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Archive for August, 2015
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of August 10th
August 10, 2015 | No Comments »
Heroic Paradigm—Part II
Our paradigm, the lens through which we view life and leadership, is the most crucial determinant of great leadership. I often describe three basic paradigms that leaders can adopt. The first is accidental leadership, where one devotes almost no thought, preparation, or practice to the art of leadership. The second paradigm is cafeteria leadership, where one simply picks and chooses the leadership actions that fit one’s mood, whim, or disposition. Neither accidental nor cafeteria style paradigms are noble, elevating, or capable of producing greatness. The third and correct paradigm of leading is Heroic Leadership. A Heroic Leadership paradigm is based on a conviction that leadership is a master craft, requiring great exertion, life-long preparation, and daily devotion to self mastery. A Heroic Leader never separates one’s life from one’s leadership. To remain heroic we must constantly clean the lens, transform our eye, and re-tune our ear.
Leadership as a Journey
We refer to leadership as a journey to reinforce this core truth: Leadership is a master craft requiring lifelong development. That leadership is a journey also reminds us that true mastery will always defy instant gratification. To pursue heroic leadership, we must go through life’s test and trials, not around them. There are no menus, checklists, gimmicks, shortcuts, or killer apps we can download to achieve instant leadership mastery. And, though demanding, the journey to heroic leadership is, in the end, its own reward; it calls forth our best selves, and for the groups we lead, it provides a beacon of noble purpose to guide towards the future. The journey’s path can thus be shown, and the terrain described, but each leader must answer the call to heroic leadership and begin walking. Seen correctly, the journey is not just necessary as a means to excellence, but more importantly, the journey is the handmaiden of our character and our significance.
Transformation
There’s been much written about transformational leadership from the vantage point of how leaders transform others. A far more important viewpoint is self-transformation: How Heroic Leaders transform themselves. Self-transformation, borne of the leader’s journey, produces an authentic, centered, and wise leader. Like a diamond imbedded in coal, our heroic self is initially buried under surface level limitations, namely—our egos. And like a diamond, our heroic self will only emerge through crucible-like conditions that burn away the external layers and reveal the hidden gem. Consider this axiom: to reach the high ground of leadership, we must first endure the desert. We must leave our comfort zone, cross thresholds, endure tests, and be re-renewed in the cauldron of experience. The shaping events in our lives, properly understood, create inner conversions—a continual turning around and a letting go. Paradoxically, we must first to go inward, and then and only then–upward and outward.
Heroic Leaders are Resonant
Leadership at its core is influence, and at the core of influence is resonance. Do we resonate with those we lead or not? Consider an orchestra conductor. A great conductor—a maestro–takes a group of disparate musicians and through his artful influence, creates resonance. Resonance is perfect pitch, tone, tenor, and tempo. Beautiful music. This orchestra appears to operate as a single, seamless entity. They have moved from E Pluribus, to Unum (from many, one). Conversely, a bad conductor takes that same group of musicians and due to his lack of leadership influence, creates dissonance. Dissonance is horrible pitch, tone, tenor, and tempo. Like fingernails across a chalk board! Great leaders are maestros; they take once disparate groups—raw elements—and turn them into gold. The gold they create is reflected as unity, cohesion, and shared intent. Leaders become resonant with those they lead by consistently modeling excellence, trustworthiness, and foremost—authenticity. So…do you resonate with your group? To know, look to the quality of the conductor. Be a maestro!
Success
Leaders want to be successful both for our personal goals and the broader goals we set for our teams. However, we often fail to fully understand the term success. Our modern world often equates success with outer trappings like rank, title, salary, or the size of our house. Our modern world also likes to believe in the myth of instant success, an illusion born of a mania for instant gratification. The truth is real success doesn’t follow a rags-to-riches trajectory. Heroic leaders don’t rise from nothing, nor do they make it alone. True success is neither cheap nor easy, but rather, the by-product of a life-long pattern of successful behavior that results in personal readiness. Success thus comes at the nexus of challenge and readiness. If we are ready when challenge or opportunity emerge, we’ll be successful, and not just for ourselves, but for a greater good. We can’t control the nature or timing of the challenge, but we can control our readiness through practice, preparation, and rehearsal. Understood such, success is a self-disciplined pattern of action—a habit pattern--that great leaders cultivate into their lives.
