Monthly Archives: December 2019

Posted on

Leadership Lesson: Doing the Right Thing Makes the Biggest Difference

Leadership Lesson:  Doing the right thing always makes the biggest difference. 

Don’t walk by wrong when you know what’s right. Don’t accept wrong, when you already know right. You don’t know right, you do right. You act right. You get it right. 

“It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

You don’t do right to get an advantage. You do right because right is the advantage. Some people will try to do right because they think it puts them in a more favorable position, but they are not truly concerned about the correctness of the act.

Right always strengthens your position, even if you don’t see it at the time. When you do wrong and allow wrong, you are actually weakening your position. Wrong doesn’t change things for the better.

Doing right is always an investment in your longevity. When you do wrong you are sapping your strength and shortening the influence and impact you can have over time. Doing the right thing makes the thing last longer, produce more and sustain better.

The ability to make a difference is negated or neutralized when you don’t do the right thing. Doing the wrong thing or even maintaining a neutrality and indifference to what is right shortens your impact-span or life-span. Your impact-span is your ability to make a positive impact over time.

“To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” (Proverbs 21:3)

Popularity does not make right.  Success does not make right. Power does not make right. Beware of a popular decision that sound good, but before God isn’t right. Beware of your success. Success will often blind you over time to what is right. Beware of unchecked power. Power unrestrained is not an admonition of what is right. Power is simply a force to do what is right. God is the ultimate judge of what is right. It is more important to be right in God’s eyes than right in the world’s eyes.

Right with God brings unseen blessing and favor at a time when you need it most.  Do the right thing and trust God with the fruit, the outcome or the results.

God honors those who do right.

 

(C) Alex Vann

 

 

Posted on

Leadership Lesson: Anticipation

Leadership Lesson: Where there is little anticipation there is little excellence.

“The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.”  (Proverbs 22:3)

Anticipation is the process by which you project what may come and then move to meet that projection. Anticipation is observable probability. There is big difference in waiting expectantly than waiting indifferently. Leaders who simply show up asking for mediocrity.

Anticipation signals preparation. Leaders who don’t prepare won’t anticipate—they can’t. Preparation puts you in the best position to anticipate future outcomes or situations, thus more readily increasing productivity and moving to head off issues as they arise. Issues that are unchecked become problems. A problem unsolved becomes a crisis. A crisis is a sign that excellence is lacking. Most crises can be avoided or quickly solved if they are anticipated.

Excellence is a relentless pursuit of the impossible. You become what you pursue. There is no successful pursuit without anticipation.

There is no anticipation without observation. Your aperture must open wider and wider to be more and more effective at anticipation. The best athletes, the best leaders are the best at anticipating because they move quicker, move better and move earlier to avoid trouble or seize an opportunity.

Leaders who fail to anticipate get punished. And when a leader gets punished, the organization gets shaken. This is called being blindsided. In football, we used to call it getting “ear-holed.” Wearing a helmet significantly limits your vision. If an opposing player hits you in the blindside, you typically get your feet separated from the earth and go flying. Getting hit in the earhole is getting blindsided. To avoid getting blindsided, leaders must keep their head on a swivel, their eyes open and their hands free.

A distracted leader is a leader who will get blindsided. A leader who is hyper-focused on a single element or a strategy, but loses sight of the bigger picture, will get blindsided. It’s pride that most often puts leaders in a position to be blindsided. Pride actually decreases awareness because it increases assurance. Unchecked assurance is arrogance. Arrogance in a leader will spread through an organization. When the organization is shaken the force of the shaking reveals the cracks or blind spots  that pride has caused.

Anticipation is where awareness meets action. Anticipation comes because of awareness. You can’t anticipate what you aren’t aware of. A leader must be relentless in his or her awareness. If not their body, then their mind and their questions most roam and travel the width and breadth of the organization to asses readiness and productivity.

“The wise man avoids evil by anticipating it”
Publilius Syrus

 

 

 

 

(C) Alex Vann