Experiences – After making the state finals, Coach White took his team to experience something they never had before – the beach.
22. Great Leaders Are Protected By Their Teams – When Coach White’s daughter was involved in a random act of violence, the entire cross country team provided protection by jumping in front of her.
23. Great Leaders Prioritize Relationships – When considering leaving McFarland after the incident, Coach White’s wife Cheryl weighed the value of the friendships they had made.  She said, “Jim, the owner of the store has a name and he’s our friend.”
24. Leaders Make Their Teams Feel They Can Accomplish Anything – Before the final race, Coach White said to the team, “You run like you’re superhuman.  There’s nothing you can’t do with that kind of strength.”
25. Leaders Validate Their Teams – He concluded by saying, “You’ve got the biggest hearts I’ve ever seen.”

READ MORE; http://ht.ly/JsXgA

Managing to Lead

Last week I proposed just enough leadership, for the sake of enhancing communityship. This week I propose an end to the belief that leadership is separate from management, and superior to it. This is damaging management all right, but leadership more so.

The fashionable depiction sees managers as doing things right while leaders does the right thing.1 It sounds good, until you try to tell the difference when observing the work of someone who is successful. Here’s an example from my book Simply Managing2:

John Cleghorn, as CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, developed a reputation in his company for calling the office on his way to the airport to report a broken ATM machine, and such things. This bank had thousands of such machines. Was John micromanaging? Maybe he was setting an example that others should follow: keep your eyes open for such problems.

Have you ever been managed by someone who didn’t lead? That must have been awfully discouraging. Well, how about being lead by someone who didn’t manage? That could have been much worse. How is such a “leader” to know what’s going on? As Jim March of the Stanford Business School put it: “Leadership involves plumbing as well as poetry.”3

So let’s get beneath the cloud of leadership theory, to the ground of management practice. Maybe then more so-called leaders will do the right thing, namely cease leading by remote control, disconnected from everything except the “big picture.” In fact, how are they to create even that? Big pictures have to be painted with the brushstrokes of grounded experience.

It has also become fashionable to complain that we are being over-managed and under-led. The opposite is now a greater problem: we have too much heroic leadership and not enough engaging management. We need to recognize that some of the best leadership is management practiced well, also that anyone with ideas and initiative can exercise leadership. Thus, to conclude, here is a comparison of engaging management with heroic leadership. Take your choice.

Two Ways to Manage

Heroic Leadership		Engaging Management
1.	Leaders are important people, quite apart from others who develop products and deliver services.	1.	Managers are important to the extent that they help other people to be important.
2.	The higher “up” these leaders go, the more important they become. At the “top” the CEO is the organization.	2.	An organization is an interacting network, not a vertical hierarchy. Effective managers work throughout; the don’t sit “on top”.
3.	Down the hierarchy comes the strategy—clear, deliberate, and bold—emanating from the chief who takes the dramatic acts. Everyone else “implements.”	3.	Out of the network emerge strategies, as engaged people solve little problems that can grow into big initiatives.
4.	To lead is to make decisions and allocate resources—including those human resources. Leadership thus means calculating, based on facts, from reports.	4.	To manage is to help bring out the energy that exists naturally within people. Managing thus means engaging, based on judgment, rooted in context.
5.	Leadership is thrust upon those who thrust their will on others.	5.	Leadership is a sacred trust earned from the respect of others.

---

If you remain unconvinced, and are determined to be a heroic leader, please read the following box. (It is written for business, but those in government and NGOs will get the idea.)

RULES FOR BEING A HEROIC LEADER

• Change everything all the time. In particular, reorganize constantly, to keep everyone on their toes (rather than firmly planted on their feet). Do not change this behavior no matter what the consequences.
• Beware of insiders: anyone who knows the place is suspect. Bring in a whole new “top team.” And rely on consultants—they may not know the business, but they do appreciate heroic leaders.
• Focus on the present: Do that dramatic deal now! The past is dead, the future distant (and beyond bonuses). It’s best to ignore the existing business and especially its culture--anything established takes time to change. Instead merge like mad, with the devils you don’t know. This is sure to catch the attention of stock market analysts and day traders. (Ignore the risks: your golden parachute will save you.)
• Emphasize the numbers. That way you don’t have to manage performance so much as deem it. Likewise, arrange to be paid several hundred times as much as your mere employees, to announce how much more important you are. That’s leadership! Then, get that stock price up, cash in, and run. Heroes are in great demand.
  Read more; http://www.mintzberg.org/blog/to-lead

Six Questions To Improve The Power Of Your Message

Recently my son decided that he wanted to change a class in his junior high schedule. My wife and son went to pay a visit to the school counselor.

