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Archive for January, 2014
Callan … Coffee … Contemplation – For the Week of January 27, 2014
January 27, 2014 | No Comments »
Every day we share our Leadership Reflections on our social media pages. Our daily reflections are quick thoughts on leadership that you can quickly and easily digest over a cup of morning coffee!
Here is the collection of last week’s reflections:
MLK … Crossing Thresholds
In 1965 Martin Luther King was leading a march from Selma to Montgomery and the Edmund Pettus Bridge was on his route. King needed to cross the bridge to continue onwards to Montgomery. King’s opponents didn’t want him to cross that bridge. As King stood at one end of the bridge and peered across to the other side, he was confronted with the present danger of an angry opposition, but equally, by his own inner fear and self-doubt. This was a decisive threshold moment: Should he cross and pursue his destiny, or turn back and seek safer ground? King chose to cross the bridge, and in doing so, he pulled himself, and our society, across a transformative threshold. The bridge King crossed that day was short in physical distance but immense in terms of defining a heroic life. As leaders, we too will come to threshold decisions in our lives. And like King, we’ll find ourselves standing on the near side of that threshold—the side representing our present condition–and be confronted with the decision to cross over to the far side–a new state and new condition. Will we move forward and pursue our destiny? Will we endure the crucible to achieve growth? Or, will we turn back and seek safer ground? Such is the nature of all threshold decisions: Do we leave our comfort zone and heed the call to heroic purpose, or return home and accept something less?
Heroic Leaders Surround Themselves with Strong Teammates
When reflecting on the mythic image of King Arthur and his famed Knights, the image of the Round Table comes to mind. As its name implies, the Round Table at which Arthur and his Knights met had no designated head, implying that everyone assembled had equal honor, a valued voice, and an obligation to contribute. This obligation to be present, to think and act, and to value strong teammates, was considered the highest order of chivalry at King Arthur’s Court. As modern leaders, we too should possess the strength of character to seek out, and welcome, strong teammates. Attracting strong teammates requires us to have an abundance mindset where we are not afraid of others’ strengths; where we are willing to share credit and good fortune. Additionally, attracting strong teammates helps us hear contrarian voices and not fall prey to group think. Strong teammates, welcomed to our own Round Tables, help us avoid blind spots in our personal thinking.
Heroic Leaders Embrace Intuition
The acme of battlefield generalship, most often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, is the term coup d’oeil, which means the “power of the glance.” A general with coup d’oeil can arrive at a battle, observe the emerging conditions and situation, and trusting his well-honed instincts, plan his strategy intuitively. It isn’t that facts or intelligence aren’t important, they are. However, the dynamism and fluidity of the battlefield demand agile, integrated, and rapid “deep knowing.” Modern Leaders must learn to hone and trust our intuitions too, because there is no such thing as certainty in leading. The only exact science is retrospect. Our modern world prizes complex analysis, as if complex analysis automatically equates to deep knowing. Too often, complex analysis results only in decision-making paralysis. So what is intuition? It is pattern recognition! Once a leader detects a pattern, he must trust his rapid cognition, and decide intuitively. Heroic Leaders know, and value, the power of the glance.
Heroic Leaders Speak the Language of Leadership
Communicating–deeply connecting to and resonating with others—is the key distinction between great leadership and basic management. Heroic Leaders understand they must first speak to hearts
before they try to appeal to minds, and in connecting with hearts, leaders must provide answers to these three elementary questions: Who? What? and Why? Armed with answers to those three questions, followers will naturally activate their inner motivation, unleash their passion, and rally to noble purposes. The language of leadership has a unique style using basic conversational tones, an
active voice, and a personal and clear delivery. The language of leadership avoids tech-speak and mind-numbing bureaucratic jargon. Heroic leaders make extensive use of metaphors, parables, and stories to paint mental pictures and to portray galvanizing end states. The language of leadership gets us out of our heads and into our hearts—the source of all championship performance.
