Develop Yourself

What are you learning these days?

Leadership is a matter of communication, dedication, and learning. If we expect to stay ahead of the changes constantly coming our way, we must keep learning.

High performance leaders keep learning.

We're either developing ourselves or falling behind.

You don't want to fall behind, do you?

-- Doug Smith

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The Benefits of Supervisory Training

When was the last time you had any leadership training? How often do the supervisors in your organization get training? If you are like most organizations, it's never enough. Some teams go without any supervisory training at all and expect supervisors and managers to learn as they go, on the job. Unfortunately, while it is memorable to learn from your mistakes, it comes at a high cost. People get tired. People leave. Important accounts go away. Customers complain. And teams struggle without the skills and knowledge it takes to build cohesive teams that are capable of solving problems, improving performance and achieving goals. Admittedly, I can be expected to support training since I'm in the business. Still, take a closer look at your own leadership career and decide for yourself. Are leaders better off with more training and development or with less? Supervisory training can generate benefits that pay off long after the training is over. Here are just a few of the things sup...

Not Too Many Goals

How many goals should you have? Is there a limit? I've known people who said that they had a hundred goals. They were working their way thru the list and checking them off one by one. Good for them. I could never do that. It's too many. How do you even keep that many straight? How do you build energy for them? Some people call a list like that a bucket-list. If that's what it is, it isn't so much a list of goals as plans for experience. That's very different. Goals require work. Goals require attention. Goals require a level of focus seldom afforded anything else. The discipline that takes limits the capacity anyone has for setting goals. We can only do so much. Of course, we aspire to do more. Of course we put lots of stretch into our goals and our list of goals. But, we can only do so many. I can't tell you what that number is. I find that 5 goals a day is a good number for me. Five achievable goals for each day and another 3 - 5 major goals that ca...

Nobody Is Interested In Excuses

Imagine this - you've been expecting someone on your team to complete an important task. The deadline is looming. You're ready for the deliverable at any time, and then...and then they start the list of excuses why they can't complete the task. No fun, right? Not acceptable, true? True for you, and true for others who rely on you as well. Leading for success leaves little room for excuses. When I worked at Whole Foods one of my bosses once said, "we live in the land of no excuses." It was true there then, and it's true here now. Nobody is interested in any excuses. -- Doug Smith

Forget What You Know?

Does it ever make sense to forget what you know? What if what you know is certain and true? What if you simply believe it to be true, but beyond your knowledge it isn't true at all? Sometimes learning requires the suspension of what we think is true. We need to be able to entertain a contradiction or paradox long enough to find a new perspective. Maybe we will change our mind, maybe we won't, but we give it air time. We let it breathe. We expand our world of possibilities just long enough to see if we're missing something important. Creatives are constantly willing to forget what they think they know to learn something far more useful. Something far more magical. Something far more brilliant. And, possibly something far more true. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it does not and we are free to hold to what we already believe. But without trying, without the willingness to suspend judgement for long enough to see anew -- how will we ever know? -- Douglas Brent...

Skip the Meetings That Don't Matter

How much time do you waste in meetings that don't matter? Oh, they probably matter to someone. Whoever called the meeting must think it's necessary. But the agenda (if there is an agenda) does not include you or any goals that you are working on. Maybe it's not aligned with your mission or values. Maybe it is just a status update or something worse -- a meeting for the sake of meeting. Do you really have time for that nonsense? It takes courage, but it's well worth it to screen the meetings that you attend. Whenever you have a choice, if the meeting makes no sense to you and if there is a better use of your time, skip the meeting. Be polite, let your organizer know you won't be attending. Or before you send your intention not to attend, first ask if there is something relevant at the meeting that you're working on. Is there a goal that you need to contribute to? Is that a problem that you can help solve? Will the meeting move goals that you are working on ...

Stay With Compassion

Leaders need courage. They also need compassion. We can use our compassion to balance our courage, and use our courage to increase our compassion. Compassion is so vital we must never give up on it. No matter how angry we are, no matter how disappointed we feel, no matter how high the stakes -- stay with compassion. If it cannot be done with compassion, it should not be done. -- doug smith

Compassionate Competition

Does business feel like dog eat dog? Does competition drive you and others to the edge of aggressive, gnawing, clawing feelings that leave you drained? Or, do you thrive on it? We do live in a competitive culture. When jobs took on a new scarcity it forced many people to view their opportunities from a limited point of view. If opportunities are limited, don't I have to act aggressively to seize those that come my way? Don't I have to defeat the competition convincingly and swiftly? At what cost? Not at the cost of our values. Not at the cost of our integrity. Not at the cost of our kindness. Fiercely competing does not force you to compromise your values. Fiercely competing does not force you to treat people unkindly. It is possible to compete compassionately. Strive for your best outcome. Challenge other in your field of influence. Move forward assertively. AND act in ways that show kindness, consideration, and strength of character. At the end of the big gam...

What Leaders Do

You could spend a lifetime studying leadership and what leaders do. You'll likely spend your lifetime doing that whether or not you planned on it because when it comes to leadership there is always something more to learn. Most of what high performance leaders do is solve problems and achieve goals. Much goes into that. Projects come and go. People help (or don't) and they also come and go. To move forward, to implement plans, to make the world a better place, leaders need to solve problems and achieve their goals. What do you think?

Leaders Forgive

Your people will make mistakes. Your people will disappoint you. It's what humans do. How you react as a leader will determine what they do with those mistakes. We can fix our problems. We can learn from our mistakes. We grow, we build, we correct, we change. But condemnation? Once a leader has written off someone by disrespecting them so severely that they won't listen, won't forgive, won't adjust...that becomes a leader who has not only failed to nurture the troubled relationship, they will likely end up with nothing but troubled relationships. I can fix my mistakes but not your condemnation. How about you? -- doug smith

Finding Hope

What do you do when your project seems so off track that you'll never find your way back? What if you're so lost that nothing makes sense to you? Most of us do experience times when things get rough. We lose when we thought we couldn't. We struggle when it started so easily. Our resources dry up just when we need them most. How do we hold on? How do we move forward? Someone can help. You may not know who it is. You may have to ask more than one person (you probably will have to ask more than one person). But help is out there. Someone who has experienced similar troubles. Someone who has finished an equally gnarly project. Someone who knows how it feels to be lost and can help you navigate your pathway out of the darkness and into success. If you have help, you have hope. And that my friend will take you very, very far indeed toward where you need to go. -- Douglas Brent Smith Image credit: Southeast Regional Climate Center, University of North Carolina a...

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