Here is a fun leadership concept of creating a movement. If you have never seen this before, please watch. If you have seen this, watch it again and see if you can pick up anything new from this fun concept. ENJOY
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I know that I have been planning on talking about the 10 Characteristics of Leadership from Jesus, which is still in the plan. I am taking a little detour to talk about 10 Leadership Reminders.
Here they are: 1) Make prayer your 1st response, not your last resort!! 2) Strive to serve 1st no matter the position. 3) Organizational change is hard, policy change is harder, personnel change is the hardest. 4) Mistakes happen, they are a great way to see how adversity is responded to. 5) The posture of how you lead is more important than the job title that follows your name. 6) Leaders carry a lot of weight in the words you say! 7) Balance is the essence to organizational & personal success 8) Be a mentor have a mentor (secure one & serve one) 9) Talent is no good without your team!! 10) Take the blame share the credit! From my last post, I stated that in the coming weeks I am going to talk about the 10 Characteristics of Leadership from Jesus. These characteristics are not in any specific order, nor are these the only ones. These are the characteristics that I picked. The first one is Vision. The Definition of Vision is- 1) Unusual competence in discernment or perception; intelligent foresight: a leader of vision. 2) The manner in which one sees or conceives of something. 3) A mental image produced by the imagination. 4) The mystical experience of seeing as if with the eyes the supernatural or a supernatural being. 5) A person or thing of extraordinary beauty. (From www.thefreedictionary.com) Vision is something that is in front of us not behind. A practical way of looking at this is comes from a car. As I get into my car, I look through the windshield for what is in front of me, compared to the rear view mirror which looks behind me. When I think about that, I notice that wind shield is far bigger than the rear view mirror. So my vision for what is in front of me should be greater than what is behind me. This is critical to notice, reason is that if all I do is focus on what is behind me while I am driving. I am destined to crash. Much like vision within an team/organization. If all we look at is what we accomplished in the past, our future is intended to crash. Which can be painful. Instead, we should focus on what's in front and occasionally look behind to take reference to what's behind us. As you look at the life and leadership of Jesus, all of his leadership strategies were preparing his disciples/followers for the future of what is to come. He would referenced the past, but wouldn't live in it. He led by casting vision for what was to come. As great example of this is when he was in the garden of Gethsemane with his crew. As he was walking with Peter, James & John and told them in Mark 14:34 (NIV), "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." Although this particular example was in the last few days of his life, he was giving vision for what was to come to prepare them. As a Leader, it is important to see what is down the line. As you lead a group of people, it is imperative that you do like Jesus did and prepare them for the future of where you are going. Leader create other great leaders. This happens through transparency of vision. One of the greatest ways to get fresh vision is through prayer. I believe that we should remember our past, we live in our present and we pray for our future. Our vision is what is in front of us, which is our future. God has vision for all of us. When we are in alignment through prayer with his vision, we ultimately understand our vision with more clarity. Which we then can communicate more effectively to those we lead. Vision is a substantial characteristic of the way that Jesus lead. It so should be with us as well. We as leaders need to strive to have vision to make things greater that what they have been. I challenge you to prayer for fresh vision for your life and leadership. Everyday I try to teach a basic principle to those that I serve at the Rescue Mission. It is very simple, but can alter your future. It is the thought that you never know who you are going to come in contact with and how that relationship is important.
Many times throughout my life this has happened to me. I have had interaction with people that have contributed to my personal growth. For example, my last two jobs that I have had, have come from friendships that have been created since the time I was young. I was always taught from my Dad and Mom, you never know how your present relationships can contribute to your future. These relationship are something to be valued, whether it be as a friend, mentor or potential co worker. How you treat people says volumes about your character. As you go through your day, place more value on the relationship you are creating rather than your present circumstances. As a young boy, I loved to get Dove Ice Cream bars with my Dad and Brother in the summer. I would often open the box and proceed to give all the individual packages away. Once I did this, I would take mine and hand it to my Dad and say, "Dad would you open this"? He would open it and I would scarf it down.
This action as a boy I would often do. Anything with a wrapper, I would always ask for help until I was of age to do so myself. Looking back on this I have uncovered a unique thought. It is why don't I ask for help now as much as I did back then? Was it because I was not capable and now I am or is it I became prideful? I think that it is a combination of it all. As children we rely on everyone for help, but as we grow up society tells us to rely on only yourself. Unfortunately, that should not be the case. We are all in need of help. We need each other to mold us and shape us into the great people God has created in leadership and in life. Since grasping this idea, I have forced myself to the point of being uncomfortable to ask for HELP!!! This might be perceived as a weakness in many leadership areas. However, I believe that it is a great strength. The reason is that great leaders understand that they can't rely only on themselves. They need their team and mentors to contribute to success. When you do things alone you set yourself up to fail. Since none of us want to fail, we need to ask for help more often. When we do this we create a culture in our team/organization that asking for HELP is OK. I encourage you to always ask for HELP when you are unclear on a task or it is outside your comfort zone. You will soon discover that 2 people are better than 1, and success is a lot more fun when you get to celebrate with others. One of my favorite sports is golf. At this particular time, The Master's tournament is going on. As I watch this amazing game and see all of the patrons that witness it. I discover how it is important for golfers to have tremendous focus. Any noise or movement can be distracting resulting in an errant shot. It is incredible to see the focus these professional golfers have on each shot they take.
