Tag Archives: Leadership

Are You Willing to Make the Choice?

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Most of us want to be part of a “great” organization – if we are the owner, we want it to be a great organization.  Often times when we do encounter a great organization we think that they were just at the right place at the right time of in other words, lucky. The reason our organization is not great is because we weren’t so lucky.

According to Jim Collins in Great by Choice - that argument is not valid based on their research of over six thousand years of corporate history.  He contends the following:

“. . .greatness is not primarily a matter of circumstance; greatness is first and foremost a matter of conscious choice and discipline. The factors that determine whether or not a company becomes truly great, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, lie largely within the hands of its people. It is not mainly a matter of what happens to them but a matter of what they create, what they do, and how well they do it.”

It is a choice to be great and the discipline required to be so.  It is a choice to set high standards – to not compromise and the willingness to act in a disciplined manner.  This is hard work and requires making difficult choices.  The bottom line is that a great organization is achievable – if you choose it and are willing to work to make it so.

What is your choice?
BG

Encouraging the Heart

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Good morning to you.  

As a leader you are, or should be, a dealer in hope.  Actually that should be fairly easy as we serve the One who is our Hope.  However, I am afraid that at times I lose sight of that fact in the midst of busyness.  We of all people should be brimming over with hope.

James Kouzes and Barry Posner in their excellent book Encouraging the Heart make the following statement:

“Encouraging the Heart is ultimately about keeping hope alive. Leaders keep hope alive when they set high standards and genuinely express optimism about an individual’s capacity to achieve them. They keep hope alive when they give feedback and publicly recognize a job well done. They keep hope alive when they give their constituents the internal support that all human beings need to feel that they and their work are important and have meaning. They keep hope alive when they train and coach people to exceed their current capacities. Most important, leaders keep hope alive when they set an example. There really is nothing more encouraging than to see our leaders practice what they preach.”

So are you keeping hope alive in those that you lead?  Including your family?

Have a great day!.
BG

The Kernel of Good Strategy

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Good morning!

Yesterday we talked some about the four signs of bad strategy.  Today, let’s talk about the three things that make up the “kernel” of good strategy according to Richard Rumelt in his book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy.

1. A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical. You are essentially asking “What’s going on here?”. It is a judgement about the meaning of a set of facts.

2. A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. Good guiding policies are not goals or visions or images of desirable end states. Rather, they define a method of grappling with the situation and ruling out a vast array of possible actions.

3. A set of coherent actionsthat are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy. The actions within the kernel of strategy should be coherent. That is, the resource deployments, policies, and maneuvers that are undertaken should be consistent and coordinated.

The “kernel” is not the totality of the strategic plan, but it is the core.  Without the kernel the plan is in trouble.

Have a blessed day today!  Headed out with my boss today to meet with another organization to talk about CEO coaching – ought to be interesting!

BG

Rumelt, Richard (2011-07-19). Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (p. 77). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Being Quiet Amidst All the Talking

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In the US, we love the large personality - we see the gregarious person as the ideal.  We see them as smarter and more successful while seeing the quiet person as less smart, less successful.  We equate the ability to talk fast and to talk well with success.  The quiet people we often ignore.

The problem is that by not valuing those quiet people, we lose so much.  We miss great ideas by out talking the quiet ones or think they don’t have any ideas simply because they are not talking excitedly.

In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins points out that ALL of the CEO’s of the great companies were quiet men who led from behind the scenes and were humble, but with intense will. In her book Quiet, Susan Cain illustrates how much we lose when we fail to tap into the quiet people in our organizations.

Pay attention to the quiet people in your organization, they have something to say – if you give them the chance to say it.  If you don’t, both you and your organization will lose.

BG

Show Horse or Plow Horse?

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Which one are you? Are you a “show horse” or a “plow horse”?

Our society clearly prefers the show horse, the person that has the outsized personality, the person that has loads of charisma and talks easily.

However, Jim Collins in his book Good to Great, points out that in the great companies, the CEO’s all had a charisma “bypass”. They were all “plow horses” content for others to get the recognition, while they stayed in the background plowing away. They were quick to take the blame when things went wrong and give away praise when things went well. They also were diligent – hard workers that stayed focused. Through their intense humility and tremendous will they built great organizations.

Popular culture elevates the show horse, but it is the plow horse that gets it done. So if you, like me, have had a “charisma bypass” don’t fret. Just keep on plowing and you will make a difference!

Blessings on your day,
BG

Something is Out of Whack

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Why don’t we really take care of our people?

