Entries Tagged 'Leadership' ↓

Is there a prescriptive recipe for success? Is there a pattern to follow that will assure the big win?

Yes, there is. John Wooden’s offers his Pyramid of Success as prescriptive guidance for success.

by varshesh

"Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable"  - John Wooden.

I used John Wooden pyramid as self test, an assessment. I tried to assess myself whether I follow proven practices for success or not. For each topic I’ve identified post I’ve published that relate. Assess yourself too. Are you on track?

Foundation

• Industriousness

"Success travels in the company of very hard work. There is no trick, no easy way".

• Want To Achieve Results? Push Yourself Out Of Comfort Zone

• Friendship

"Strive to build a team filled with camaraderie and respect comrades-in-arms"

• Build A Tag Team

• Loyalty

"Be true to yourself. Be true to those you lead."

• My Values And Their Salary

• Cooperation

"Have utmost concern what’s right rather than who’s right"

• Responsible For Dream Fulfillment

• Enthusiasm

"Your energy and enjoyment, drive and dedication will stimulate and greatly inspire others"

• Conclude The Day With Positive Reflection

Second Level

• Self-Control

"Control of your organization begins with control of yourself. Be disciplined."

• Emotional Intelligence - Core Skills
• Plan Ahead Or Plan Your Back Up Plan
• Emotional Intelligence - Higher Order Skills
• Life Architecture For Personal Achievement

• Alertness

"Constantly be aware and observing. Always seek to improve yourself and the team."

• Get Criticized - The More The Better

• Initiative

"Make a decision! Failure to act is often the biggest failure of all."

• The Mindset Of Failure
• Motivated By Failure

• Intentness

"Stay the course. When thwarted try again; harder, smarter. Persevere relentlessly"

• Find Your Strengths, Know Your Life Purpose

Third Level

• Condition

"Ability may get you to the top, but character keeps you there - mental, moral, and physical"

• 4 Dimensions Of Personal Power

• Skill

"What a leader learns after you’ve learned it all counts most of all."

• Personal Development Lifecycle
• Experience Is The Most Valuable Product

• Team Spirit

"The star of the team is the team ‘We’ supersedes ‘me’."

• You Have Built A Team, Now What?

Forth Level

• Poise

"Be yourself. Don’t be thrown off be events whether good or bad."

• Do Not Kiss Corporate Life Goodbye
• One, Two , Three - Is This Manager For Me?
• About me

• Confidence

"The strongest steel is well-founded self-belief. It is earned, not given."

• 3 Easy Steps To Become A Superhero
• Duck Or Eagle

Peak

• Competitive Greatness

"Perform at your best when your best is required. Your best is required each day."

• Personal Performance Engineering Practices
• Learning Capability Is Your Core Competitive Advantage

Is “leadership” applicable only in sports or corporate world? How do you become a leader for your kids? How do you lead them to become a better person, a better citizen, a better worker, a better leader?

Same rules apply.

by Swaity

I’ve been looking at John Wooden’s 12 lessons in leadership. It made a lot of sense for me to apply it in my personal life with my kids:

1. Good Values Attract Good People. What values do you teach your kid? 
2. Love Is The Most Powerful Four-Letter Word. Do you show your kid your love?
3. Call Yourself A Teacher. What have you taught your kids lately? 
4. Emotion Is Your Enemy. Keep cool, do not yell at your kids, they explore the world’s limits including yours. 
5. It Takes 10 hands To Make A Basket. What family tasks your kids is assigned to do? Is your kid a team player?
6. Little Things Make Big Things Happen. Do not constantly preach, show how to do things, small things.
7. Make Each Day Your Masterpiece. Read this least each morning. 
8. The Carrot Is Mightier Than A Stick. My kids taught me that. Not John. 
9. Make Greatness Attainable By All. Reward every even smallest achievements, make them hungry for bigger ones. 
10. Seek Significant Change. Self explanatory I guess…
11. Don’t Look At The Scoreboard. Enjoy the process.  
12. Adversity Is Your Asset. You kid is different from you. Do not break your kid to be like you. Learn from your kid to grow yourself.

I continued researching John Wooden web site and then I’ve noticed books section where I’ve spotted this one - Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success. This is next one to appear on my Must Read Books list very soon.

This post is inspired by short conversation I had with Vered over my previous post You Have Built A Team, Now What?

You got your Tag team of Superheroes that shares common Values, you’ve set the Goal, you’ve got The Most Valuable Product to sell. Now what?

