I am late to the party to be sure. In this respect it woluld be easy to say I am a follower and that would be true.I decided though that twitter has a purpose for us here at developing leaders. I will not be cluttering up e-space with random thoughts, no I plan to post a simple leadership perspective on how I am feeling when I think about posting on Twitter. Real time raw thoughts on leadership. I hope you find them valuable.

You can find me at twitter @Ron_at_Dleaders.

The easy way is to click on the follow button in the Twitter window bottom right on the blog.

Lead well

Ron

Creating the architecture of what I call Q3 power.  Developing enhanced IQ, EQ, SQ. Great  leaders have always recognized and developed their intellectual capital, emotional capital and spiritual capital, because they recognized that being smart was not enough, being heart centered was not enough, and being values driven was not enough.  Leadership evolves;          leadership grows by developing and engaging all three Q’s. Part of developing Q3 power is learning, but the most critical part is working with someone to actively use one’s strengths and transform changes and crises to increase one’s intellectual capital, emotional capital and spiritual capital.

I want to thank each and every one of you for making developing leaders the success that it has become. In the past week we ticked past a few very cool milestones.

• We have five contributing authors and coaches on the site. A sixth coach has agreed to join us but must travel from Brooklyn NY to join the team.
• We have over seventy people on the developing leader’s mailing list and growing daily.
• We have over 1000 hits on the site every day.
• We are growing in readership by 50% per month.
• We are page one of Google for at least five keyword phrases.

This journey to develop leaders without the hype has become something truly special and we thank you for your loyalty.

Future Topics

In the coming weeks we will be delving deeper into the world of leadership development. We will maintain our pledge to cut the crap and the hype only offering you practical leadership advice you can act upon. We are excited to say that Irene Becker will explore the concept of emotional intelligence. Logan Cashwell is working on a cool series of “meet the people” leaders. Doug Ross will write on one of our favorite topics integrity. I will continue the linked In question series’ as well as starting to explore the idea of motivation and employee engagement. Stay tuned!

If there is a specific topic you would like to learn about let us know, we are here to serve.

e-Book

In addition to this you can expect Developing Leaders first e-book in mid July. We are nearing publication on this important leadership coaching resource and are excited to share it with you. Stay tuned for prepublication specials.

Book Application

In early August we will conduct the first ever Developing Leaders book application study. This seven week experience will enable you to learn the secrets of employee engagement and motivation. When finished you will have the skills to create and sustain a high performance engaged work team.

Podcasts

We will continue to develop excellent podcasts for those of you who prefer to learn by listening over the coming months. Of course you can also count on the next Developing Leaders bi-monthly newsletter.

Finally give us some feedback on what you like, what you would like to see, how we can improve your experience here at develop a leader dot com.

On behalf of the Developing Leaders team

Ron Hurst

A couple days back I had planned to meet a good friend I had attended school with. We had not seen for several months so I was looking forward to meeting him. I showed up early, not wanting to send the wrong message. I was very excited to reconnect with this guy. The only thing was he was sitting at a Starbucks 2 miles down the street (the same street!).

How is it that two leaders could mix this up and end up at different locations waiting for the other? Is it because there are too many Starbucks? Is this a simple coincidence or something more fundamental?

Well knowing that both my friend and I have high value for communication both of us simultaneously checked our phones to ensure we had not made a mistake. He checked his calendar, while I called him. We quickly determined the problem. To say Starbucks on foothill in La Verne is simply not descriptive enough. You need another point of reference since there are two that fit without it.

I am happy to report that while both of us found ourselves wondering if we had screwed this meeting up, both of us passed the communication test embedded in the event. Neither of us assumed that we had communicated effectively We did not conclude that the other person had screwed this deal up. No we both understood that the true point of communication is whether the message had been received and understood by the other party.

A leader knows that communication is a core competence. Communication is about conveying meaning to others not about hearing yourself talk or writing a killer email. Communication is an elegantly simple concept that can be remarkably difficult to get right. Leaders practice their effectiveness in communicating every day.

Lead and communicate well

Ron

The author was a good friend and colleague Logan Cashwell. Logan and I attended school together a few years back where we studied leadership. I asked Logan if he would like to join our team here at Developing Leaders and he graciously agreed. So you can expect to see posts from him regularly on the site.

Logan brings a unique perspective to our team. He has a solid foundation and knowledge of leadership development and leadership training and all the while a great sense of humor. I for one am looking forward to having a partner in crime for the Developing Leaders podcast not to mention a more light hearted approach to articles about leadership.

Logan is in a sales role currently and as such has a front line perspective on the ways in which leadership and sales relate to one another. His post yesterday does an excellent job of capturing the similarity don’t you think.

So let’s give Logan a big Developing Leaders welcome and comment on his posts and interact with him here at the site.

