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Leadership
guru Warren Bennis once observed, "Good
leaders make people feel that they're at
the very heart of things, not at the periphery.
Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference
to the success of the organization. When
that happens people feel centered and that
gives their work meaning."
The
old saying "It's lonely at the top"
isn't a commentary on great leaders. Effective
leadership involves being with people --
preparing and training them, encouraging
them, and helping them to feel they are
part of a great effort.
As
Christian leaders, this has particular relevance
for us. We recognize that God does not need
us to accomplish His purposes, but in His
grace He has offered us the opportunity
to be engaged in Kingdom work. How can we
do anything less for those with whom we
serve?
Michael
Duduit, Editor
michael@leaderlinks.com
www.michaelduduit.com
Please
forward your copy of LeadingNow
to friends and colleagues who are also interested
in Christian leadership issues. Thanks for
your help in leading others to LeadingNow!
Harvey
Mackay on Time Management
In
an article on his website, business leader
and best-selling author Harvey Mackay talks
about the urgency of setting your own time
priorities: "Decide what your priorities
are and how much time you'll spend on them.
If you don't, someone else will decide for
you . . . Do you really want to spend your
time working on other people's priorities?
"As
Benjamin Franklin said, 'If we take care
of the minutes, the years will take care
of themselves.' Good time management is
taking care of the things that matter most
to us first . . .
"My
friend Lou Holtz has a great formula: W.I.N.
-- What's Important Now? Use some of your
precious time to figure out what's important
in your life and you will win." (Harvey's
newest book is We Got Fired . . . and
It's the Best Thing That Ever Happened to
Us; Click
here to learn more about the book.)
Lincoln
as Leader
In
the July 4, 2005 edition of Time
magazine, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin
suggests some of the characteristics that
made Abraham Lincoln such an effective leader.
They include:
Empathy.
Lincoln had "the gift of putting himself
in the place of others, to experience what
they were feeling, to understand their motives
and desires."
Humor.
"Lincoln possessed a remarkable sense
of humor and a gift for storytelling that
allowed him, time and again, to defuse tensions
and relax his colleagues at difficult moments."
Magnanimity.
"He refused to bear grudges or pay
people back for previous hurts. While his
colleagues tended to let things fester and
brooded over perceived slights, he argued
that 'no man resolved to make the most of
himself has time to waste on personal contention.'"
Generosity
of Spirit. "Colleagues of Lincoln
were grateful when he shared credit for
successes. . . . Above all, he was quick
to concede error."
Self-Control.
"When angry at someone, Lincoln would
occasionally write a hot letter, but then
would invariably put it aside until he had
cooled down, at which point he no longer
needed to send it. . . . There were times
when Lincoln lost his temper, but then he
would promptly follow up with a kind gesture."
A
Sense of Balance. "In contrast
to most of his colleagues who worked themselves
to the point of exhaustion, Lincoln understood
the importance of finding ways to relax."
A
Social Conscience. "Lincoln's ambition
was never simply for office or power, but
rather to accomplish something worthy that
would stand the test of time, that would
allow his story to be told after he died."
Vision
builds champions
In
an article in the July-August issue of Leader
Links (adapted from his book
It's All About Service), Ray Pelletier
writes, "Backdraft was a great
movie -- very visual, very exciting. And
a central focus was the firefighters who
were constantly being called in to put out
massive blazes.
"It
is sad but true that 80 percent of the organizations
that I work with are terrific firefighters.
They are very, very good at putting out
fires. The trouble is, they're not very
good about operating their business. Because
all they do is put out fires and respond
to crises, they're distracted from what
they actually should be doing to build their
business into a champion. And that's where
vision comes into play.
"There's
another way to gain the perspective of vision
and what it truly means. Stephen Covey wrote
an extraordinary book called Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People (New York:
Free Press, 1990). One of the keepers that
I found from his book is that most people
spend the majority of their time concentrating
on urgent issues. This is true of most organizations
that I visit. They're not working on the
important things like vision and a mission
for them to execute. They're like Elmer
Fudd and the firefighters from Backdraft
-- dealing with urgent issues, but never
addressing the really important issues.
And, to develop championship customer service,
you need to turn that around!
"Wayne
Gretzky had it right when it came to vision.
The Great One said the reason he was so
successful is that he never skated to where
the puck was. He skated to where the puck
was going to be." (Click
here to learn more about the book It's
All About Service.)
