A series on leadership — insight one

Recently I thought I had reached a level of wisdom that I could offer thoughts on a number of things in a blog; one of which was Leadership. In my brief overview on the topic, I said this:

Leadership is defined when times are difficult: with vision, decision making, and ownership. This applies to character for that matter.

It struck me that maybe it was impossible to define leadership in a single sentence, and even if I did accurately hit on the three key elements, it’s obviously a very deep subject which warrants more than a sentence. With this in mind, and the need to explore a very important topic further, I thought I’d share some insights from those leaders I have known over the years. I suspect most will fall into what I’ve pointed out as decision making, with vision and ownership being figurative bookends. As I make my way, hopefully I will find something I didn’t pay enough attention to — a reminder that reflection is a powerful tool.

insight one

One leader I know has a simple hiring criteria — hire smart people. The thinking is simple; if you surround yourself with smart people, you will build smart teams, and the result is smart things being done. It should be pointed out that “smart people” doesn’t necessarily mean overly educated but rather curious, critical thinkers with the desire to make things happen. He also takes on the responsibility to ensure that the development of people is either up or out of the organization — the growth of an employee is imperative and sometimes means self-selecting out of the organization.

Another leader (and he was old school), once took exception to how another leader was treating some of his people. When the opportunity to catch ride together presented itself he, in no uncertain terms, made it clear that his employees needed to be respected and any issues were to be brought to him. I was not there but I knew the leader personally and can just imagine the choice words that found their way into the conversation.

Hiring good people definitely falls under decision making and is crucial to successfully executing on any vision. Although an employee owns his or her destiny, the leader owns ensuring the employee develops up in the organization or is respectfully exited. Ownership of an employee’s success lies at the very top of the leadership structure and cascades down for continuity; it can take time to build out a team of great employees so when you have it, protect it with everything you have.

The decision to hire and retain good people may be the only real measure of good leadership.

iamgpe

Happy Birthday to me...

Upfront I’d like to say that if you insist on getting me a gift I am truly grateful but you should make a donation to your local food bank instead.

For those who struggle with my age, it’s somewhere between thirty-seven and eighty-four — if you want something more exact it’s probably easier to just pick a number and move on (it’s only just a number). I will admit it’s always nice to receive birthday wishes but I really like this day because it offers a natural moment to reflect. Now that I’ve turned somewhere between thirty-seven and eighty-four, it would make sense to reflect on a life lived (so far). Maybe it’s because I believe I’m at an age that I’ve achieved some semblance of wisdom and wanted to share, or maybe, just maybe, this is a poorly veiled attempt to get some birthday wishes and a donation or two.

Reflections so far:

• There are few greater emotions than a parent’s love for a child — I love you very much sweetie.

• Look after your health. Just assume you aren’t as healthy as you think and step up your game. Health is all about the long game — healthy today is also healthy tomorrow; not so healthy today, is definitely unhealthy tomorrow.

• Protect, cherish and work at your relationships. They are only as good as the effort you put into them — it’s best to surround yourself with diverse, smart, caring and interesting people, and get to know them.

• Leadership is defined when times are difficult: with vision, decision making, and ownership. This applies to character for that matter.

• Be curious and never stop learning — new and different is always better than old and the same. Listen to people, particularly when you don’t agree with what they say. The moment you stop listening and learning is the first step to becoming irrelevant. And irrelevant is a very lonely place to be.

• Nothing is accomplished unless you do something — and the moment you do something is when you will be judged. Experience has shown that many times those who judge don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about (so keep that in mind). Choose your influencers well, because ironically, you need constructive feedback to progress and grow.

And one final thought — Memento mori. One of my trusted influencers reminded me of this the other day when he said, “Don’t waste what little time you have left on things like that.”

It was very good advice. Happy Birthday to me

iamgpe

PS: Yup, I’m a Capricorn

"The Hardest Worker in the Room"

For those not familiar with a “Word Cloud” it’s the result of a metadata exercise which visualizes text data and is used by marketing for value proposition exercises, messaging exercises, and customer persona exercises (all involving a bunch of important people in a room and sticky notes) — marketing people love Word Clouds because they’re very colourful and kick off a slide deck very nicely. I only bring this up because, as the saying goes, I needed to “set the table”.

At my gym the walls are covered with sizeable words I assume are meant to motivate. They were most likely the result of some sort of word cloud exercise and I can almost see the bowl of candy in the middle of the table used to keep everyone’s energy up.

Excellence. Power. Motivate. Inspire. Performance. Intensity. Powerful. Achievement. Innovate. Elevate. Challenging. Motivation. Competitor. Perfection. Excel.

Coincidently, as I was counting words and scribbling them into my workout journal, I saw a club member walking around with a T-Shirt that bolding stated, “The Hardest Worker in the Room”.

There is a lot to “unpack” here with five or six bunny holes available, so to save us all some time I decided to focus my efforts on this.

Words are important and they drive action; the right words drive the right action and words without action offer little.*

In fairness, I have no idea what the objective of the word cloud exercise was but most of the words on the wall reflect the results that come with the actual training, so I assume they are meant to motivate. As motivators I suppose they work but none of them help me get to my goal; there is much work to be done between the idea of getting into good shape and having cocktails on the beach looking buffed. Words drive action so it is important to have the right words.

Discipline, perseverance, knowledge, resolve, and ownership better frame what is needed to be successful in the gym. And this brings me to my friend in the T-Shirt.

He didn’t look like he spent much time in the gym — he wandered around looking at his phone and I don’t think I saw him do anything (n fairness though, I was spend much of my time working out and scribbling words in my journal). He may have been having a good time being “ironic” but I can only react to what is presented to me, which in this case, was a juxtaposition to what was on his T-Shirt. And in the context of the gym, this represented a complete lack of any credibility or serious competency. A reminder that words and action represent who you are; aligning words and action are crucial.

Sure this is just a fun example of a moment in a local gym but it really isn’t hard to transfer to something more important.

iamgpe

*I suppose I could have just said, “Talk is cheap so get to work” but then I wouldn’t have had any opportunity to talk about Word Clouds or being ironic.