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Posts Tagged ‘Doing the Right Thing’

Intentional Leadership — D5, W2, M6 — Perseverance

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We have come to the end of week two…Friday’s sure do seem to come quicker these days, especially when one is really busy.

I’ve been in Guatemala City all week, working with John Maxwell, EQUIP, and my fellow John Maxwell Team-mates preparing for and teaching Transformational Leadership to groups of leaders from the seven streams of influence: Government, education, business, media, arts & entertainment, the faith community, and family. We have been teaching the principles shared in John’s 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth (this is really powerful material; if you are at all inclined toward growing yourself, and you haven’t read this, I highly recommend it. In fact, I take that one step further and recommend you join a Mastermind Group on this topic and work through the book with a small group of other growth-oriented individuals so you can learn together and from each other), as well as 15 values inherent in transformational leaders.

It’s been an amazing, invigorating, exciting, educational, and fun week. I’ve stretched and grown. I’ve helped others stretch and grow. I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone in many ways. I’ve met some amazing new people. I’ve gotten to know so many of my JMT Team-mates so much better. I’ve discovered new opportunities I hadn’t even imagined. We donated a variety of materials and supplies to some orphanages; I brought art and school supplies, primarily.

Tomorrow, we will have our last teaching sessions, and after lunch we will be the guests at a huge party celebrating our investment in this effort of transforming the culture of Guatemala. What an amazing opportunity this has been!

So, you can see, my weekend will not be a typical time of rest and restoration! Saturday will be quite full and I will be traveling on Sunday.

What will you do with your weekend?

What relationships do you need to build, nurture, grow…repair?

What activities would you like to spend time and energy doing?

What do you need to do to be prepared for the start of a new week on Monday?

What do you need to be thinking about and planning for, for the next few weeks?

Have an intentional, enjoyable weekend!

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Intentional Leadership — D4, W2, M6 — Perseverance

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

As we near the end of week two, month six, look at the team of people working around you. What do you think are the most difficult aspects of their jobs?

As you consider this question, write down the top two or three biggest challenges you think they face.

Now, consider what simple actions could you take to help your co-workers persevere through the challenges of their daily work?

Plan it out and take action. You’ll make a huge difference in their day and you may be surprised by how good you feel…and how much easier it might now be for you to work through some of your own challenges.

The test of character is not ‘hanging in’ when you expect light at the end of the tunnel, but performance of duty and persistence of example when you know no light is coming.   ~Admiral James Stockdale

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The Birthday Fight — a story of perseverance!

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Folks: As you know, this month I am writing about perseverance, and while updating my Facebook page today, I came across this story from my friend and accountant, Rebecca Dimit. It struck me immediately as a tale of perseverance in many aspects. I asked her for permission to share it with you, and she graciously agreed. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

“For the past few months, my three year old son, JJ, has been planning (on his own) a suprise birthday fight for my dad’s birthday. So we decided to make the party a suprise also. In April, JJ loaded up a bag of toy weapons and took them to my parents for the fight. He has been very persistant about it. He decided it would be boys against girls. He even planned out who would have what weapon.  He was so excited when the day had finally arrived!  Apparently, JJ had inherited some of Dad’s vision and ability to plan details and patiently wait for things to fall into place.

My sister from NC was here with her 3 babies (3 and under) and my brother and I and our families and several of dad’s closest friends and family where in attendance at the birthday party that evening. We grilled out on the grill Dad LOVED and ate dinner outside (something Dad enjoyed so much).  After the meal, JJ ran inside to get the small arsenal of weapons he had collected and began distributing them. Even my baby neice, Claire, (almost 2) had a small plastic dagger to hold while on my hip. My mom played Scotland the Brave on the bagpipes. I lead the girls team from around the house running and shouting “Charge.” Mom continued to play while we “fought” with toy guns, swords, bow and arrows, baseball bats, etc to the beautiful ancient war music.  It was the most fun and fabulous birthday fight I have ever seen. After the battle, we had a moment of silence, then mom played Amazing Grace for the wounded.  Dad thought it was hilarious. 🙂  We got some video and great pictures of Dad with the family.

Later that night, we got all the kids to go to sleep and my sibilings and I sat around the kitchen table talking and laughing.  Mom finally wore out and went upstairs to bed at midnight.  She passed Dad in the hallway, they kissed.  He patted her on the butt (as he often did).  Then he sat down at the computer and Mom went to bed.  A few minutes later he had the stroke.  The last thing he heard was the laughter of his children and the sweet silence of knowing that we were all there in the house safe, happy, and loved.

