Lead On Level Ground

How does it feel to be stuck in the middle?

Maybe you know what I'm talking about -- stuck in the middle of your organization with tough customers above you, tough team members below you, and fascinatingly frustrating peers beside you. The life of a supervisor is one surrounded on every level by challenges. It may be the toughest spot in the organization.

Supervisor may be the toughest job because you can always be over ruled from above, undermined from below, and ignored from your peers. What's the solution?

Lead on level ground.

Find ways to leave everyone's title at the door. Think of people as peers -- no matter where they sit in the organization. Your boss is a person with needs and dreams. Your direct-reports imagine themselves as critically important (and they are). Your peers want and need your help in more ways than they can express. It's all much more easy once you believe -- and behave -- as if titles are must less important than goals.

People at every level want to achieve their goals. When you're stuck in the middle, you're in the perfect position to help them all -- while also achieving your own goals.

Maybe you're not stuck at all. Maybe you're really strategically positioned for success.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

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Start With Decisions

Do you share leadership? The most powerful teams share leadership responsibilities AND attitude. When you develop a team where people feel empowered to take charge, take responsibility, and take ownership you then no longer need to do all the difficult work. Delegation becomes easier. Collaboration feels more natural. Start with decisions. It's fast and easy as a leader to make all of the big decisions, but when you include your team in the conversations it takes to gain mutually shared understandings and collaborative decisions, you no longer have to "sell" your decisions --- people simply know what you as a team have decided and act accordingly. No passive aggressive resistance, no passengers on your team "bus" -- just fully engaged team members. Start with collaborative decisions. The rest will be much easier. -- Doug Smith

Get Going!

What goal are you working on? Maybe you don't spend every minute of every day working on your goals. I certainly don't. But when I do work on my goals they propel me forward. They get me going. Find your favorite goal. Work on it. Even if you start with the smallest task. Put one task after the other like little steps leading to a lofty elevation. Goals get us going. Because standing still goes nowhere. -- Doug Smith

Life Never Stops Teaching

Which learning curve are you climbing? The lessons keep coming. When we keep growing, our energy sparks with new creativity, new courage, new compassion, and new clarity. When we keep growing, life's adventure brings more smiles than troubles. High performance leaders make it a point to keep learning. That means taking on the tough assignments. That means listening to the needs of your team and building on their ideas. That means constantly debriefing, decoding, and deciding. There's a lesson in all of this somewhere. Centered leaders find the lesson and grow. Life never stops teaching. What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith

Focused Truth

Focused leaders have zero time for inauthentic messages. They tell the truth unconditionally and insist on the truth consistently. Be a leader who can handle the truth. Be a leader who tells the truth. -- doug smith

Personally

Improving performance does require us to take our work seriously. But it does not require us to take ourselves too seriously. Taking things personally is a waste of self-esteem. -- doug smith

Expanding Capacity

High performance leaders expand capacity by constantly developing their people. How does your team grow? How can you get more done with less? There are many answers to the question of increasing capacity and responsible leaders explore them all, including improving processes and design. It's also important to constantly develop your people People who feel valued and who are constantly growing develop new ideas. They fix problems. They engage in processes and structures and find better ways to get things done. People who are developing stop tolerating defects and instead work toward optimizing their environment. They raise their capacity and increase the value of the team. What are you doing to develop your people? How much more capacity could your team have with people who were fully engaged, truly energized, and growing? -- Douglas Brent Smith Learn more in the workshop: Building Your Team

Solving Problems Requires The Courage to Tell The Truth

Can a problem be so tough that we deceive ourselves about solving it? In any problem there is a temptation to soften the edges, smooth the rough spots, to paint a better picture than we see. Sometimes we take sides and spin the truth in favor of our side, even when that contributes to a conflict or problem. We can do better than that. Solving problems together requires the courage to tell the truth as you see it. Not our version of the truth. Not our ideal of the truth. The truth as it exists, weak spots and all. If we want to clearly analyze a problem, we must be willing to see, and tell the truth. -- Douglas Brent Smith

Opportunities

When do you seize an opportunity? Are you able to stop what you're doing long enough to work on an immediate opportunity? Opportunities are not interested in our schedules. They don't wait. They don't delay. They don't nestle nicely into what we have available. We either move on an opportunity when it presents itself or we watch it fly away. Are you keeping your eyes open for opportunities today? -- Douglas Brent Smith http://frontrangeleadership.com

Healthy Leaders

How many eighty-hour work weeks do you put in? That's not meant to judge, but to ponder. I've put in plenty of eighty and more hour work weeks and while I don't regret any of them I know that they haven't all paid-off proportionately. It's possible to work so hard that you miss what's important. It's a frequent paradox that the longer one works they less productive they become. I've learned to tell myself: Take a break. Relax. Let it all come to you, flow thru you, and go on its merry way -- if only for a little while. Drink water, exercise, meditate, pray, and relax. To be truly centered, to be truly focused and balanced, high performance leaders need to be healthy. Healthy leaders build healthy teams. Take care of yourself. -- doug smith

Strong Goals

It might seem obvious, but it's worth remembering: strong goals provide you with strength. They provide you with strength of purpose, strength of direction, and strength of endurance. A goal that you truly care about, that's written with clarity provides help when others try to hinder. Lots will try to get in the way. The best goals resist this resistance and persist to achievement. A solid, clear goal can withstand any judging. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action Check in on your top three goals today. Are they providing you with strength of direction? How could you make them even stronger? What will you do today toward achieving them?

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