Centered Leaders Create Clarity

Are you ever intentionally unclear?

Maybe that's not a fair question. Maybe few of us would ever admit that we blurred lines or fuzzied up our boundaries. My guess is though that we all do.

To become more centered, we need to get more clear. To reach our people and build better teams, we need to get more clear. To stop confusing people or deceiving them, we must seek more clarity.

We seek more clarity by saying what we mean, and what we feel. We uncover our covered motivations. We listen with curiosity to discover how others are reacting (did they understand us? are we comfortable in their misunderstanding us?)

Sometimes clarity comes from exploring the unclear places. It comes by asking honest and probing (and sometimes discomforting questions):

- Did you understand what I said?
- Did you mean to say that _____?
- Are you saying that ______ ?
- Does it sound to you that we agree or disagree on this?
- Tell me what that means to you?
- How do you feel about that?
- Does this make sense to you?
- How do you make sense of all this?

...and so many more. If anything, centered leaders, high performance leaders, are skilled at asking open ended questions with genuine curiosity. We don't know all the answers, and our clarity dissolves when we pretend that we do.

It's one of the fun paradoxes of leadership: the more we seek clarity the more we realize that we don't understand.

Until we do.

The price of clarity is commitment. Commitment to exploring our various versions of truth. Commitment to staying curious. Commitment to saying exactly what we think and feel while staying open to think and feel new things.

Are you open? Are you ready? Are you clear?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

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Release

If a goal doesn't make you happy, let it go. -- doug smith

A Better Future

We can always imagine a better future and that's a great start to getting there. That's the fun part. The hard part is the work. But you know that already. Set the goal, identify the plan, then get started. No one else is going to do it for you. -- doug smith

The Essential Question

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High Performance Leaders Deal With Anger

What do you do when someone in your range of influence is angry? It can be discomforting. It can be disruptive. Anger is tough to handle under the best of circumstances. And yet, handle it we must. Centered, high performance leaders are careful about anger. Careful about their own anger and careful about their reactions to the anger of others. I had a boss once (a very long time ago) who told me that I had a problem with anger. That made me angry. The reaction to anger is sometimes defensiveness, sometimes fear, and sometimes (surprise!) more anger. Whatever our reaction, our bodies are usually poised for action. What we do in that moment of activation is critical to our success. If our life or emotional well-being is being threatened, that steers our direction. But usually, although it feels that way, we are not actually under any threat. So we must deal with anger productively. We must say what we want without blaming others for it not being there. We must listen with cur...

Learn To Build A Better Tomorrow

Do you have all the answers yet? Are you finished learning? Of course not. Learning is a lifetime necessity, especially for leaders. Centered leaders learn constantly and apply what they learn to make things better. To solve problems. To achieve their goals. What we learn today can bring about a better tomorrow. Isn't that what you want, a better tomorrow? It can happen, but it's up to each of us. What will you do? What will you learn? What have you learned today? -- Doug Smith Front Range Leadership: Training Supervisors for Success doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

Professional, Patient, Persistent, and Powerful

Professional, patient, persistent, and powerful. Those are four traits worth focusing on as a leader. Combined with what it takes to be a centered leader (courage, compassion, creativity, and clarity) these four "p's" can drive a leader forward in performance and results. Are you professional? Paying attention to details, keeping an appropriate appearance for your line of work, meeting deadlines, installing quality, treating others as the professional you aspire to be -- these are all marks of leading as a professional. What would you add to the list? Are you patient? Leaders are often faced with difficult situations at exactly the wrong time. Without surrendering to lower standards, leaders must remain patient with people and circumstances. How else should leaders demonstrate patience? Are you persistent? Patience begs persistence. While high performance leaders have the capacity to remain patient under stress, they are also doggedly persistent. Nothing should stand in t...

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Leading Through Participation

"If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don't need control. They know what needs to be done, and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchies and control mechanisms you need." -- Herb Kelleher, CEO. Southwestern Airlines Leadership brings about participation. It's not just distributing work the way some people call delegation. If a person feels dumped on, it's not effective delegation. I have a real distaste for the definition of leadership that describes it as "getting work done through others". Sure, others help -- but unless the leader has at least some taste for the work involved, people will only stick around until a better offer appears. To build true devotion takes commitment and involvement by everyone -- including the leader. -- Douglas Brent Smith Learn more in the workshop: Supervising for Success

High Performance Leadership

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