He died quickly and practically painlessly.  My Dad had amazing vision and planned out every detail of everything.  He couldn’t have arranged a more perfect time for death. God arranged every detail perfectly.  Dad never gave up a fight.  He taught me to fight with determination and faith.  He was one of my closest friends and valued advisors, when I wanted to complete my college degree in less than the traditional length of time, he showed me how to obtain special permission to take more credit hours than the college allowed (after being denied by a few school officials) by encouraging to me keep fighting it until I got what I wanted.  He never stopped encouraging me to take the CPA exam and in the 13 years of that journey, he was the only one who told me not to give up on my dream.  He knew I could do it and I never would have if it weren’t for my Dad.

I respect my Dad and am so proud of him and his life.  He was anxiously anticipating his retirement. He had accomplished almost everything he set out to do for his life and was finally ready to rest.  In my soul, I  know that Dad is enjoying the best retirement ever now.  He didn’t get to buy the sports car he always wanted, instead he can soar through the clouds.  He didn’t get to travel the world with mom, instead he got to see the moon and stars.  He didn’t get to build his dream house, instead he is living in a mansion far more perfect and wonderful than he could have ever imagined.  He didn’t get the state position he often mentioned he wanted, instead he is now in kahoots with the very top dog.  I know Dad is in Heaven anticipating the arrival of each of us.  If he could talk to us, he would encourage us to keep fighting and never give up.  II Timothy 4:7-8 says, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:  Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day…”  Wednesday, June 8’th, Dad finished his fight.  Even in his death he will be helping other people.  What more could a person ask for in death?

My six year old daughter, Lacey was sad at first, but yesterday she woke up and said with a big smile that she wasn’t sad anymore. She was so excited that Poppie was up in Heaven walking around with Jesus. 🙂  My neice Kylee had a similar reaction. Throughout their childhood, both the girls and JJ have been told often about how wonderful Heaven is with beautiful dresses, crowns, and castles. I wanted to nurture the beautiful image of Heaven and make it something they could anticipate in such an event as this.

I appreciate each of Dad’s friends and family so much and the love and support you have offered us during this time of grief. Thank you for your prayers, thoughts, and sympathy. We will need them over the years. We are a very close family so the pain is deep, but also, we have each other to lean on during this time and above all we have the comfort of knowing that Dad is finally getting the rest he has worked so hard for all his life.”

Thank you, Rebecca, for sharing your story with all of us!

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Intentional Leadership — Month 6 — Perseverance

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The reality of leadership is that it requires hard work and regular investments of energy and sweat!

As a leader, there will be times when you encounter resistance. There will be times when you question whether the time, energy, and effort are worth it. There will be times when you feel like giving up. What you choose to do in your darkest moments will define you as a leader. When adversity comes to call, will you fade into the background or will you persist in fighting to move forward?

The truth is, nobody advances in leadership by coasting to the top. Leaders are distinguished by struggling upward through the daily grind.

Consider the story of Nelson Mandela. He was convicted of treason and sentenced to a life of hard labor in prison for his anti-apartheid convictions. For 18 years, he lived in a cramped cell and toiled in a rock quarry. Each year, he was allowed 30 minutes with a visitor and could receive and send only two letters. These were his only opportunities to communicate with the outside world.

It’s reasonable for you to assume that since I’m telling you his story as a lesson in perseverance, you already know what choices he made with respect to fading away — allowing some pretty depressing circumstances to alter the course of his life — or choosing to persist.

His perseverance and strength of character over those 18 years he was incarcerated earned him the respect of everyone, including his prison guards! Rather than drifting into obscurity while in prison, Mandela boosted his image while in prison. When he was released, he emerged with a higher profile than ever and leveraged his influence to bring about liberty and a democratic South Africa.

No small feats, indeed!

As we move into month six on our Intentional Leadership journey, take a few minutes to consider your responses to the following questions:

What unfavorable conditions are making your leadership difficult?

What steps can you take to remove or neutralize the sources of resistance on the job?

How might you grow stronger by enduring these hard times?

What rewards might you receive if you persevere through the toughest aspects of your job?

We will be digging deeper into these thoughts in the coming weeks. I’m looking forward to working through them with you.

In the meantime, have an intentional day!

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Intentional Leadership — D3, W2, M5 — Passion

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Passion is powerful; we all know that. And it can be a force for good or a force for … well, not so good! The same passion that can make you the best in your field can also result in an insufferable ego! Often times, when we are really passionate about something, we can be easily offended when someone disagrees with us or offers a different perspective on the topic.

I can say, humbly — I hope, this has happened to me. I strive to be more self-aware, however, and understand that it’s ok for others to have another perspective and that they don’t necessarily share my passion.