During the meeting, the counselor asked him why he wanted to change to a different science teacher.

He said, “Well most of the time I have a difficult time focusing which makes the teacher really hard to understand.”

To this the counselor replied, “What you really mean is your teacher is boring and you can’t stay awake. Is that right?”

He responded, “Well I didn’t say exactly that.” Unfortunately for him, she did not allow him to change teachers.

When my wife told me this story, I thought that perhaps we were doing something right, and I was impressed that he had enough presence of mind to think about how to frame a message in a way that was more respectful and that might lead to a positive outcome.

Consider the power of words in your message. Dr. Albert Mehrabian taught that when talking about your feelings or attitudes that only 7% of your message comes from the words that you use. He also proposed that your tone accounted for 38% and body language or nonverbal behavior accounted for the remaining 55% of meaning in your message.

However, it would be a broad generalization to assume that all messages would be attributable to the same percentages. Once someone asked me, “How do you know when your message was absolutely and perfectly clear?”

To which I responded, “When I am angry.”

My confidence in my response is based on the perfect alignment of my words, feelings, and actions. Unfortunately, we know that speaking to people in a state of high or hot emotion does not a rational conversation create, nor can we trust the accuracy of what the other person is hearing or what they will say. What we don’t often take into account when we are delivering our message is the context within which that message is being delivered.

Words when combined are powerful tools for inspiring, uplifting, enlightening, informing, motivating, and describing any number of situations. One of the most powerful functions of words is the picture or context that they create for the listener.

For example, if someone told you that a person was self-centered before you even met him, when you finally did meet, you would see everything that he or she did as evidence that they were self-centered. And unless you were consciously assessing your own interpretations or judgments of their behavior, you may never change your opinion of that particular character trait.

In fact a famous psychologist once told me that once President Clinton told the public that he “did not have sex with that woman,” that no matter what evidence was offered later, many people still refused to believe anything that ran contrary to what they initially thought.

If you want the message that you deliver to have a positive impact, consider the following questions you might ask yourself that will help you consider the context of the message and the person to whom you are speaking:

What is the topic to be discussed? Obviously the delivery of your message will be different based on the topic. Is this a search for understanding? Do you need to provide constructive or negative feedback? Are you simply looking for more information on an issue? Is this a very sensitive subject with legal ramifications that need to be discussed? You need to be clear about the topic and determine the best way to approach the message you want to deliver.

What is the purpose of the conversation? Specifically identifying your purpose allows you to determine what you would like the person to do. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, then you are almost assured of not achieving what you want. You have to know what you would like the end result to be if you expect to communicate clearly.

What is the current status of your relationship? You might even ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how much trust currently exists in your relationship with them. In situations where you have a strong or positive relationship, where the person really knows that you care about them both as a person and a professional, you can deliver a strong message, and they are less likely to take what you have to say personally. However, you must realize that many people take everything personally as a matter of their style. However, the strength of the relationship should be considered as you chose to deliver your message.

What judgments do you hold or assumptions are you making? Before holding any difficult conversation, it is important for you to surface and assess the judgments or assumptions that you hold about the person. For example, if you think that they are a “jerk,” the chances are great that you will treat them in such a way that your behavior will elicit their jerkiness. In essence we often influence people to show up in a certain way by the way that we treat them. You must identify any negative thinking and suspend it if your conversation is going to be successful.

What are the data in the current situation? Your thinking is based on the data, observation, or evidence that you have experienced. Once you have surfaced your thinking, you need to look for the evidence that substantiates your thinking. For example, if you repeatedly hear yourself accuse a person of being lazy, but you cannot identify any data that would logically lead you to that conclusion, then you need to seriously reflect on the conversation that you need to hold. After all, the data becomes the justification for what the person needs to change. If you can’t point to a specific behavior that you want them to improve, then they will not know what to change.