Colin
Powell: Leaders create trust
In
a recent edition of Denny Hatch's Business
Common Sense Newsletter, he talked about
a recent speech Colin Powell made on leadership
(click
here to read the full article):
"On
the morning of General Powell's first day
at State, his wife, Alma, reminded him at
breakfast that he was not in the Army. 'Don't
treat them like a bunch of soldiers.'
"Yes,
dear."
"When
he walked into the lobby of the State Department
and was greeted by 800 of his new colleagues,
he stepped up to the microphone and blurted
out, 'Good morning, troops!'
"'Troops
are troops,' Powell said. He was the State
Department's new leader, and he knew about
leadership. 'Leadership is a value-based
sense of mission. It is selfless service.
It is taking care of the people who get
the job done.'
"When
he was lieutenant at Fort Benning, Ga.,
a first sergeant said to him, 'Lieutenant,
let me tell you the definition of a good
leader.'
"Powell
waited in anticipation. 'A good leader is
someone who will be followed, if only out
of curiosity.'
"Powell
thought about that, and it made sense. A
leader's job is to create trust and convey
trust. A leader must walk the walk and give
his troops the training and the tools."
http://napco.com/enewsletters/stories/commonsense/commonsense/283812969336666.html
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From
this month's Leader Links
In
an excerpt from their new book The
Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham
(Zondervan), Harold Myra and Marshall
Shelley observe, "As a middle
manager was receiving a promotion,
his vice president cryptically said,
'You know what being promoted means,
don't you? It means your bad decisions
do more damage.'
"Our
having positions of influence means
more opportunity to do good. But it
also means that the costs are higher
for failure. No one likes to fail,
especially leaders, whose failures
produce magnified consequences. Our
errors of judgment, and our failures
of nerve or vision, affect not just
ourselves but also our followers and
our cause. Clearly, failure is nothing
to take lightly.
"Yet
as ski instructors frequently tell
their novice students, 'If you don't
fall now and then, you're probably
not pushing yourself enough.'
"Failure
is the inevitable companion of a large
vision. No one can take on a significant
and difficult challenge without stumbling
a few times. The important thing is
how we respond. The goal is not a
fail-safe record but a pattern of
increasing effectiveness.
"David
Aikman, analyzing great individuals
who shaped the twentieth century,
said it well: 'Virtue, after all,
often consists not so much in the
absence of fault altogether as in
the speed and grace with which fault
is recognized and corrected.' (Click
here to learn more about the book
The Leadership Secrets of Billy
Graham)
Read
this and other helpful leadership
articles at www.leaderlinks.com.
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In
case you missed last month's Leader Links:
~
John Wooden wrote, "Initiative is having
the courage to make decisions and take action.
People with initiative will act when action
is needed. People with initiative use all
the information that they've previously
acquired in regards to any particular situation,
and they act with self-control. People with
initiative move forward without fear of
failure, even though they might make mistakes
or fail." (Click
here to read the complete article)
~
In an article with author and former executive
recruiter Regi Campbell, he noted, "I
think evangelism in the traditional terminology
is less effective than it's ever been but
I think a committed Christian -- who is
living an authentic life with a genuine
personal relationship with Christ -- sticks
out more like a sore thumb than they ever
have. Those people are like magnets in the
workplace." (Click
here to read the full interview.)
~
In an article on changing your church's
culture, Robert Lewis and Wayne Cordeiro
observe, "When we talk about making
a culture shift, we are talking about changing
the default. To take an example, on most
computers the default font size is 12 point.
If you prefer generally to read print that's
a little larger, say 14 point, then you
have to permanently modify the default setting.
If you change it just for the document you're
working on now, then the next time you use
the computer, bling! It's back to 12 point
again.
"Culture
shift is a lot like that. You try to instill
a new program in your church, and you think
you've succeeded, and then the next week
-- bling! -- everything has reverted to
the way it was. If this happens week after
week after week, you have not really shifted
the culture at all. You need to find the
cultural default . . . and reset it by doing
hard work that involves not just you but
other church leaders, and ultimately everyone
in the congregation. Over a period of time,
this culture shift occurs, and a new day
will dawn." (Click
here to read the complete article.)
Remember
that you can always check articles and interviews
from past issues at the Leader
Links archives. Just go to www.leaderlinks.com
and click on the Archives link.
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