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Archive for May, 2014
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of May 27th
May 27, 2014 | No Comments »
Re-Cognition
There really is nothing new about the art of leadership. How can that be, you may be asking yourself, for surely today’s technology and scientific advancements must be changing the nature of leadership? I don’t think so. When it comes to primal leadership–that most basic but mysterious art of creating deep human resonance and influence—I am convinced of this fact: all the foundational truths are already known. What happens unfortunately is these primal truths can sometimes become lost to us. It as if these leadership truths become dormant, pushed underground just out of view, awaiting a wise cultivator to bring them back to vitality. This is the role now, as it always has been, of heroic leaders—to see leadership truths laying there in plain sight and then reawaken them. But awaken them not in some past or romanticized context, but rather, in synch with today’s reality. Thus, all great leadership cognition, in my view, is really re-cognition. Recognition allows us to remember what we’ve always known, but somehow, forgotten, and then rekindle that necessary truth in today’s context.
An Interior Life
At the heart of truly great leadership is a leader who has cultivated a rich interior life. This inner authority, born of self mastery, self discipline, self-regulation, and self-control, is the most crucial ingredient to creating lasting significance as a leader. This is why, when developing leaders, we must start with, and never lose focus of, whom leaders are. Too often, unfortunately, we start with what leaders do, and we omit the much harder work of cultivating self mastery and inner authority. Why do we do this? Because it is much easier to focus on what (other) leaders do rather than focusing on ourselves—which requires brutal honesty about our lives, our paradigms, our motives, and our character. To be great leaders, we must begin with mastering ourselves, and developing an interior life capable of exerting resonant, positive, vibrant, focused, and elevating leadership. Let me conclude with a timeless truth we should never forget: Only leaders with inner authority can use outer authority effectively.
What Needs to be Done?
Sometimes the hardest step in one’s leadership journey is the first one. Where do I start? Where do I focus? I think a great place to start is to ask this question: “What needs to be done?” In my view, this simple question forces one to seek an honest and authentic answer, and then….move into action. Moreover, there are two equally important dimensions to this question, one internal and one external. First, what needs to be done to me (internally)? What do I need to do to prepare myself to be a leader? How do I condition myself to see the world as a leader and commit to a life of leadership action? Second, what needs to be done in the (external) group, community, or society I live and work in? How can I best serve the group and bring my passion to something noble? Once a decision is made to act, momentum is born and one’s purpose is found. And when we find an authentic answer to this simple question, we align ourselves to our true calling—and begin a life of leadership, meaning, and service.
Make This Moment Better
When I contemplate a normal work day, I realize it is really made up by a series of moments, some of which are planned, many of them unplanned. Though our goal as leaders is to master ourselves and thus, master the day, in truth what we are really doing, if we lead effectively, is to make each moment better. The moment is what we are given; what we do with it, makes all the difference. Whatever leadership moment arises, inherent in that moment is this crucial test: What will be the nature and quality of our response? As I reflect on any facet of truly great leadership–in sports, industry, politics, family, community—at the center of great leadership outcomes is a mindful leader focused on making this moment better. This truth is important to embrace because the reality is….most of us will not lead on a global or national stage. Instead, we will be called to lead far from the bright lights and great arenas. Our significance will be tested, and made, in the consistency and quality of our responses, to the smallest of things. And our obligation? To take each moment and make it better.
Escaping the Cacophony
I saw a cartoon the other day in which the main character was in a room, surrounded by hundreds of simultaneously ringing alarm clocks and whistles, as this poor soul tried to concentrate but could only wilt under the maddening cacophony of irritating sounds and distractions. In some ways, this image could well represent the modern office setting with its non-stop bombardment of texts, emails, tweets, “likes,” phone calls, and myriad other interruptions. This is just the way it is, you say? Well, for leaders, is shouldn’t be, because we know from experience that constant interruption and mindless busyness are the enemies of masterful leadership. Peak leadership emerges from cultivating quiet time; finding places of solitude to detach from busyness, read and think deeply, and summon deeper knowing. Great leaders must find time for sustained concentration, which allows for focused attention, to truly breakout of, and through, the mindless cacophony of busyness and into the rarer air of deep knowing and wise action.
