Learning Leadership

Deploy Your Strengths

Yesterday I wrote about discovering your strengths.

As I wrote it I realized that once you discover your strengths, you then need to deploy your strengths.

Once you've discovered and found your strengths, then you have to deploy them and put them to work.  Below are some really good questions that will help you in your journey to deploy your strengths once you've discovered them.

• Where are you supposed to apply them?
• Who are you supposed to use them with?
• What are you supposed to do with your strengths?
• How are you supposed to serve with your strengths?
• Who are you supposed to serve with your strengths?
• How do you improve your strengths and make them better?

Now that you know how to discover your strengths, and deploy them. It's on you to make it happen. Take some time alone to think about your strengths. Then ask some people around you what they think your strengths are.

Then work to focus your time and energy to those areas that you're good at.

You'll find yourself to be a much more productive and effective leader!

What are your strengths?

There's been a lot of talk over the past decade about strengths, talents and gifts.

In Christian and faith based circles this is probably even more common. A search on Amazon for "spiritual gifts" yielded 2,195 results!

There's tons of different strengths assessments and different tools to help you discover your strengths. Many of them are very good and can help you discover and become more clear on your strengths and what God's placed you here to do.

However, even after doing all the strengths assessments. I've found the single best assessment of my strengths has been to discover them for myself.

As I prayed about my strengths, it was very difficult to find what my strengths were. It's easy to take a test and have someone else tell you what your strengths are, but it's much more difficult to have to discover it on your own.

After much prayer, thought, effort, and dialogue with others, I've established that I have four strengths:

1. Visioning - Seeing the future of what God wants me to create and do to further his Kingdom
2. Thinking - Generating ideas and concepts that will help that vision to become real
3. Communicating - Communicating that vision and ideas to a group of people either in writing or speaking
4. Creating - Make daily progress on that vision to create new things and new services to help people

Discovering your strengths, talents and gifts as a leader can work wonders on your leadership. Especially if you're able to develop and deploy your gifts, then teach others in your organization to do the same.

What are your strengths?

Decisions Under Pressure

One of the things I've learned over the years as a leader is decision making.

There are many elements to decision making. Here are only a few:

• When to make the decision
• Who to tell about the decision
• How to communicate that decision effectively

Probably the strongest principle I've had to learn the hard way is what circumstances I should make decisions under.

Over the years I've learned to never make a decision when I feel tired and burnt out. When you're tired and burnt out, you're not in a strong and positive state of mind to make decisions.

This has been evident with Brett Farve, quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings and former quarterback of the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers.

Brett's been criticized for going back and forth on his decision to retire from football. The problem is he seemed to always make the decision about retiring publicly soon after a football game. After he's just spent three and a half hours running around being chased by 300 pound linemen and throwing a football probably isn't the best time to make a decision.

As you can imagine, he wouldn't be in a clear state of mind to make a decision. He's tired, worn out, and his mind and body are more concerned about resting and sleeping than making a tough decision.

So,

Before making decisions make sure that you're in a strong and clear state of mind before you make decisions. Make sure you are thinking clearly, that you're strong and resourceful so those decisions can be made correctly.

Learnings from Alaska

This holiday season I spent two entire weeks with my immediate family in Alaska.

It was very enjoyable with lots of time with family, and a little bit of creative working on the side. I chose to place family first on my priorities while there (as it is most of the time in my normal work week), and only worked if I had a little extra time, or if the family was watching a TV show I didn't care for (I'm not much for reality shows).

On my last days there, I realized I had learned a few things during my time. Even though I wasn't doing a ton of reading or a whole lot of writing, I made some new distinctions which I wanted to share with you.

Here are my, Learnings from Alaska:

• We all have a gift to give Jesus for his birthday - This came from a message I heard from Pastor Brian Miller. He gave the message a few weeks before Christmas, and the last question he asked before he ended his message was, What present will you give to Jesus for his birthday? Man, that got me thinking, and I realized that the greatest gift I could give to Jesus was my quiet, undivided attention to him.
• Time away renews our strength - At the end of 2009, I really felt burnt out. I could sense that my body didn't quite feel right, and my mind wasn't as clear and strong as normal. It was tough to deal with cause I normally perform at a pretty high level in my work. I demand a lot out of myself and when I'm not performing at 100 percent, it really shows and I know it. As I took time away, I could feel my strength start to return and become better. I started to feel more centered and more aligned with who I am and what I stand for.
• When with family, be with family - Earlier I shared with you a little bit about how I make family my top priority. As I went to Alaska, I brought all kinds of work I could have done. Lots of books to read, articles to write, events to plan. But most of it didn't get touched while I was there. I committed to be with family both in body and mind. I had traveled 3,000 miles to visit them, and I wanted to make sure I gave them my undivided attention. So I only worked if I was up early before anyone else was awake or if they were watching a TV show I didn't care for.