As I have thought about focus, I have realized what an important tool it is to experience success. There are tasks that we all have daily that take more focus than others, but overall they contribute to success. In watching The Master's, I have uncovered a thought which is, "What if I took into account the amount of focus on all my tasks like a golfer takes into each shot. Would I become more productive?" Since discovering this thought I have tried to put this into practice. Rather than spending longer blocks of time trying to focus. I have worked in 60-90 minute intervals spending those time in great focus and then taking a short break to refresh/refocus. Upon doing this I have felt more accomplished daily with different items that I must do. It has helped me at personally at home, since my productivity has improved at work. As I continue to tinker with my personal ability to get better as a leader. I have begin to uncover that focus has become a amazing asset when used right. It is a powerful tool that we all have the ability to control. The key is making sure that we understand how to use it in a productive matter. I encourage you to evaluate the importance of your focus in your daily life. Inspect your productivity to see how changing your focus will improve your development professionally and personally. In doing this, you should see greater results as a whole. When you often think of leadership, you probably do not think of the characteristic of LOVE. However, I believe that LOVE is a huge component to experiencing success.
The greatest example of LOVE in leadership is through Jesus. He showed to his disciples that you must LOVE in order to lead. As I think of the life of Jesus, one of the greatest actions of LOVE in leadership is in the garden before he was crucified. At that stressful point in time, a disciple named Peter tried to take matters into his own hands. As Jesus was being arrested, Peter snatched a sword from a guard that was arresting Jesus and cut his ear off. In an act of Love, Jesus healed that soldiers ear. To show to his team of disciples and others around, that LOVE is a powerful component to leadership no matter the circumstances. As Jesus led through LOVE, so should we. Jesus had times where he had to correct his disciples, but did it in a loving way to better the person, not to belittle them. It happens so often that leaders, belittle rather than build up. That is not leadership whatsoever. Leadership is training in LOVE those on your team to take your place. In closing, I encourage you as a leader to take this principle of LOVE in leadership and put it into practice. A great way to self evaluate this idea is to ask yourself if you are leading others like you would want to be led? If not, work the practice of LOVE into your leadership style and watch how leading becomes easier! Many times people say that Leaders are readers. I do agree with that 100%!! Through that I also believe leaders are learners.
As we grow in our personal leadership skills, we should also grow in the knowledge we have about our team/organization. I am not just talking about the process, I am talking about the people. To be effective in leadership you must learn about the people you serve. This idea goes for your clients as well as your team members. Many leaders spend all the time on the process of how things work. Rather than the people that do the work!!! As leadership you need to consistently invest in the person doing the process to maximize efficiency. It is amazing when you decide to invest in the person, because your return on investment is amazing. Commitment, Attitude, and Flexibility are some of the quality traits gained through the investing your time into them. Learning as a leader is a process that should always be evolving. In leadership the moment you stop learning, is when complacency starts to creep in. Which is detrimental to you!! As a leader I encourage you to continue to strive to learn, so that you will never put a capacity on your growth. Leadership has many different principles to it. Everyone has different interpretations of how to do. I think it is amazing to listen to what works in different teams/organizations to reach success. As I continue to mold my leadership style, I have thought of the idea of SERVE, learn and love. For the next few blogs, I will touch on different aspects that has helped me.
The first portion is SERVE. When you are in a leadership position, it is critical to SERVE your team/organization. This could be in many different ways from picking up trash to helping a team member find new ways of reaching success. They key however is making sure that you are not afraid to sometimes do the jobs that not everyone wants to do. One of the greatest examples of this is when I was a youth pastor. It was early on a Sunday morning and as I walked into our building. I saw the senior pastor cleaning up the entrance in his suit making sure that it looked great for the people as they came to church. As he was doing this, I learned a great example of leadership which was serving. Some serve to get praise and others do it because they understand that this is an important factor in success. What this powerful action taught me as a young leader was that if it was important enough for the main leader in our organization to do the things that no one else did. It was important for me to do also. He was not doing this for praise, he was serving, because it was a responsibility for excellence. As you work to develop in leadership with your team/organization, look for ways you can SERVE. Not for notoriety, but because you believe in excellence. As you do this, the bar will slowly raise to achieving great success within your team/organization. I often ask the question to people I encounter, "What is your dream vacation or your dream job?" It is awesome to hear all the answers I get. They are all so diverse, because the people I ask have such different perspectives.
My reasoning for asking these questions is to see what people value and want to do. You can learn a lot about a person, by finding what their dreams are. Some are lofty, others are practical, but what is important is that it is THEIR dream. Since working at the Rescue Mission I have seen the power of a person's dream. Their dream motivates them to do better than they have done in the past. It is awesome to see it take shape. It encourages me to be on the ground level or the starting point to achieving their dreams. They hold onto it with everything they have, which is admirable. As leaders we must dream, not just for our team/organization, but also for ourselves. This concept will contribute to greatness personally as well as professionally. As you think of your dreams, make sure you write them down and use prayer to ask the Almighty to help you achieve them. As you do this, your dream will start to take place. It will continue to develop inside of you. Once it develops on the inside, it will begin to take shape on the outside. Then it becomes amazing to see what all that you accomplish in the process. I encourage you to dream BIG!!! As you dream for great things personally and professionally, you will have greatness come out of you. It is inevitable, as long as you commit to making it happen!!! DREAM ON!!! |
Coach Corrigan
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