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 May 19th
May 19, 2014 | No Comments »
Nothing for Nothing
Today I am reflecting on this question: As leaders, what brings us great satisfaction and gratitude? I think this is a particularly important question to contemplate because we live in a society coveting instant gratification and easy answers. I keep coming back to this answer: People don’t ultimately respect anything they get for nothing. Anything we get easily or without personal sacrifice becomes a chimera, and ultimately, an illusion. What history seems to teach us (consider the basic theme of all hero tales) is this timeless truth: true satisfaction and gratitude are only discovered once we’ve paid our dues. Privileges, rights, and entitlements, to be properly understood and maturely governed, must first be earned. If these entitlements are given freely, they actually become destructive. To build heroic, responsible, and wise character, one’s character must first be tested. It is like metal that emerges from a cauldron. There is no other way, it seems. So, we must re-learn this necessary lesson: We will never respect nothing we get for nothing.
Bound Up
How can leaders today create a feeling of being bound up to something that is deeply inspiring for the groups we lead? How can leaders create faithfulness and elevation in our vocations? I offer four ideas. First, Create Meaning. Our minds are drawn to reason, but our souls are drawn to meaning. Second, Instill Ethos. A healthy ethos answers for its members these three crucial questions: Who are we? Why do we exist? What do we do? Third, Celebrate Traditions. Healthy traditions, rituals, and rites get us out of our heads and into our hearts—where all true greatness resides. And fourth, Teach Greater Patterns. Return to simplicity and see greater patterns of wisdom and excellence. Leaders must create the conditions of fidelity and companionship. This is soul work, not head work. This is cultivation, not engineering. This is hard, intentional, deeply personal work. But when leaders do this well, magic happens.
Master Your Space
I am often asked, “what is the most important thing I can do as an emerging leader?” My answer: Master your space! I believe this answer reveals two timeless truths of great leadership: One, great leadership ultimately rests on self leadership; and second, the scope of leadership challenge is not what ultimately counts, it is the consistency and quality of the response, even in the smallest things. Master your space places a clear obligation on the individual leader to be accountable. Wherever one lands, that is one’s space to lead, develop, cultivate, and foster. The scope of responsibility really doesn’t matter; what matters most is being accountable for that space and for everything that happens within that space, good or bad. When we hold ourselves accountable to mastering our space, we place healthy demands upon ourselves. We need a place of accountable community; a home plate to touch each day and remind us of our obligations. It is one thing to believe in excellence, it is far more important to be accountable for being excellent. Master your space.
Positive Example
A frequent question I’m asked is this: “How should one deal with a senior leader, or organizational climate, that is bad/weak/negative?” The human tendency when confronted with a less-than-stellar leader or climate is to rail against the weakness we perceive. Let’s be honest…sometimes is just feels good to vent and demonize. But if we are also honest, we must admit that any time we take on negative energy frontally, and directly, a destructive thing happens: we end up absorbing the negative energy and become negative ourselves. Instead of solving the problem, we actually infect ourselves, and those around us, with toxic and corrosive energy. A wiser and more effective approach is to attack negativity indirectly. How so? By calmly and quietly modeling the excellence you wish to see. It sounds trite to say it this way, but I find this to be axiomatic: The best correction of the bad is the modeling of the better. In this way, one’s positive example becomes an alternative–a new path. And if modeled consistently, this positive energy can create the momentum to actually change the environment.
Side by Side
Today I am reflecting on companionship and camaraderie. I am contemplating this: what is it that develops deep bonds of mutual affection, fidelity, and unity to a degree that far surpasses basic workplace familiarity? In my experience, it is mutual sacrifice, elevated and transcendent meaning, and here’s the final and most interesting part: toiling together in pursuit of a grand ambition. I truly believe we cultivate true companionship, such as I experienced as a US Marine, when we walk side-by-side with those we serve. For men in particular, it seems the alchemy of real bonding occurs much more prominently in doing rather than in talking. There is something magical that happens when people physically walk, run, or strive side-by-side, toiling and persevering towards a distant and challenging objective. This bonding affect is true in sports and the military, and can be replicated in boardrooms and offices if we create opportunities for people to toil physically, side by side. This arm-to-arm bonding produces a kind of rare companionship found in great organizations.