Callan…Coffee…Contemplation for the Week of August 3rd
August 6, 2015 | No Comments »
Embracing the F-Word: How Leaders use Failure as a Teacher
No matter how well prepared we are as leaders, we will occasionally fail. What defines a champion is the ability to rise off the mat and respond without losing our integrity and core purpose. We therefore must confront these truths: We learn more from failure than from success; failures will be mostly unexpected; the playing field is never level; and failure is the most direct path to truth. Leaders must embrace failure as a necessary teacher. Failure, if properly understood, can become the handmaiden of our self-mastery and of the evolving excellence of our teams. To develop an ability to bounce back from failure without losing our core purpose, leaders must cultivate resilience, hardiness, and mental toughness in their teams. Leaders cultivate these attributes by intentionally placing themselves and their teams in situations that test the limits of endurance, push past thresholds, and call forth fortitude. When leaders embrace failure in this way, we emerge from the crucible stronger, more confident, and more hardy. Such is the stuff of champions.
Fly the Middle Way: Great Leaders are Simplifiers
In Greek mythology, Icarus is told by his father to resist the urge to fly either too high or too low and instead—to fly the middle way. This myth is a great metaphor for leaders too. Great leaders learn to fly the middle way by not being susceptible to extreme lows (negativity, pessimism, cynicism) or extreme highs (untamed emotion or uncontrolled passion). As such, great leaders take complex issues and simplify them to their core element–the “main thing.” A key way for leaders to fly the middle way is to master quiet time. Leaders must set aside quiet time every day to think and reflect, be that in a designated venue removed from work or going for a walk or run. It is in the solitude of quiet time that deep thoughts emerge…and leaders are able to move beyond the surface-level frenzy of work and clarify the “main things.” Great leaders understand that effective leadership is about focus, awareness, deep knowing, and informed action, and one can only activate these qualities by flying the middle way.
Heroic Leaders Possess Vitality and Energy
One of the foremost qualities of a heroic leader is the ability to point to a better future. In this sense, leaders are like beacons, clarifying where we are headed, why we are going there, and the ultimate end states of our actions. In this beacon-like role, leaders must consistently project vitality and energy; a confident and optimistic attitude that cuts through the fog of uncertainty and orients us toward the future. Vitality and energy are equally a mindset and a way of living. Vitality is a mindset in terms of personal paradigm—how the leader views his role as exemplar of spirited leadership. Vitality is a way of living in the sense that one adheres to a vigorous and strenuous lifestyle. Great leaders understand that an organization without energy and vitality is like a waste land, barren of purpose, spirit, and strength. To combat this waste land experience, great leaders use their personal vitality to infuse vitality in their followers, and by doing so, they bring renewed life and a contagious optimism to the group.
Heroic Leaders Possess a Deep Wellspring of Decency
Decency is too often shunned as a core leadership virtue because it is viewed, incorrectly, as somehow being “too soft.” That is an unfortunate perception, because it is wrong. Decency is not a tactic or a technique, it is a virtue! Decency reflects our character, and flows from a deep sense of gratitude and respect. Decent leaders project civility, trustworthiness, respect, and honor in all human dealings, even when under extreme pressure or in dire conditions. Decency, like all core virtues, is “non negotiable” and does not change with situations or conditions. Instead, decency serves as a firm anchor point, buttressing us against the ever-changing winds of politics, passion, or convenience. Decency is neither soft nor weak as a leadership virtue; it is made of the most solid and sturdy substance a leader can possess: Character! We are reminded of the importance of decency in this quote attributed to Kass: “We stand most upright when we gladly bow our heads.”
Heroic Leaders Possess Self-Discipline
The central maxim of our Callan Course philosophy is this: Great leadership starts with self-leadership; self-leadership starts with self-mastery, and self-mastery is achieved through self-discipline. Self-discipline is a habit born of an intention–achieved by the daily, purposeful allocation of time and energy to mastering ourselves. And like all successful habits, we must combine the intellectual acceptance of the need for the quality (self-discipline) coupled with the tangible actions that create a pattern of behavior. Think here of the master archer: The most crucial thing the archer will ever do to master his craft, to become an expert marksman, is develop self-discipline to master himself—the shooter. Heroic leaders, like the master archer, are also shooters, and our arrows are made of our leadership influence. We will consistently place our arrows of influence in the center of the target by mastering ourselves through self discipline.