I'm in Orange County this week at a leadership seminar led by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. I have been sensing that as The Water's Edge grows my leadership needs to grow as well. I sometimes feel I'm in over my head and I want what is best for the church, the community, and my family. I thought I would share with you some of the things I have been learning. This stuff is relevant for pastors, coaches, parents, teachers, business, non-profits, and education. About 40 of us are participating and are from all walks of life.
Their first session yesterday was on Character and Leadership.
 |
| An early morning run through Orange County |
Three ingredients of
success
1. Competence
Competence is a collection of a person skills, training, and
intelligence.
2. Alliances
Success doesn’t happen in isolation, but in community when
alliances are built with other competent people.
3. Character
Their understanding of character is not honesty which is
avoiding things like lying, stealing, and cheating (although they are not
advocates of such things). Rather, character is dealing with interpersonal
issues that are holding us back.
Many competent, deal-makers exist.
Character is the ability to meet the demands of reality.
Six Components of Character
1. Connecting People
Great leaders create organizations full of connected people.
People in these organizations know others in the organization care about them.
Connection between the leader and the people in the
organization doesn’t happen when the leader understands the people. Connection
between the leader and the people in the organization happens when the people
understand that the leader understands them.
2. Orienting Yourself
Toward Reality
Great leaders ask the right questions and search hard for
answers to identify the organization’s current reality.
Examples of questions are:
What is our current reality?
What are our blind spots?
What are our biggest internal and external challenges and
opportunities?
A great leader is always asking another question:
What don’t I know about my organization that I need to learn
about my organization?
Great leaders make a pledge to love every idea for at least
60 seconds.
3. Moving Vision into
Reality
The best leaders are good losers willing to give necessary
endings to attachments and lesser things. This is about stewardship of
resources and energy as well as focus.
The worst leadership trait is hope once you and most
everybody else knows you are going down the wrong.
Great leaders focus on high potential areas of an
organization.
4. Dealing with
Problems
Great leaders move toward responding to negative realities.
Poor leaders move away from responding to negative
realities.
Great leaders get rid of cracks in their make-up that
prevents them from dealing with problems.
5. Growing
Great leaders should have moments everyday when they are
scared.
Fear isn’t bad. Fear is necessary for growth.
Fear of fear is bad.
Fear leads to two responses:
1. The healthy response is that fear is motivating and
pushes the leader and organization forward.
2. The unhealthy response is that fear puts the brakes on
and stops the creation of a preferred future.
A healthy response to fear is:
1. Feel it – own it
2. Ignore the fear
3. Move forward
3. Move forward
The above graph is profound. If our challenges far exceed our abilities we will be overwhelmed. If our abilities are greater than our challenges we will feel bored. We are in the zone when our abilities and our challenges are about the same. As our abilities grow our challenges can grow as well. Or as our challenges grow, our ability needs to grow.
6. Transcending
Great leaders know that their organizations are bigger than
them.
A great leader doesn’t ask: What is best for me today?
A great leader asks: What is best for the common-good in the
future?
Great leaders are rooted in faith, employees, volunteers,
customers, mission, etc…
No comments:
Post a Comment