You pass the ball to the team and watch the game.

by medium as muse

Pass the ball

I want to be a leader. Leadership cannot be assigned, it only can be earned. How do you earn your leadership? Here is how John C. Maxwell defines it in his The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You  book:

Here is my favorite leadership proverb: “He who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.” If you can’t influence others, they won’t follow you. And if they won’t follow, you’re not a leader. That the Law of Influence. No matter what anybody else tells you, remember that leadership is influence - nothing more, nothing less.

So influence is the thing… how do you influence on your team members? You bark orders? You create their own space and let them realize themselves, while keeping in mind shared Values and striving to achieve common Goals. I liked how Tim Ferriss’ gives an example for it in his The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich book:

This intentional absence has enabled him to create a process-driven instead of founder-driven business. Limiting contact with managers forces the entrepreneur to develop operational rules that enable others to deal with problems themselves instead of calling for help.

When the game is over

How do you know that the game is over? The game is over is when the team does not need you any more. Here are the situations I witnessed:

• The team operates on its own, the team members become an Eagles, they just win the game time after time. They need another leadership or another leader to take them even further.
• You lost the game. How do you know you lost it? I like Collin Powell’s take:

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

Win the game

• Let them play, let them fail, let them win.
• Watch the game.
• Help the team members realize themselves - do not solve their problems, help them find the solution themselves.
• Know when to move in, move on, move out.

Are you winning the game?

• How do you keep up with the exponentially growing pace of our time?
• How do you cope with tons of information in interconnected, interdependent flat world?
• How to overcome the failure of hierarchical organization structures (search “Knowledge Worker Age” on the page)?

You continuously learn.

by lexdenn

These three questions are the core reasons that make learning a core capability according to Peter M. Senge and his book titled The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization.

Keep up with the exponentially growing pace

Set your own pace. Find Your Strengths, Know Your Life Purpose. Build an architecture of your own life. Develop yourself iteratively and in cycles.

Cope with information in interconnected world?

Paradoxically, I started to read more lately. I mean I started to read books. Yes, I am ashamed I never did it before. Here is the list of books I have read recently:

1. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
3. The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich
4. Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach To Customer Service
5. Married to the Brand: Why Consumers Bond with Some Brands for Life
6. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
7. The Leadership Pill: The Missing Ingredient in Motivating People Today
8. The Handbook of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: Inspiring Others to Achieve Results
9. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal
10. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization
11. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Ok, this one I read few years ago)
12. Overachievement: The New Model for Exceptional Performance
13. 45 EFFECTIVE WAYS FOR HIRING SMART: How to Predict Winners and Losers in the Incredibly Expensive People-Reading Game
14. The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
15. The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking

Reading books is time consuming. The following resources and techniques are much more effective and efficient for me:

• “Read” audio books utilizing drive time.
• Regularly read JD’s The Book Share where he distills gold nuggets from the books he reads. And he reads a lots of books.
• Subscribe to www.getAbstract.com/.
• Practice ninja techniques for RSS consumption. Readers do not read the Web - they scan the Web. This might be a good tip for bloggers to publish more readable or should I say scannable blogs with eyes friendly and effective layout.
• Never read in depth emails with knowledge nuggets, store it in dedicated folder for further re-use.

I am also regular reader of Mike King’s Learn This blog were he passionately shares new stuff he learns.

Consider adapting software performance engineering practices to day-to-day life. Here is an example how caching can improve your response times - The Fast And The Peaceful.

Overcome the failure of hierarchical organization

Find organization that resonates with your values. Speak your manager’s language and then Manage Your Manager For Fun And For Profit. Check periodically asking yourself One, Two , Three - Is This Manager For Me? Offer your work echo-system best Experience you can offer. There is no reports and managers. There are team members that are responsible for each one’s part. Build A Tag Team. Become a superhero, it is easy.

Footnote

“There are no mistakes in life, there are only lessons to be learned: Advice to the Youth.” - Mark Twain

Have a look at one of the most viewed videos to learn more. It might make you decide to start learning differently - Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age

Are you part of a team? How do you build a tag team? How to achieve flawless execution of each member and the whole team?

by Karpfish

Here is my take

• Plan Ahead Or Plan Your Back Up Plan.
• Hire potential, not skills.
• Commit on shared values.
• Build vulnerability-based Trust in Your Teams.
• Each member is an Eagle, not a Duck.
• Share knowledge and opportunities.
• Practice Emotional Intelligence Core and High Order Skills.
• Grow Quality - Not Quantity
• Personal accountability is key.
• Provide and ask for contionous feedback.

“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.” - Henry Ford

Stomp Out Loud is my vision for how tag team should look like.