Monthly Archives: May 2018

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Podcast – The Millennial Mentor (Episode 1) – Other than My Title, Why Would Anyone Follow Me?

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You are not a leader unless you have followers. Everyone can exercise personal self-leadership, but not everyone will be a leader that connects and collects with followers. You will not collect followers until you connect with people. Even those with a title or a position, may not have real people follow them in real time.

To be a leader that others follow you must…

1- Demonstrate a care for others that is greater than yourself. Care is three parts: (1) concern, (2) love, and (3) loyalty. A leader who doesn’t show concern is demonstrating a selfishness. People love a selfless leader. A leader must show unconditional love. A heart connection is the deepest connection. Leaders must learn to love their people more than their position. Finally, a leader must demonstrate absolute loyalty to loyal people. A lack of loyalty from a leader to his/her people is an automatic eject button.

2- Hold yourself to high personal standards, but be ready to give grace. Followers need consistency in conduct. Leaders must have impeccable integrity and set themselves up as the example. Followers don’t want to follow leaders who get a position and them reward themselves with perks and allowances. Followers love leaders who hold themselves above personal privilege and perks. This also speaks to holding others accountable. A leader must hold a consistent firm line with everyone, but they must consider each one as an individual. Leaders make allowances for your people, not for your self. Be ready to give grace instead of giving grief. Leaders who start with grace are leaders that others want to follow. There are no perfect leaders and no perfect followers, so a leader should be ready to give lots of grace.

3- Set a positive tone with a positive attitude.  The leader is the the thermostat, not the thermometer. The thermostat sets the temperature, the thermometer reads it. Don’t do negativity. Don’t be naive, but start from a positive place and build on that. People follow positive people. Like attracts like. If you have a team or organization full of negative people, then your leaders are probably negative and the same if you have a team full of positive people. Drive negativity and bad attitudes out of your organization. Negativity is like mold. You can’t find it, but it stinks up the room. Positivity is like sunshine. It warms and welcomes.

4- Be the first to take responsibility. Don’t shift blame, pass blame or start with blame. Be ready to admit as the leader that you are ultimately responsible and it starts and ends with you. People want to follow a leader who will step up and take responsibility, even when it probably really isn’t their fault. People love a leader for that kind of a behavior.

5- Know where you are going and clearly communicate direction. People need a vision. They need to know where they are going. People would rather go the wrong way with a good leader, than to go the right way alone. This is why leadership is so important. It is up to the leader to not only provide the direction or vision, but to make sure the information is communicated clearly and timely. Followers like to be “in the know.” Most people if they are loyal can handle more sensitive information. Leaders must practice more sensitivity than secrecy.

 

 

Questions for teams to consider:

1 – Rate your organization 1-10 on how much you think people feel cared for. How can you demonstrate greater care for those in your organization? What will it take to get that number higher?

2- What is grace? What positive effect can it have on those in your organization? How do you hold high standards, yet give grace to others?

3- Rate your personal leadership on “positivity” and “energy” on a scale from 1-10? positivity:_____ energy: _____ : What will it take from you to get those scores higher? What prevents you?

4- How does blame make a team more ineffective and less productive?

5-What is the vision of your organization today? Compare your answer with others on your team. How clear is the vision and direction? Why is it clear or unclear?

 

 

(c) Alex Vann, 2018

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Leadership Word of the Week: Wait

Ah, this week’s word is a word we don’t like to hear and even more we don’t like to experience. We live in a give-me, give-me-now, what’s-taking-so-long society. And the by-product is that we are becoming cold, demanding and we are developing fewer high caliber leaders.

This week’s leadership word is wait.

To wait means you delay your response or activity until a more suitable or favorable time appears for you to act or react.

Waiting is good for you because it teaches you delayed gratification. We live in an instant gratification world. Instant gratification is the process by which that which pleases you is gained quickly. The problem with instant gratification is that it is short-lived and short-sighted. Not only that, but instant gratification diminishes the value of things that have to worked for. Delayed-gratification means you are willing to work and wait for something valuable. Delayed-gratification actually increases your understanding of value, both to yourself and of the thing or opportunity you are working for.