Manufacturing Wins & Leveraging Success
Great leaders create positive momentum for their teams. Be they in sports, business, or the local community, great leaders create opportunities for “small wins” and, once achieved, the leader publically celebrates these team achievements to create a centrifugal force of positive energy, optimism, and confidence. In this sense, great leaders serve as catalysts—or maestros—orchestrating wins by expertly applying pace, flow, and tempo. When leaders manufacture wins and leverage success in this way, they create an organizational affect we can think of as “patterns of achievement.” This is what in sports is often referred to as “learning how to win.” Once we master a pattern of success, we come to expect it, and we know how to achieve it. Success, like heroic leadership itself, is both a mindset and a habit. By paying attention to small things and small rules, great leaders create a rising tide of success. Why? Because great leaders understand that the accumulation of small things, done well, has big consequences!
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation – For the week of January 20th
January 21, 2014 | No Comments »
Every day we share our Leadership Reflections on our social media pages. Our daily reflections are quick thoughts on leadership that you can quickly and easily digest over a cup of morning coffee!
Here is the collection of last week’s reflections:
Heroic Leaders are Exemplars – Their Lives Become the Lesson
The ultimate goal of leadership is significance; to leave a residue of elevating example, noble purpose, and excellence that, like footprints in the sand, provide a trusted path for others to follow. Heroic leaders understand that one’s life evokes one’s character; therefore, they place themselves in situations that call forth their higher nature. The ultimate boon of a leader’s journey is Authenticity—the ability to genuinely resonate with others–which is only attained via the cauldron of life’s challenges and the crucible of personal transformation. Heroic Leaders internalize life’s lessons to the point that they themselves become the lesson.
Heroic Leaders Possess a Heroic Paradigm
The most essential component to Heroic Leadership is developing and retaining a Heroic Leadership paradigm. A paradigm is the filter through which one views life and leadership. Like a lens, a leader’s paradigm will refract what one perceives and inform one’s thoughts, actions, emotions, reactions, and ultimately, deeds. As such, a heroic leader must constantly “clean the lens” to ensure his ability to effectively see truth and hear wisdom remains pure. The components of a Heroic Leadership paradigm are these: (1) Great leadership is based on self-leadership; (2) Self-leadership is based on self-mastery; and (3) self-mastery is based on self-discipline. For the Heroic Leader, leadership is a way of life.
Heroic Leaders Seek Self-Mastery
Before a leader can truly exert positive influence over others, he must first master himself. Inner authority, borne via the crucible of personal experience and personal conversion, must first be cultivated within the leader before he can resonate with others. Like a master archer, a Heroic Leader must first center and regulate himself before he can effectively dispatch the arrows from his leadership quiver, and before those arrows of leadership fly straight and true. To gain self-mastery Heroic Leaders must daily allocate both time and energy to these three dimensions: Projection (thinking about the future); Action (practicing and preparing now); and Reflection (contemplating the past to garner lessons and wisdom).
Heroic Leaders are Dedicated Mentors
A hallmark of all great societies and organizations throughout history was the presence of “wise elders” within the group who served as mentors to the young emerging generation. Defined classically, mentorship is more a state of mind, a quality of being, than it is a single act or function. As such, Heroic Leaders operate by this sacred obligation: Attain mastery, and then give it away (freely)! As dedicated mentors we understand the enormous impact of practice and preparation in nurturing our followers, and we measure ourselves as leaders by how well, and to what degree, we have fostered excellence, maturity, accountability, character, and virtue in our followers. Mentorship is
therefore akin to the classic concept of apprenticeship, in which a deep bond–a “braided cord”– is formed between teacher and student.
Heroic Leaders Always Set the Example
As leaders, we are always being watched by those we lead. Our words, attitudes, actions, and deeds are always visible, interpreted, and judged by those around us. As such, leaders should always consider themselves “live, on stage, and on the record.” Our personal example is therefore a powerful beacon to be used for good or ill; for resonance or dissonance; for inspiration or stagnation; for elevation or depression. When our followers look to us, they hope to see a consistent example characterized by self mastery; confidence tempered by humility; a bias for action; vibrancy and optimism; and wisdom. Heroic Leaders strive to be exemplars, champions, and icons of excellence and virtue. Like the mythic Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders, Heroic Leaders must also accept the burden of personal example and willingly carry that obligation on their sturdy shoulders.
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!