Many confuse what great leadership means.
We take a leaf from James whose experiences are testimonies to the need for great leadership style.
Like other skills, Leadership is learnable. But unlike most other skills, leadership steers the ship through actions.
A good captain saves his crew first before himself.
Being a leader doesn’t mean you are the guy who runs things.
Being a leader doesn’t mean you created something or you did something great in the past or some other person has given you any kind of authority.
Being a leader happens RIGHT NOW, today, and can be done without money, without authority, and without anybody. First, you have to lead yourself.
It is a mindset.
It is a mindset.
A). MORE SUCCESS FOR OTHERS THAN FOR YOU
Most important by far: you care about the success of others more than you care about your own success. Everyone around you needs to ultimately become better than you.
That’s how you lead. The light is in front of you and you take them to the light and then go back.
If all the people around you achieve more than you, then life will be good.
It doesn’t matter if they are employees, investors, friends, spouses. If you just focus on this one principle in all of your actions then you are a leader. Today: figure out how the people around you can have a successful day.
B) YES, AND
I’m about to tell you to say “yes”.
I’m about to tell you to say “yes”.
If an employee had an idea, and you had a suggestion to change it. don't say, “Don’t do that. Do this.” but say “Yes, and…” a technique used in improving it.
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM WORKS LIKE THIS
a. “Yes, and”
b. List what’s good
c. How you would improve
d. Figure out the vision that is the base of the idea that you are talking about.
e. Connect the “Why” of what you are suggesting to the initial vision. Does it work better than the initial idea?
f. Be open to the fact that you might be wrong. ALWAYS ALWAYS you might be wrong.
b. List what’s good
c. How you would improve
d. Figure out the vision that is the base of the idea that you are talking about.
e. Connect the “Why” of what you are suggesting to the initial vision. Does it work better than the initial idea?
f. Be open to the fact that you might be wrong. ALWAYS ALWAYS you might be wrong.
C) GRATITUDE
I always imagine a good leader is surrounded by people who call their mothers at the end of the day and tell them, “Mom, you can’t believe what I did today. Let me tell you about it.”
Not that every day is fun. Because some work isn’t. But make sure every day your employees can call and they have at least one new thing they can be grateful for.
Maybe they learned a new skill. Maybe they met a new client and created value for that client. Maybe a client they hated was fired because you can’t let your employees get the disease that bad clients are all too happy to spread.
D) THERE’S ALWAYS A GOOD REASON AND A REAL REASON
People come to you every day with problems. The problems are usually very good problems. “The client is asking for too much”. Or “Jill didn’t do her job right” or “My car broke down”.
A leader listens to the good reason and comes up with a solution. But then listens even more closely to try and figure out what the real reason is. There is ALWAYS a real reason. Listen for that and see if you can help.
A good solution solves one problem. A real solution solves 100 problems.
E) CHANGE
Everyone has pain they don’t want to feel. For instance, I might feel pain if someone makes fun of my looks. I used to feel pain if someone questioned my net worth, which I equated with self worth. If I’m CEO I might have pain if the “numbers” go down.
So we do things to hide the pain. We might wear nice clothes not because we like the clothes but because they are buffers for the pain: nobody will make fun of my looks.
Imagine all the things we do as buffers for pain. We might avoid going to the store because we don’t want to run into the people who cause us pain. We might hide some numbers because we don’t want investors to think we are bad CEOs.
Soon, everything in our lives we might think give us pleasure (because we are now avoiding all the pain) are actually just buffers against pain and change.
When you can get rid of the buffers against pain and change life becomes more insecure, but we become FREE.
We live in a bigger world, a world where risk and beauty go hand in hand and we are no longer afraid of the underlying pains.
A leader is always prepared for change. And realizes that pain is just opportunities to live in a bigger and more abundant world.
This is the secret that most people forget when they build their brick houses and hide inside from the outside world so pain doesn’t seek them out.
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Credits: jamesaltucher.com