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 May 12th
May 12, 2014 | No Comments »
Symbols and Stories
I just reviewed the top blog posts on several leadership sites because I wanted to see how many articles focused on reducing their leadership topics to a checklist or menu. You know the type, they are usually titled “The six steps for….,” or “The five characteristics of…,” or, “The 8 essential truths of such and such.” Here’s the problem with this checklist-style format: It creates a false paradigm that leadership is a tactic and can be reduced to basic checklists, menus, and to-do lists. This leads us away from the greater truth about leadership, and leaders, which is this: Leadership is a master craft, and leaders master craftsman, and therefore great leadership is a lifelong journey based mainly on gaining self mastery. Instead of reducing leadership to self-help jargon, we’re infinitely better conceiving of leadership, and teaching it, through forms like symbols, stories, legends, metaphor, myth, and parables. Why? Because these forms convey much deeper and timeless truths and, more importantly, these forms force the aspiring leader to wrestle with these truths, solve the mysteries anew, and appropriate the truth for themselves.
Reduced and Disconnected
In our modern world, a harsh reality leaders will have to increasingly deal is a growing sense of disconnection, diminishment, and reductionism in our society. As our society becomes more segmented and dispersed through technology, leaders may find their followers at a loss for trustworthy and timeless absolutes. It is as if we have slowly lost healthy criteria to anchor us and cohere to, such as norms, boundaries, and archetypes. When we lose these absolutes, we become adrift, unconfident, and trapped in small, private worlds dominated by personal voices and personal choices. Everything becomes relative. Not the stuff of greatness! Every generation can be caught in its own limiting quicksand. It has been heroic leaders throughout history who have broken this trap by reconstructing the climate in which people live and work. Today, the surest way for leaders to move out of a reduced and disconnected paradigm and into a more elevated and expansive one is to care about, and teach, greater stories, larger histories, soaring virtues, and wiser thinkers.
A Quest
I am convinced the study of leadership is best approached not from seeking easy answers, but from asking the hard questions. Here’s why. When we focus on getting easy answers, what we mostly end up with is a thin gruel of checklists, menus, formulas, and gimmicks which, though admittedly neat and tidy, tend to generate mediocrity. This focus on easy answers and self-help leadership results in a cottage industry of lots of people with lots of thin answers. Doubt this is true? Walk through a bookstore and peruse the Business Section, paying close attention to the titles and subtitles of the offerings. So, what is a wiser approach? To be on a quest; a purposeful, mindful, and intentional path of inquiry that looks first for the hard, vexing questions about leadership and followership. We have to learn to live for a time without all the easy answers, and work through the discomfort of searching but not yet knowing. Isn’t it interesting that the words quest and question share the same root?
Being Conscientious
Truly excellent leadership requires the admixture of two different, yet equally crucial, abilities: one, the ability to think in terms of system-level and strategic context; and two, the ability to focus and execute with laser-like intentionality. Today, I am reflecting on the latter; the ability to execute. So, what quality allows great leaders to remain mindful, intentional, and purposeful, even amidst the maelstrom of change, and execute their plans? I believe the answer is conscientiousness! Great leaders cultivate within themselves deep self mastery, self discipline, and personal resolve. To be conscientious requires deep habituation—an almost DNA-level mastery—which ingrains deep within one’s character qualities like organization, self regulation, self control, determination, punctuality, and resilience. We each may be born with different amounts of conscientiousness, but regardless of what we are born with, we can, and must, cultivate more, if we want to be truly great and impactful leaders.
Experience
I often state this observation publically when I teach: I have mastered nothing as a leader as a result of studying a list, menu, recipe, or formula. Yes, these lists are tidy and fine things in themselves, but I cannot truthfully say any of them ever fully educated me as a leader. Why? Because lists and menus cannot convert us; only experience can. And it is only through the cauldron of experience that we can unlock the mysteries of leadership, own the knowledge, and gain self mastery. Even when I think of this topic in a historical context, I cannot think of a single great leader, someone truly significant, who came to greatness by simply studying a list of “to do’s” or following a prescribed menu of attributes. Until we are forced to navigate the actual rocks and hard places of leadership experience, we remain outside true transformation. Great leadership cannot be gained simply as an intellectual exercise; it must be gained by going into the desert of experience and emerging, transformed.