Today, think of someone who may have offended you as they touched upon your passion. Starting today, take a step to repair that relationship. One of the most profound ways to keep passion grounded on principle is through humility.

Pick one of these options to start the healing / forgiveness process today:

1. Contact the person and begin reconnecting. Before you take this step, however, it’s important that you forgive them and approach the connection with an open heart.

2. Write the person a note and mail it today! Acknowledge your part in whatever happened and ask them for their forgiveness; tell them you value the relationship and want to repair it. As you drop the note into the outgoing mail box, tell yourself that you forgive them for their part. Truly let go of the conflict as you release the letter.

3. Speak with the person today. Let them know you need to ask their forgiveness for being upset with them. Let them know you may not have understood the full situation, allowed yourself to become upset and held it against them. End the conversation with this simple question: “Will you forgive me?”

Which one will you choose?

I can say from experience, there’s something very liberating in this process. It may not always end with the relationship repaired and things between you back the way they were…but you will feel better for owning your part, for making the move to begin the healing process, and for having some closure of the situation.

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Intentional Leadership — D4, W4, M3 — Excellence

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , on April 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

Thursday, again, already?! Wow!

Time for some reflection…

We’ve been focusing on excellence all month, and perhaps you’ve already come to this place, but I’m curious. What is your motivation for pursuing excellence?

How will a life of excellence impact others?

What motivation will sustain you to pursue excellence day-in and day-out?

I’ve given this some thought, as while I realize this will sound trite, for me, if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. If I’m going to exchange my time and life energy — both of which I can never get back — I want whatever I spent it on to have meaning and value, and not just for me, but for the others around me, as well.

As I have said on several occasions, I am here to change the world through encounters with people each and every day. I can’t do that without doing what I’m doing at a high level of performance. Well, I suppose I could, but my quest is to change the world in a positive way, and that takes focus, attention, intention, energy, and effort.

I remember being told, by at least three different people, at three different jobs (yes, this is absolutely true!), that I could “relax now…and not work so hard.” I asked each of those people to describe to me what that would look like or be like, because I wasn’t sure what they were attempting to guide me to do. You see, I was working at what I consider “normal Laura level,” not in comparison to anyone else. I wasn’t sure what “relaxing” would mean. None of them were able to describe it for me. I still don’t know.

I want to make a difference. I want to set a positive example. I strive to leave things better than when I found them. And, when I leave a place, I want the people I encountered to say I did my share; I did quality work; and the place was better for my having been there.

What about you? What are your thoughts on this topic?

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Intentional Leadership — D3, W4, M3 — Excellence

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , on April 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Stewardship: the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.

Each of us — as individuals, teams, and organizations — has been given something for which we are responsible. Historically, stewardship was responsibility bestowed upon someone to take care of another’s property or wealth — perhaps the King, a Lord, or a landowner. Essentially, the steward would manage those assets with the intent of leaving it in as good of condition as we found it, if not better. Today, we often think of this with respect to the environment, resources, wealth…Sometimes, however, we are more focused on acquiring and consuming than we are on caring for the things we already have.

The irony, however, is that we often gain more when we take care of what we have.I think back to 2008. I was moving my family from one area of Washington State to another, as I had taken a new job. We didn’t find a house we wanted to buy, so we decided to rent for a while. A co-worker told me about some new houses that had been built, but not sold (it was a tough real estate market), and suggested the builder might be willing to rent. I called and inquired; he said he would consider it, and we agreed to meet at the home to walk through it and discuss the idea.

It wasn’t long after we walked into the house that he said he would rent to me. He explained that he had taken a good look at my car before coming into the house and because it was clean and well cared for, he believed I would take care of his home; had my car been a mess, we may have been looking for a decent place to live for a while longer! Apparently, I was considered a good steward!

Your team/organization has also been given resources to manage. The question is, how have they performed?

Today, task them with a self-assessment to determine if they –as individuals — and you as a team/organization are providing excellence in the small things. Then, challenge yourself and them to go the second mile, and provide an even higher level of excellence.

Lead by example, and provide your self-assessment. As you do this, here are some things to consider:

What assets are you managing?

How are you managing them?

Are you squandering them, or are you in a good position for when the owner returns and wants an account of what you have done with what you’ve been given?

What changes can you make, to move your performance up a level?

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Intentional Leadership — D2, W3, M3 — Excellence

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Today, let’s consider organizations you believe have exceeded your expectations with products or services. What did they do to impress you?

With that in mind, let’s now spend some time on a self-evaluation. Does your performance consistently go beyond what others expect of you?