Welcome Logan

Lead well

Ron

In 1998 I had the honor of sitting at center ice 18 rows up and watching my beloved Wings win the first game on the way to their tenth cup. Tonight I watched from my home in Southern California as the finished off another wonderful story book season. Different players, different coach, different competition, same outcome. This game is about passion and the team with the fire burning brighter inside is the victor. The team that forgets the name on the back of their own jersey and plays for all the names on the back of everyone else’s. That defines the winner

Hockey is a game for leaders. Not the flashy charismatic crap you see in other sports. No this is a game of hard working and often remarkably humble men who know how to honor their competition as they battle with a ferocity unmatched in other sports to beat them into submission. There is no room for pain, cuts, bruises broken bones,you play through if you can skate through, if you can shoot through.

Until now I have spared you all the wealth of hockey metaphors I could write about. This is a rich sport, one for the courageous, one for the persistent. It is a magnificent game. Tonight the first European born team captain lifted the cup, tonight a 16 year veteran lifted it for the first time, tonight a young man from a little known province became the first ever Newfoundlander to lift the cup.

It was a night of firsts a night of jubilation for my second home team.

Congratulations to my wings and all their fans. You deserve this one (number 11) hockeytown!

Go Wings

Ron

So with that said here are a few of my favorite sources for management content.

Several months ago on one of my favorite podcasts, the cranky middle manager, I listened to an interview of Wally Bock. Wally is a retired general from the US army and a very good management / leadership consultant. Wally’s Three Star leadership blog is one of my regular reads as is his newsletter.

On his site he provides real world advice to those of us trying to manage people every day. He writes from a get it done perspective not from theory. I particularly like his newsletters that offer sound advice within interesting eclectic stories.

While we are on the subject of management, I also want to share another favorite podcast. Manager Tools is arguably the best podcast for managers. I listen to this cast each week and come away better for it. Much of the advice I have received from this cast I have successfully integrated into my management style to great effect.

I am regularly blown away by the fact that the content is free. The value is so high here that it boggles the mind seriously. The podcast is run by two guys Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne. Both have extensive experience in management and consulting. They have an ease of conveying information from their own experience that is unmatched. Put simply if you had time to listen to only one source for management coaching, choose this one. It is that good.

Late Add on!

Hey everyone I got some feedback from my buddy Wayne over at the Cranky Middle Manager and true to form he offered a bit of constructive feedback. I highly recommend that you listen to his podcast as well (I thought this was implied but better a shameless plug for a friend). Wayne does an excellent job of reading books on leadership, project management, and other topics and then interviewing the authors of what he reads on his show. He asks the kinds of questions that you want answered so check his show out as well at the cranky middle manager ;-)

Manage well

Ron

One of the more common advertising techniques is to answer other peoples questions on the answers tab. We were amazed at the number of leadership coaches / consultants that responded to the question. There is a right way to do this and a cheezy way to do this. You can offer value and actually answer the persons question knowing that the quality of answer will start a high quality dialogue. Alternatively you can talk in generalities and offer your website as the source to be investigated for further answers read paid answers. Those who follow the bloggers code of giving away value in the discussion obviously choose door number one. Either way it is a fun exercise to see how others try to mask their intentions.

So lets just say that there were a number of cryptic responses to the leadership development question that will not be specifically credited here as they did not want to offer you value unless we paid them to do so. So we had recommendations to use a coach… Isn’t that what this site is all about (again with the blank stare and dumbfounded look)

Well if you need a coach here we are

lead well

Wired for sound

Okay so in the coming weeks look for some audio files on leadership development, leadership training and interviews of real life leaders. In the mean time check out the Audio file tab for important information about the site.

Lead well

Ron

Saturday the Naval Academy beat Notre Dame for the first time since the 1960’s, a 43 year record. I chuckled while in triple over time Notre Dame unsuccessfully tried to run the ball on a two point conversion try. In case you are wondering my Division III school doesn’t hit the Saturday radar. I love the University of Michigan. Go Blue (beat the Division II Schools!!!!)

Great for Navy, not so great for Notre Dame. Why do I mention this game in a blog dedicated to leadership development? Has it got to do with Navy leadership development? No. Actually I have a different point to make. Leadership development takes time and experience, real life experience. When the current coach of Notre Dame, Charlie Weiss, took over in 2004, he inherited a team built on the vision of the previous coach, Tyrone Willingham. They did rather well the next year going 9-2 then 10-2 the year after. The impact of their current coach was not felt completely until at least two years in. By that time, it was his systems, his recruits his philosophy of leadership. Result? 2007 record 1-8 so far. Mr. Weiss is a very good coach and I am sure he will turn this around. The point is easy to make though that leadership development, like building a football team takes time.

Lead well

Ron