Leadership is needed in Alaska too

While on my trip to Alaska we often made a walk down to the local coffee house as part of the routine on nice days.

Watching my parents run a small business for 15 years taught me a lot about leadership.

For the sake of this post, watching them run a small business showed me the pros and cons of being the only person who can run the business day to day. As the business owner, if you leave and don't have a trained staff capable of working without you, you're not going to make any money or make progress while you're away.

I was reminded of this when we made our normal walk down to the local coffee shop where my parents live in Alaska. The lady who owns the coffee shop has a reputation of always being open. She's a one-woman workforce who owns and operates a drive-thru coffee service.

My parents often stop at her coffee shop to get mochas from her, not because she always has the best mochas (they are pretty good, but not the best), but they want to support her because she works so hard. Plus she always gives a treat to my parent's dog when they stop by the drive-thru.

When you're a one-person operation, they is only one problem. The problem is that you're a one-person operation. If you ever want to take a day off or go for vacation, you have to close your doors.

The good thing about being a one-person operation is that you don't have anyone to manage or keep track of. It makes the business easy to run and keeps the financials easy to keep track of too. You don't have to worry about managing anyone, don't have to worry about anyone stealing from you, don't have to worry about anyone not doing what they are supposed to do, and you don't have to worry about them flaking on you either.

With a little bit of leadership ability you could turn that one person coffee shop into a place that has one or two other people on staff part-time who help.

The value of leadership is having a staff who can carry the load and continue the good work if you need to take a lunch break, a day off, or go on vacation.

A defining day in leadership

A defining day for a leader is when he starts to see his team carry on the duties of the organzation without him.

2009 marked a defining day in my leadership. I'd like share that day with you in order to help you realize your past and future defining days of your leadership journey.

On September 5th I was in Newport Beach attending a seminar to learn and grow as a leader. While I was hundreds of miles away, I had a great leader keeping A Day of Hope's momentum going forward.

My friend John Calhoun took the A Day of Hope car wash and led it while I was away in Newport Beach. I didn't have to ask him to do it, I didn't have to delegate it to him, I didn't have to convince him to help. He knew I was going to be out of town and he simply decided to do the car wash.

Maybe this doesn't seem significant in your eyes, but for a young leader who leads on a daily basis and is always striving to improve and grow, this was huge because it was a testament that I have someone around me who has two qualities:

• Is a leader capable of leading without me
• Is a leader willing to lead without me

It was truly a defining day in leadership.

How about you. Have you had a defining day in your leadership?

Honoring the Leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Last year I wrote this post honoring the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Recently I read a book outlining more of who he was as a leader entitled, Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times by Donald Phillip.

After reading the book there were a few more distinctions I've made about the amazing leadership qualities of Dr. King.

Here they are:

• Communication - He prepared and worked extremely hard to communicate effectively and passionately. He was known to be very serious when we spoke, but always had a message that was uplifting, inspiring and full of vision for a greater America where blacks enjoyed equal rights.
• Consensus - He was known well for building consensus with people in all walks of life.
• Passion - He was in the front lines of many of the protests, marches, sit ins, and stand ins that took place during the social rights movements.
• Sacrifice - He often had to sacrifice his own safety and the safety of his family in order to lead the civil rights movement. That sacrifice ultimately led to his own death.

On this day that we honor and remember Martin Luther King, Jr. Let us remember him not just for what he did while alive, but for the picture of what a true leader should look like.

Why I'm up at 4am on Saturday

It’s a Saturday morning here in California and I’m ready to rock-n-roll for the day (at 4am).

But why be up so early on a Saturday? On a day where most people can’t wait to just sleep in.

Two reasons:
Passion – I’m passionate about the work I do. I know my work makes a difference in the lives of others and it makes a difference in my own life. 

Work Ethic – Because I know the work I do makes a difference, I must work hard to continue to make a difference to meet the needs of our community. I know that the harder I work, the more people we help and the bigger difference that we make.

What time do you wake up and why?

What are your people ordering?

Most of my writing takes place at Starbucks with only a legal pad and a pen. I'm a simple writer who gets everything down on paper to organize my thoughts, then I pick out the cream of the crop, then type it up.

Several months ago while at Starbucks ordering green tea (I've already got enough energy, I don't need any caffeine) the bartista took my order for green tea, then proceeded to ask me if I wanted to purchase any coffee beans to-go.

Did I miss something?