Yesterday, I posted a Ken Blanchard video about the leadership approach at Southwest Airlines.  They are tremendously successful in an industry that is notorious for poor performance  – one key aspect is their deep care for their employees.  Jim Collins in his his book Good to Great talks about the importance of your people and how the great companies truly care for their staff.  Monday night, I talked with my class about a book by a CEO of a $2.5 billion company with 55,000 employees worldwide whose motto is “employees first, customers second” and has seen remarkable growth with that approach.  Story after story of the truly great organizations center around the care of the people that make up that organization.

Yet, it is sad to say, that in many of our churches and ministries, there is significantly less care and love for the staff than there is in these “secular” for-profit companies.  Why is it sometimes safer to be an employee of a large corporation where they do a better job of caring for their people than it is to serve at your local church or ministry? It seems a college football coach has greater job security than the senior pastor of a local church.

Sometimes it appears that the forward thinking organizations have adopted Biblical models of leadership and thriving while so many churches and ministries are mired in the some of the old discredited “business thinking” models of past decades.  Does that seem a little out of whack to you?

Somehow, we need to recapture the biblical model of leadership and care for our staffs within churches and ministries and once again begin setting the standard for how the rest of the world needs to lead and care for their employees.

Just a thought.

BG

BE – The First Word in Leadership

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The first thing I want to do today is thank the Lord for the protection of my daughters. They were driving Saturday and hit a patch of ice and began sliding with no control of the car. They stopped one foot from a traffic sign that was just a couple of feet from a steep drop-off of about 20 feet or more. So glad they are safe!

The most important aspect of leadership is not what you know, not your skill set, or who you know. The most important aspect of leadership is WHO you are. In the Army’s leadership model, it is the BE of , BE-KNOW-DO.

In the book, BE-KNOW-DO, Leadership the Army Way, the author quotes General of the Army George C. Marshall speaking to officer candidates on the eve of World War II. “When you are commanding, leading [soldiers] under conditions where physical exhaustion and privations must be ignored, where the lives of [soldiers] may be sacrificed, then the efficiency of your leadership will depend only to a minor degree on your tactical ability. It will primarily be determined by your character, your reputation, not so much for courage – which will be accepted as a matter of course – but by the previous reputation you have established for fairness, for that high-minded patriotic purpose, that  quality of unswerving determination to carry through any military task assigned to you.”

We often read books, go to seminars, and attend training classes to become better leaders, when what we really need to focus on is what it means to BE a leader. To focus on the development of our character, to grow as a person. As has been often said, leadership is not a vocation, it is a way of life.

How are you intentionally growing in the BE aspect of leadership?

Have a great week!
BG

Be-Know-Do, The Army’s Leadership Model

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The following is one of my favorite posts from 2011.  Thought it was appropriate to share with you one more time.  Hope you have a great weekend!

Being a former Army officer, the Army holds a special place in my heart.  Additionally, they have been the premier leadership training organization in our country for the last couple of centuries.

The Army has a simple, but profound model for leadership:  Be – Know – Do.

By the way, the Leader to Leader Institute (Peter Drucker) has published a great book on this called BE-KNOW-DO, Leadership The Army Way.

The model is simply this:

BE – this is all about your character as a leader and is foundational to your ability to lead.  It gives you the courage to do what is right regardless of the circumstances or the consequences.  As part of BE, you should be aware of your personal core values as well as your organization’s values.  For the Army, their values are:

  • Loyalty
  • Duty
  • Respect
  • Selfless Service
  • Honor
  • Integrity
  • Personal Courage

KNOW – This is about the knowledge and skill sets you need to be competent as a leader and cover four areas:

  1. Interpersonal skills
  2. Conceptual skills
  3. Technical skills
  4. Tactical skills

Your mastery of the knowledge and skills required for your role are essential to the success of your organization.

DO – Leaders act. They bring together everything they are, everything they believe, and everything they know how to do to provide purpose, direction, and motivation.  This involves the following three leader actions:

  1. Influencing
  2. Operating
  3. Improving

For me, it’s a great model of leadership.  You can either order an actual copy of The U.S. Army Leadership Field Manual or the book on the model, BE-KNOW-DO, Leadership The Army Way.

Hope you have a blessed day serving those the Lord has given you to shepherd at your place of work.

BG

A Smart Leader vs. A Wise Leader

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Read something this morning about the difference between a smart leader vs. a wise leader.  A smart leader is one who makes New Year’s resolutions, develops plans, sets goals, sets regular milestones and carefully charts their progress against those goals and milestones.

Wise leaders on the other hand root themselves in a noble cause, align it with a compelling vision and then take action.

Are you invested deeply in something that is noble and far beyond yourself?  Are you investing your life in something that will impact the community around you?  Are you making a difference?

Don’t just make plans and set goals – take action and make a difference.

Blessings on your day!
BG