Waiting teaches you to tell your self “no.” And if we have ever been living in a day and age where we need to learn to say “no” it is now! I watch young parents who don’t feel like telling their screaming kid “no” just hand them their phone, put a video on and even slap a pair of headphones on the kid. What they should do is tell the child “no” and then when the child pitches a fit, enact their parental authority and merit consequences. If we won’t tell ourselves no, then we certainly wont tell others no either. No is a word that restrains us. We need restrain, because without no, we expose ourselves to unnecessary risks and temptations. Just because you want it doesn’t mean you need it. Waiting helps you discern your needs from your wants, helps you determine what is necessary from what is unnecessary.

“Waiting is key to developing others because it allows them to catch up.”

Waiting teaches you to when to say yes. Waiting is not all about no. It is also about when to say yes or when to pull the proverbial trigger. Anyone who has shot a bow and arrow or used a rifle understands that there is an optimum time to say yes and many other times to say no. Waiting teaches you to find the right window. There will be more options that you think there will be in your future, especially if you are talented and have a positive personality. Thus, as you learn to wait, you also learn when to say yes. Waiting for the right time, the right opportunity or the right person is the value of delay. Delay is not a denial. Delay allows the best opportunity to present itself.

Waiting increases your perspective. Perspective is the value of time over distance. And when you don’t learn to wait, you have a flawed, narrow perspective. When you have to wait you have the opportunity to see more and think more. And leaders definitely need to spend time doing both of these activities. Instead of rushing to solve a problem, first seek to understand the problem. Instead of cutting off a person who is talking to you about an issue, wait and listen to what they have to say.

There is a fear attached to waiting. We often think that if we wait, then we will miss out. This is not true. What we miss when we don’t wait is the best opportunity and the best option. There is always a time for decision and action, but it is after you have learned the principle of waiting.

Waiting helps you learn patience which is a key to love. Leaders must love others. And those who are impatient are often the most unloving. Love is patient. If you want to see those around you grow and develop, sometimes you have to wait on them to catch up and be patient for them to get it. Smart people are often the most impatient people. This is why so many all-star professional athletes make terrible coaches; the game was easy for them, and they grow impatient when it isn’t easy for others. Great leaders know how to wait on their people, because they value their people. Things you value, you are willing to wait for.

Waiting is fertile ground for innovation and creativity. Waiting doesn’t imply you stop working. It simply implies you stop forcing, worrying or demanding action that is premature or unnecessary. When you have to wait, when you experience silence, your mind actually has to go to work. And a mind at work is where the creativity and the innovation really happens. As you wait for your next opportunity, you have time to experiment and to test some ideas you wouldn’t normally have. Waiting gives you time to edit what you have been working on. Too many good ideas make poor actions, because there wasn’t enough editing of the idea going on.

Waiting can make you stronger. Development never takes place in an instance. A change in direction can take place in an instance, but changing direction is not development. A new mindset takes a while to set in. Any muscular development needs action, then rest. Waiting is a form of rest. Your mind needs rest. Your body needs rest. Accepting waiting as a form of rest is a mature leadership practice that all the truly transcendent leaders have understood. I love the Bible verse, “for those who wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31). One reason why we have such poor leadership and so many empty leaders is that they haven’t allow themselves to wait. Rushing will never renew your strength. But, waiting certainly will.

Waiting is not a curse, it is often a blessing. So as you think about your personal leadership development, allow waiting to be a significant part of the course. Waiting is good for us.

“I’m sure God keeps no one waiting, unless he sees that it is good for him to wait.”
-C. S. Lewis

 

 

 

*Today’s word is the fifth Leadership Word of the Week in this series:
1-Hustle
2-Presentation
3-Grit
4-Drive
5-Wait

I love hearing from you. Leave a comment and I may be able to reply. Keep leading, it’s need more than ever.

(c) Alex Vann, 2018