As someone who ordered tea, not coffee, I felt it was odd that he offered to sell me coffee beans, after I didn't order coffee.

I know he was probably trained to ask all of his customers that same question, regardless if they ordered a plain coffee, were just purchasing a gift card, or purchasing green tea. But I thought it pointed out a great concept for us to realize as leaders.

In our everyday communication with our staff and people, it's important to know what our staff is ordering up.

Here's some good questions to get you started:

• What do they want?
  
• What are their needs?
  
• What do they want to have as a result of working with you?
• How do they want to feel by working with you?
  

When talking with your staff, are you trying to motivate them with pay incentives and increased benefits, when what they really need is to know that their job makes a difference?

When talking to your staff, are you trying to motivate and influence them with public appreciation and recognition, when all they need is a little more freedom to do their job without management monitoring their every move?

I guess my main thought in this post is to listen to what your people need and want, then give it to them.

The first step is to listen, then the next step is to give it to them.

Review books with me

Leaders are readers, right?

Do you enjoy reading?

Thomas Nelson is one of my favorite publishers. They publish many books by authors such as John Maxwell, John Eldredge, Max Lucado, Charles Stanley and many others. I regularly read the blog from Thomas Nelson's CEO, Michael Hyatt who often has some great insights on leadership.

Today they just re-launched their book review website for bloggers called, www.booksneeze.com.

The skinny on their book review website is that you sign up, tell them what book you would like to review, they send it to you (for free), you read the book, write a review on your blog, then you tell them what book you would like to review next.

It's a great resource for reading leaders who want to continually keep feeding their mind. 

No one remembers how many shots you miss

In 1962, Philadelphia Warrior's Center Will Chamberlain scored 100 points in one basketball game.

100 points!

What's ironic is that no one remembers how many shots he missed that game. People only remember how many shots he made and how many points he scored.

When it comes to you and your leadership legacy, no one is going to remember how many times you failed.

People will remember you for what you created and what you did, not for what you failed to do.

Leader's Communication

As a leader who communicates, it's not what you say, it's what your people hear.

Actually,
It's not what you say, it's not what your people hear, but it's actually what they see you do on a daily basis.

Leaders Are Visionary

Back in August I made a trip to Long Beach and rode along with a friend's mother-in-law who talked with me about the leader of her church. As we talked about her well known pastor, I heard her repeat over and over that her pastor was a "visionary."

Isn't that what leaders are to a certain extent? Leaders are visionary.

Not only are they visionary, but their vision is much larger than what they are capable of accomplishing on their own. That's what attracts people to them. The bigger the visionary leader, the bigger the vision, the bigger people that will be attracted to the vision.

Big visions attract big people.

As a leader, are you a visionary? Do you take regular time to think, dream and develop your vision?

I recently read Andy Stanley's book, Visioneering: God's Blueprint for Developing and Maintaining Vision. It's probably the best leadership book on vision that I've read, and recommend it to you.

Under taught and under valued: A System

It's often said that leaders have vision.

Probably the element of leadership that is taught the most often is how to cultivate, develop, communicate, share, and hone your vision as a leader. I think vision is often over taught and talked about too much while the other elements of leadership are neglected from the teaching and attention that they need.

One element of leadership I feel isn't taught enough is about the systems a leader needs to create.

Once a leader's got vision for something he believes should be done and created, he's got to find a system for getting that vision created and accomplished.

Often leaders complain that they're unorganized, that they don't like to do administration, and that they don't like to do implementation. I can understand this, but as a leader you can't just through ideas out there, then expect people to pick them up and run with them (unless you have lots of money to over pay a staff, which is rarely the case).

As a leader you've got to have a system and a method to share your vision that allows it to be implemented.

My system with A Day of Hope was that I always took time to pray and think through all elements of A Day of Hope. I would work to get a feel for what our goals should be, what events we might need to do, who we needed to recruit for our team, how we would execute throughout the year and what progress we needed to make. I also would usually think about possible benchmarks that would tell us if we were on track to doing the work that we had committed to.

As a leader, you might have a vision for what you think needs to be created and accomplished. The next step is to make sure you've got a system in place that will allow you to continue to share that vision, delegate elements of it to others, then monitor it's progress to make sure it serves the needs of your community or business.

Because if you don't have a system for managing your vision, you'll soon find that the vision dies on your lips.

Leaders Mandate for 2010

Leaders have a higher standard for the ways things should be, and could be. They don't wait for things to change on their own, but are proactive in what they attempt.

As we embark on 2010, remember that very few things change on their own. Our job as leaders is to take initiative and make good happen in our community and the world.

Leaders, here's to positive change in 2010. . . . . . .