What is your plan for improving the situation? It is always best if the person comes up with their own plan for improving or changing the current situation. You would do this by asking them what they did, what they might do differently going forward, or where they are stuck in the process of trying to identify a viable solution. If they struggle to identify a plan, you want to be prepared by taking a moment prior to the conversation to identify a possible plan of attack. That way you can offer suggestions to help them create a plan that will work for them and you.

The questions above should help you to consider the words that you will use as you craft your message or prepare for the difficult conversation that you need to hold.

Obviously, not all conversations are difficult, but if the potential is there for the conversation to go awry, you need to slow down, reflect on the questions above, and identify the best way to deliver the message you really want to give.

Taking a moment to do so will improve the message that you deliver and the results you want to achieve.

Read more; http://leadchangegroup.com/six-questions-to-improve-the-power-of-your-message/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

100 Leadership Quotes I’m Memorizing by End of 2015

While some collect coins, spoons, stamps, I am an avid collector of quotes and books. Since I was 15, I have collected thousands of quotes. Two years ago, this avocation inspired me to create a quote book which I’m offering FREE to all my readers. As a student of leadership, I hope you will use these quotes as a resource for future blog posts, speeches, and books.

1. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. — Peter. F Drucker

2. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. — John Quincy Adams

3. Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what do do and let them surprise you with their results. — George S. Patton

4. Leadership: The art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

5. Great leadership is about human experiences. It’s not a formula or a program. It is a human activity that comes from the heart and considers the hearts of others. It is an attitude, not a routine — Lance Secretan

6. Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall. — Stephen R. Covey

7. Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy. — Norman Schwarzkopf

9. If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

10. Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

11. A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way. — John C. Maxwell

12. A highly credible leader under-promises and over-delivers. — John C. Maxwell

13. Followers are the gem cutters of leadership coaxing out its full brilliance. — Ira Chaleff

14. A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. — Rosalynn Carter

15. Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. — T.S. Eliot

16. The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. — William Arthur Ward

17. Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. — Albert Schweitzer

18. In a battle between two ideas, the best one doesn’t necessarily win. No, the idea that wins is the one with the most fearless heretic behind it. — Seth Godin

19. Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. — Harry Truman

20. If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything. — Tom Rath

21. Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate, and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand. — Colin Powell

22. The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; the last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. — Max De Pree

23. If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulder of giants. — Isaac Newton

24. My own definition of leadership is this: the capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence. — General Montgomery

25. The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already. — John Buchan

26. Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them. — Stephen Covey

27. A leader is a dealer in hope. — Napoleon Bonaparte

28. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

29. I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. — Ralph Nader

30. People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision. — John C. Maxwell

31. In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock — Thomas Jefferson

32. Leaders think and talk about the solutions. Followers think and talk about the problems. — Brian Tracy

33. All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership. — John Kenneth Galbraith

34. The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it. — Theodore Roosevelt

35. Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline. ― James C. Collins

36. The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things. ― Ronald Reagan

37. Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. ― Warren Bennis

38. The price of greatness is responsibility. ― Winston Churchill

39. I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. ― Albert Einstein

40. Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. ― Harold R. McAlindon

41. I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: Try to please everybody. ― Herbert Swope

42. You can do what I cannot do. I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things. ― Mother Teresa

43. People don’t buy what you do ; they buy why you do it – Simon Sinek

44. Great vision without great people is irrelevant. ― James. C. Collins

45. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. ― Theodore Roosevelt

46. A leader’s most powerful ally is his or her own example. ― John Wooden

47. Change is inevitable. Growth is optional. ― John C. Maxwell

48. Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard. ― Warren Bennis

49. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you, shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. ― Jesus of Nazareth

50. The spiritual leader should outpace the rest of the church, above all, in prayer. ― Oswald Sanders

51. Desiring to excel is not a sin. It is motivation that determines ambition’s character. Our Lord never taught against the urge to high achievement, but He did expose and condemn unworthy motivation. ― Oswald Sander

52. You can impress from a distance, but you can only impact up close. ― Howard Hendricks

53. He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader. ― Aristotle

54. My great concern for you in life is not that you will fail, but that you will succeed in doing the wrong things. ― Howard Hendricks

55. Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. ― Eleanor Roosevelt

56. It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him. ― John Steinbeck

57. Always do right. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. ― Mark Twain

58. We can do no great things – only small things with great love. ― Mother Teresa

59. Where there is no vision, the people perish. ― Proverbs 29:18

60. We must be the change we wish to see in the world. ― Mahatma Gandhi

61. Being in ministry requires a deep and intensive love for people. ― Dr. Aubrey Malphurs

61. Leaders aren’t born, they are made. ― Vince Lombardi

62. A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd. Max Lucado

63. Whatever you are, be a good one. ― Abraham Lincoln

64. If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing. ― Benjamin Franklin

65. Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. ― John F. Kennedy

66. You manage things; you lead people. ― Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

67. Don’t quack like a duck; soar like an eagle. ― Ken Blanchard

68. Feedback is the breakfast of champions. ― Ken Blanchard

69. A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see and who sees before others see. – Leroy Eimes

70. To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence … When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘We did it ourselves!'” – Lao Tsu

71. A big part of leadership is recognizing that your fruit often grows on other peoples trees. – Todd Adkins

72. Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will. -A.W. Tozer

73. My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.  – Lincoln

74. Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. – Proverbs 4:23

75. Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. – President Abraham Lincoln

76. He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander. — Aristotle

77. No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it. —Andrew Carnegie

78. The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership. — Harvey Firestone

79. It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. — Nelson Mandela

80. Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. — Steve Jobs

81. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. — Steve Jobs

82. People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives. — Theodore Roosevelt

83. Lead, follow, or get out of the way. — Thomas Paine

84. The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been. — Henry A. Kissinger

85. Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing. — Tom Peters

86. Leadership consists of picking good men and helping them do their best. — Chester W. Nimitz

87. Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. – Eleanor Roosevelt88. The more seriously you take your growth, the more seriously people will take you. – John C. Maxwell89. Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential. – John C. Maxwell

90. As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot. – Ray Kroc

91. I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. – Bruce Lee

92. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. – Proverbs 16:3

93. Success is final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston Churchill

94. I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through – then follow through. – EV Rickenbacker

95. The best way to lead people into the future is to connect with them deeply in the present. – James Kouzes and Barry Posne

96. If you are not willing to risk the unusual you will have to settle for the ordinary. – John Rohn

97. Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, “what’s in it for me.?” – Brian Tracy

98. If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of itself. – D.L Moody

99. It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching. – St. Francis

100. You teach what you know; you reproduce what you are. – Leif Hetland

Read more; http://ht.ly/JksFp

Are You Adding Value Or Subtracting Value

Somewhere someone has been inspired by you.

Somewhere someone has been empowered by you.

Somewhere someone has done an act of kindness because of you.

Somewhere someone has taken on a challenge because of you.

Adding value doesn’t occur by accident, nor is it something that happens on its own, like the tides. The best leaders add value intentionally by knowing what is important and making choices based on that knowledge.

But true leaders know that the question, whether they are adding value, is not the only question, they are also asking themselves if they are subtracting value too.

Are you adding value to yourself or subtracting value from the person who matters the most?

Are you acquiring new skills? Are you spending your time on improving your competencies? Are you working on your leadership and adding value to your life, or are you squandering your time with the same old- same old?

Are you adding value to your team or subtracting value from those you care about the most?

Are you delegating to others to show that you trust them? Are you eliminating the barriers that make others feel useful and important? Are you allowing your team to step into their roles and step out with their talent? Or are you controlling and micromanaging? Do you need to pull back from doing and spend more time advising?

Are you adding value to your family or subtracting value from those you love the most?

Do you hold family paramount? Do you remember to cultivate a relationship with your family, to give something to and for them on a daily basis? Sometimes we get busy and we forget to make the time. Are you checked in or checked out? Make family a priority, and make decisions that benefit those you love. The concept of making a difference for your family holds families together in tough times as well as good.

Are you adding value to the things you hold dear or subtracting value from what you regard the most?

There is a cause or an issue out there with your name on it—something important to you, someplace where you can serve and make a difference in a way that is unique to you. Have you sought it out and cultivated involvement? Are you devoting energy every day into making a difference or are you waiting for the right time, right place, right people to appear in your life?

Many times we are subtracting value without even realizing it, but true leadership is always being mindful and always asking am I adding or subtracting?

To be the most successful as a leader, find the time to ground yourself daily in the things that are most important to you: Your own leadership, your team, your family, your passions.

