29. Leaders never get caught fighting the last war. Leaders see around corners. They have the ability to take seemingly random bits of information, to take interactions in the world around them and build from these a picture in their intuition of what the future can hold, should hold. Then they look for evidence to support their point of view. Then they jump into action to make the future a better more effective place. They do not get caught making a last stand. How could they? They saw it coming and adjusted their strategy to move in a new direction. This is not easy but is the realm of leaders. Challenge: Practice seeing around corners…Take ten pieces of new and random information. Imagine patterns in the data. Come up with a common theme then create a story to connect them all.
28. Leaders don’t fall prey to their own success.A leader is someone who almost never “arrives” They cannot truly “make it” because there is another hill to take, another change to make, another rule to break. ;-)It is one thing to recognize you are successful but leaders recognize that success as a leader is achieved through one team. Taking credit for this (a necessary prerequisite to concluding you have arrived) is asinine. No real leaders stay humble and often are so busy with the next challenge they often forget to stop and enjoy the moment of success.Challenge: When you achieve your next goal take a moment to celebrate with your team. Buy a round of coffee’s, pastries anything and enjoy the moment. Be sure to give them the credit that is due, take none for yourself.
27. Leaders love rainbows — for totally pragmatic reasons.Group think. Ever heard of it? I wrote a while back about a Fed EX ground video that I love. It is essentially the story of what can happen when a group gets too tight and clique-ish or when everyone just agrees with the boss. Either way you end up with a less than effective team. No, do not fall victim to the disease of surrounding yourself with people just like you. It is seriously bad for business. My guess is that if you are like most other organizations you already don’t spend enough time looking at the external environment. A lack of diverse opinions on your team is a very real risk to your ability to make wise decisions that consider multiple points of view. Challenge: Think back to the last time someone on your team actually disagreed with you. What was the source of the disagreement? Was it values related, strategy, tactics? Did you know where they were coming from or did they make no sense to you in a frustrating way?
26. Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders. YES YES YES they do! This is the core of what they do! Challenge: Who are you developing as a leader right now? If you are not why not?!
25. Leaders have taste.
Yeah I’m not so sure about this one. Sure leaders have taste so do many other individuals. I just do not believe this is a defining characteristic of a leader. Perhaps from a follower point of view it could be said that they do but for me looking at other leaders I am not sure I have noticed that all leaders have taste.
Now I do believe that leaders have a sense of the aesthetic as well as an ability to see what will work for others in a social exchange. I think this comes from a deep seated understanding of human nature and human interaction
Challenge: Post a comment on this article. Do leaders have taste or not?
Posted in leadership
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Tagged challenge, taste
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24. Leaders also know when to challenge design specs.
Okay so this one is obvious if we continue on from the last post. There is always a leader a level or two up that sets the design spec for you. As a leader if something in the spec does not make sense it is your responsibility to challenge it. It does not matter if this is a point of culture, process or even a product feature. A leader will challenge that which makes no sense to him.
The real key here lies in how the challenge takes place. An open challenge saying this is insane stupid etc. is suicide and not the choice of a leader. No leaders practice something more effective. Peter Senge in his book The Fifth Discipline (a great read by the way) discusses a technique called inquiry and advocacy. This is a process of balancing the use of probing questions for understanding with the argument of a contrasting point of view. Knowing which to use when and in what quantity is a critical tool of a leader when they challenge others.
Challenge: Borrow or buy The Fifth Discipline and read about advocacy and inquiry. Then chose a relatively inconsequential difference you have with a friend and use the technique to see if through the tool you can convince them of the merits of your point of view while understanding theirs at a deeper level.
23. Leaders set design specs.
When I first saw this rule I thought what the heck is Peters talking about here?! I thought we were talking about leadership not engineering or architecture. Then it struck me this rule is more about team culture and “the how” a team achieves the goal. Certainly a leader has a significant say in the final design of a product etc. that is surely important. What is critical is that they manage “the how”
Their actions, words and behaviors set the tone for the enterprise. They personify the culture and how the work gets done. If people have fun it can inevitably be related back to the leader having fun, if everyone walks around like they just left a funeral visitation you will undoubtedly see a somber serious leader with little affect.
Challenge: Go watch the first practice of a sports team preferably a recreational league. See who emerges as the groups early leader. See how they behave and how the rest of the group tends to adapt their behaviors to match. Alternatively join a project team as a team member and watch how the group leaders behaviors get adopted over time.
Posted in leadership
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Tagged culture, tone
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22. Leaders can laugh.
At themselves. One of the aspects of a mature seasoned leader is confidence. Confidence is an interesting thing, when you have it you know when to take yourself seriously and when to realize you are being ridiculous. Being able to laugh at yourself is one of the best ways to build trust with a team. It provides an opportunity to expose a weakness in a healthy and constructive way. Try it out sometime.
Then there is the other side of humor. Have you ever gotten so intense that things just don’t seem funny at all. Perhaps its stress, or focus or something else but the world becomes a place where you work hard at achieving the next objective. Someone might give you friendly advice to stop and smell the roses and all you want to do is snarl at them and get back to work. Ever felt that way? I find the best medicine for this condition is to laugh hard. Laugh so hard your face hurts.
Challenge: Attend a comedy show at a local venue. It really doesn’t matter who it is or what they are talking about just go and laugh hard. Be careful though some comedy show humor can be extremely vulgar.
21. Leaders love to work with other leaders.
The other day I met a guy who was in charge of a large corporation. I knew from the minute he opened his mouth to talk I was going to like working with him. He was a leader. Not because of his title or position but rather he had a passion for learning about leadership and about great historical leaders. In fact we talked about the lessons learned from Abraham Lincoln for quite a while. The time slipped past faster than a two minute drill in the NFL with no time outs remaining.
Why?
Other leaders get it. We speak differently; we think differently; we see the world differently. The future is almost a reality to us. People (non-leaders) rarely get this. They call it vision, intuition. They call us nuts sometimes. But other leaders get it. Its like being able to speak to another person without the need of an interpreter for the very first time.
Challenge:Go find yourself a strong leader in a group that you do not normally interact with. Talk to them about what their goals are, where they are headed with their team. See how much you love talking to them
20. Leaders make mistakes — and make no bones about it.
Yes they do and they do not like to make them. Ultimately they realize that making mistakes is a prerequisite of learning. Learning is at the very core of effective leadership. So a great leader gets over his ego quickly and goes into the learning process. I wrote two articles on this subject. One was a while back and can be found on my other blog material leadership. The other is in the email coaching series that is given to you when you sign up for the mailing list here on the site.
Challenge: Read the two articles on making mistakes and follow the process advice given there. Of course you will have to sign up for the mailing list for #2.