On a piece of paper, make two columns. Title the left column: Top Five Responsibilities. Title the right column: Rating

Now, list your top five responsibilities in the left column — and you can do this for all the various roles you play…Leader, direct report, peer, mentor, coach, partner, or even roles you play in your personal life. Then, in the right column, rate your performance in each responsibility as Average, Above-Average, or Excellent.

Once you’ve done this exercise, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about why you rated yourself as you did in each area.

What one thing could you do right away to improve any of those rankings?

What can you do to exceed the expectations of your employees?

What can you do to exceed the expectations of your manager/leader?

Remember…your effort, in your leadership role, sets the standard for excellence in your team/organization. I encourage you to be intentional about what it will be.

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Work-Life Balance is a fallacy!

Posted in Food for Thought, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2013| Leave a Comment »

If you work full time, you are likely all too aware that there is no such thing as “work-life balance.” It’s a fallacy, a lie, an illusion, a figment of someone’s overactive imagination, a blatant untruth! Balance implies some equality on each side of the scale, some level of fairness of the elements being measured.

Think about it. We all have 24 hours a day. We sleep 7-8 hours. We are at work, typically, between 8-10 hours each day. What about your commute time? Maybe 30 minutes round trip, possibly even an hour? So far, that’s about 15.5 hours on the short end and up to 19 hours on the long end of the range.

What about time to eat, exercise, run errands, read, reflect, play… Time for extra-curricular activities — either your children’s or your own — volunteering, sitting on a Board for another organization, taking classes…

Don’t forget about time for your family! Yep, that’s the important one, isn’t it? We all say family is our highest priority and yet they are often the people who get our leftovers in terms of time and energy.

We’d like to think we could have it all, but we know it’s not possible. Even the influential and powerful discover this — if they are lucky! Read this story about Erin Callan, former CFO of Lehman Brothers, as she discusses the sacrifices she made in terms of her marriage and family in exchange for the prestige, power, and money afforded by her position. Was it really worth it?

What if you were introduced to an entirely different concept: Mastery of the art of living. Try this on for size:

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both. — LP Jacks

What if you could master the art of living? It’s possible, you know? It’s not effortless, but wouldn’t it be worth it?

The key is (is this familiar?) having a high level of self-awareness — understanding your values, priorities, and dreams — and intentionality — deliberately making decisions and taking steps that lead you to the place you long to be, honoring your values daily.

My recommendation…find a mentor or a coach who has been along this path before you and enlist their support in your quest.

Let me know how I can help…before it’s too late.

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Intentional Leadership — M2 Relationships — Review

Posted in Leadership, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We’ve just spent the last four weeks focusing on relationships and the critical role they play in our success as leaders. As the poet John Donne said, “No man is an island entire of itself; every an is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Each and every one of us is a piece of a bigger whole. While we might like to think we can do it all ourselves, we cannot. And it leads to a very isolated and lonely existence. I speak from experience here, as I think I’ve shared in previous blogs. I used to believe I could be “Superwoman” and do it all myself…but it’s exhausting, disheartening, and discouraging. The results were never as good as they would have been had I involved others. And I often found myself feeling resentful of others for not stepping up and doing their part; why would they, when I made it clear I didn’t need or want them!

We do not live in isolation, but in relationship to others. Real connections with others offer joy and give our lives meaning. They push us to be better than we would be alone, to reach greater heights than we could ever climb alone. Rich and lasting relationships require time, commitment, and self-sacrifice, but their benefits more than compensate for the investment.

If you take some time to think about leaders you respect, you’ll realize they have built rich “relational” bank accounts; they have developed strong relationships with a variety of people and get energy and sustenance from them. When you truly invest in others and nurture your relationships over time, they are sometimes the only stable, consistent thing you can count on in uncertain times.

In fact, when times get tough, experience, hard work, and talent alone will not save you. If you need any kind of external support — a job, money, advice, hope, mentoring, help, or even a client…your extended circle of friends and associates will be the place to turn to meet those needs. However, if you have not invested in relationships, you may find yourself standing alone.

My questions to you are these:

What did you learn about yourself with respect to relationships over the course of this past month?

What are you doing differently as a result?

How are your relationships changing as a result of your taking different actions and demonstrating different behaviors?

How different are your results, with this new perspective?

What will you do to intentionally invest in the lives of others?

On Monday, we will move into Month 3 of this Intentional Leadership Journey, focusing on Excellence. Again, I am sharing this with you as I walk through this same journey, based on the Intentional Leadership booklet I received through the Chick-fil-A Leadercast (created by Giant Impact) that I attended in May 2012.

Let me know how this journey is changing your thinking and your performance.

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