Lead From Within: Stop and think. Are you adding value or subtracting value? Think hard where you want to concentrate your efforts, and where you most want to make the most difference because that is where you leadership and life begins.

- See more at: http://www.lollydaskal.com/leadership/adding-value-subtracting-value/#sthash.lNk90SAL.dpuf

Finding the Mango Tree Inside of the Seed: Lessons on Leadership, Part 1

I have been delving into some of Dr. Munroe’s work after learning about his recent death in the Bahamas. Along with his wife and 7 other people, he tragically died in a plane crash on November 9, 2014. Dr. Munroe was a globally recognized Evangelical Christian and motivational speaker who not only inspired many of my personal mentors, but also founded and led Bahamas Faith Ministries International (BFMI) and Myles Munroe International (MMI).

In a leadership series called Leading Edge Leadership, Dr. Myles Munroe taught that “true leaders do not ever search for followers.” I will admit that this initially confounded me because, fairly often, we rank our leaders by the number of people that follow them. Take a look at Oprah Winfrey – over 26 million followers on Twitter. Or how about Will Smith – over 75 million fans on Facebook. And Richard Branson – over 7 million followers on LinkedIn. There are all great leaders, right?

Whether measured by Twitter fans or Facebook followers or LinkedIn subscribers, social media leads us to believe that the most influential leaders are those that have the greatest number of followers. While coincidentally, this is in fact often true, the flawed presumption is that these leaders’ immense followership is what makes them so great.

But you’re thinking, doesn’t a leader need followers?

How else do you expand your reach? And in a world greatly influenced by social media, it makes sense why an emerging leader would be interested in leveraging these platforms to spread their message. So it seems, if you are just getting started as a leader seeking to influence the public, you should be focused on building a fan base of people who care about what you have to say and will help spread your message.

Indeed, business leaders like Seth Godin urge us to “find our tribe,” while countless other thought leaders encourage us to “find our why.” While these are important steps in growing as a leader, the problem arises when emerging leaders believe that they must first identify their followers before they can begin spreading their message. This might explain why so many blogs are abandoned after writers are unable to build a sizable subscriber base, or why so many musicians or artists give up after failing to amass dedicated fans. It might also explain why so many people appear to be more focused on marketing than content creation.

Maybe people are too busy searching for followers.CLICK TO TWEET

Dr. Myles Munroe believed that a mindset focused on finding followers is detrimental to leadership development. Discussed below are six principles of leadership, the elements of which help to explain why so many people unfortunately die as followers.

1. We were all born to be leaders

Dr. Myles Munroe rested his leadership philosophy on the simple, yet incredibly profound premise that every human being is born to be a leader.

He believed that there is a hidden leader trapped inside of every individual who labels themselves a follower. In other words, the essence of human existence can be captured by a single word – leadership.

This begins to make sense when we dissect how Dr. Munroe defined leadership. He explained throughout his writings and during his lectures that we are all born to become leaders, but not over other people. Instead, we are all born to become a leader in an area of gifting. Thus, true leadership begins with the discovery of one’s unique area of gifting, or in other words, one’s unique purpose in life. Every individual was born to leverage their unique talents and gifts for a distinct purpose that will ultimately benefit others.

Dr. Munroe wisely used the metaphor of a mango tree to explain this principle. He said,

“A mango seed is a mango tree.”

This might seem confusing at first. After all, a seed is a seed and a tree is a tree. But what he was trying to convey to his students was the idea that every mango seed was created to become a mango tree. Even more, he wanted them to understand that there is a mango tree trapped inside of every mango seed. Although we cannot see it initially, every mango seed has the capacity to grow into the shape it was ultimately destined to embody – the mango tree.

However, becoming a mango tree is not the true purpose of the mango seed. In fact, becoming a mango tree is merely the process that a mango seed must endure before it arrives at true leadership.

The fundamental purpose of the mango seed is to bear fruit – the sweet mangos that we all crave on hot summer afternoons. See, the fruit encapsulates the deeper purpose of the mango tree. Those are the gifts that the tree shares with the world. This is the reason for the existence of the mango seed and the reason why we value its unique nature.

The mango seed’s value does not lie in the fact that it becomes a tree.CLICK TO TWEET

Rather, the value of the seed lies in its ability to undergo a difficult process, become a proud tree, and ultimately bear sweet fruit, which is made available to human kind as a gift. Thus, in producing fruit and offering it to the world, the mango tree is both operating in its purpose and demonstrating the essence of true leadership.