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 May 5th
May 5, 2014 | No Comments »
Holding Tension
Leadership is inherently stressful. Stress creates anxiety and tension within the leader and also within the groups we lead. This sense of tension is even more pronounced today due to social media, 24-hour news cycles, and the constant connectedness of modern living. Because “high anxiety” is a natural state of modern life I believe leaders need to be acutely aware of this fact: The higher one moves up in leadership responsibility and position, the greater the need for that leader to be able to hold anxiety and tension. A leader must live in the midst of the anxiety and, through disciplined self-regulation, make wise decisions while holding the tension. Too often leaders react to tension with a fight-or-flight mode, and when they do–they implode. When leaders lose their ability to self-regulate they emit a toxic by-product in the form of bankrupt, weak, and undisciplined behavior. Great leaders develop an ability to hold tension and govern themselves effectively in a whirlwind of anxiety, much like a seasoned skipper at the ship’s controls on a roiling sea.
A Necessary Teacher
Watching TV recently, I decided to count the number of commercials focusing on some form of pain relief or self-help gimmick. I stopped counting after twenty. This observation made me realize we have very little tolerance for temporary failure, inconvenience, or pain. Now to be clear–I am not suggesting anyone welcome these things with open arms; however, I do believe there is such as thing as necessary failure and necessary pain. We often fail, or feel pain, because we are off track, off balance, or somehow misaligned with a healthy course of living. I have found the wise aphorism, which states “wherever you fall, there lies your teacher”–to be so true and so full of wise counsel. Failure, properly understood, often transforms us if we allow ourselves to be open to its lessons. Failure is a necessary teacher. In our society, though, we often don’t tolerate temporary pain or discomfort long enough to learn its lessons. If we can cultivate hardiness and resilience in ourselves, and trust the temporary pain of setback or loss, we just might avail ourselves to the lessons we need most to hear and see.
Initiation
As a young boy, I enjoyed reading about Native American warriors. One facet I really admired was their tradition of rites of initiation. This warrior society understood that young men would not naturally move beyond adolescence, beyond their self-centered private worlds, without being ritually forced to do so. Something had to be done “to them” to force the break from adolescence and invite movement into responsible adulthood. Sometime during a young warrior’s teenage years, he’d be forced to go on a quest—literally breaking out of the normal tribal life—and seek his new identity in the barren plains or desert. And interestingly, he was often mentored in this quest by his uncle or another wise elder in the group, someone whom had made a similar quest in the past. These rituals of initiation were the means through which the society ensured the creation of wise and responsible elders. Today, I reflect on our society and wonder: how can leaders rekindle this need for healthy initiation and rites of passage to guide emerging leaders in their growth and to create within our society a reservoir of wise elders?
Travel
When I was in high school I had a teacher who constantly extolled the benefit of travel. He implored us to do whatever it took, throughout our lives, to regularly break the rhythm of our routines and see the larger world. Looking back I see his advice not only for its basic wisdom, but interestingly, also for its relevance to leadership. Here’s why: Traveling removes us from our parochial views and through exploration of new places, cultures, and challenges, helps us see things through a larger, more expansive lens. I honestly can’t name one leader whom I would call truly exceptional who did not possess such an expansive view, and with it, an ability to see the great and enduring patterns of history, and then lead out of this elevating mindset. This wanderlust—a natural desire to wander, explore, and see the larger world—is one of the surest ways leaders can learn to see in new ways and capture larger horizons. Traveling is much like reading history: it creates an expansive paradigm through which leaders gain a clear(er) vision of ones life, purpose, and a commitment to heroic aspiration.
Expectation
On my desk at work I keep a quote attributed to Plains Indian Warriors whom, as legend has it, reportedly started their day with the following exhortation to their sons: “Today is a good day to do great things.” I keep this quote within easy glance because it reminds me of the daily need to retain positive expectation. I increasingly find at the heart of great leadership and championship performance is an unquenchable expectation for great things. Without soaring ambition, without majestic expectation, our default set point often devolves to inertia and doing things as we always have. Status quo, even when destructive and depressing, can become strangely comfortable when it becomes routine. Great leaders expect excellence and are stirred by heroic impulses. We need some great cause, some majestic purpose, that calls forth from us the hero within. And for the groups we lead, we need to point to a future end state similarly defined by elevating and grand ambition. So….master the day. Today, and everyday, is truly a good day to do great things.
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!