Likewise, people are similar to mango trees.

The problem is that many people do not recognize who they are on the inside. That is why, as Dr. Munroe suggested, so many leaders are trapped inside of the shell of a follower. We are all uniquely created and designed to bear “fruit” to the world. These unique gifts and talents that we share with others for their benefit encapsulate the reason for our existence on this Earth, or our deeper purpose. And when we utilize our gifts to benefit those around us, we embody the essence of true leadership.

So, right from the start, leadership has nothing to do with following or followers.

It’s all about going through a process and sharing a gift with others. This is why a true leader is always unique, not a carbon copy of someone else. Much like the mango tree, we are all different and unique, from the way we stand on our feet to the way we talk with our mouths.

When you try to imitate and follow others, you lose your unique value.CLICK TO TWEET

True leaders simply don’t have the time to search for followers, because they are too busy bearing “fruit” to share with others.

So why then do we focus so much on finding followers to prove our leadership?

2. You have been trained to be a follower by a culture of oppression

If Dr. Munroe is correct, and we are indeed all born to be leaders (even those of us who have trapped our leadership inside of the oppressive shell of a follower), then who will become our followers?

The answer?

There are no true followers. Only leaders in disguise.CLICK TO TWEET

This is odd.

But Dr. Munroe explained that this question – Who will follow me? – is a clear indication that we have been influenced by a culture of oppression. A culture that divides individuals into leaders and followers, managers and subordinates, masters and slaves. This very culture leads many to avoid responsibility for changing their environment because they embrace the passive mindset of the blind follower. It allows people to believe that perhaps they were simply not born with the “right stuff” to make a real difference.

Where did this culture come from?

Dr. Monroe suggested that our society has been heavily influenced by Grecian ideology. The Greeks were known for being intellectuals and for exalting reason above faith. And according to Dr. Monroe’s research, the Greeks were a people that believed that leadership was a product of natural endowment. Simply put, if you were born with certain “negative” characteristics, you were destined to be a slave. Even if you attained skills or a noteworthy education, if you were born to be a slave based upon your characteristics, you could never aspire to become anything more than a talented and educated slave.

Conversely, if you were born with certain “positive” characteristics (which Dr. Munroe notes were often physical in nature, such as having a certain skin completion . . . ), then it was believed that the “gods” had selected you to be a leader.

See, the Greeks believed that leadership was a product of providence, displayed by having a “charismatic” personality. Things like having a “colorful” personality, being adept at public speaking and being described as an extrovert were all tell-tale signs of charisma. Interestingly, the word charisma is derived from the Greek word kharis, which means “a divinely conferred power or talent.” In others words, the “gods” chose specific individuals to become leaders, and those not chosen by the gods were destined to remain followers, or frequently, slaves.

Even putting on a suit would not change a Greek’s impression of an individual deemed to be a follower. You would merely be  a well-dressed slave.

Sound familiar?

This “slave” mentality still permeates the fabric of many prevailing leadership ideologies today.

We often believe that some people were simply born to become great leaders, while others were born solely to help or remain on the sidelines. We often look at great orators or talkative youths and say, “Wow. That girl is surely called to leadership.” Our notion of what leadership looks like is skewed by history, because we have been taught to focus on the wrong characteristics.

But what if we have been taught to think about leadership in the wrong way?

What if leadership is not about finding followers, but really about serving others with your gifts?CLICK TO TWEET

Those seeking to learn and grow as leaders must be mindful of the ideologies they embrace. As Jesus said in Luke 6:39 –

“Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?

If we adopt the leadership philosophy of a misguided and outdated culture, and if we believe that we are simply not cut out to be a true leader, we will surely head down the wrong path and our unique talents will follow us to the grave. Our fruit will be left to rot on the tree and no one will ever taste the gifts we have inside.

Yes, there is value in following the example of others. You need mentors and teachers. But choose your personal leaders based upon your destiny, not by how many followers he or she has. We learn by following those who have already arrived at the placed we would like to go, not by following those who can “move the crowd.”

Even more, never forget that you are a leader too. It’s already inside of you. And you don’t need a huge following to prove it. You simply have to go through a process and grow before you finally bear your fruit.

Read more; http://ht.ly/IM5zW