Skip to main content

High Performance Leaders Combine Courage and Compassion

What do people look for in a leader?

I believe that there are four key strengths that leaders must develop: clarity, courage, creativity, and compassion. As leaders we should develop these in connection with each other.

I was thinking about this as I was leading a workshop on controlling chaos yesterday. When we are leading our way (and others' way) through difficult situations it is no time to be shy. It's not the time to sit back and wait for something to happen. It's not the time to get passive.

High performance leaders make their expectations clear. They raise the bar. They look for people to give their best, speak up, and be assertive.

It's easy to go over the edge, though. It's easy to fall into an extreme. Leaders do it frequently and are often portrayed in the media as strong and confident even though that occurs at the expense of other people's self-esteem and well being. Centered, high performance leaders do not lead and achieve at the expense of other people -- they lead in collaboration with other people.

That means that high performance leaders need a carefully developed combination of courage and compassion.

Courage without compassion leads to bullying. Compassion without courage leads to surrender. High performance leaders combine courage and compassion.

What are you doing today to develop your flexibility, centeredness, and use of both compassion and courage. The magic is in the blend and that's where your best results will be found.

-- Doug Smith


key words:

Comments

  1. David SpiegelMarch 20, 2016 at 6:27 PM

    My mentor Darren Hardy shared with me the other day"Be First!"......as leaders we must be first....to step up, to take a chance and in those infamous words ....go where no man has ever gone before!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Doug SmithMarch 20, 2016 at 6:32 PM

      True, David. As leaders we must often go where no one has ever gone before. And, it's amazing how much more courageous our team becomes when we first show it in action.

      As always, Dave, I truly appreciate your comments.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Celebrate Progress

  When was the last time that you were frustrated in trying to learn something? If you can't remember, maybe it's time to learn something new -- something tough and challenging. Truly worthwhile endeavors are often struggles. The satisfaction comes not only in the final result, but also in the progress toward that final result. The best way to avoid a sad let-down once a goal is achieved is to enjoy the journey all the way thru. Celebrate your progress! Not so much that you feel finished, but enough so that you feel able. Celebrate progress, and then keep on progressing. As that beat poet and philosopher Harry X. Tudas once said, "Feel in the groove but continue to improve." -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Start Positive

I went thru a grumpy period in my life. It was like a rut that was so deep no light could get in. It fed on its own bumpy grumpiness until that's all I could feel. Yuck. Forget that now. Now, I start with a positive thought. I could be wrong about finding the silver lining, but I've learned that I won't see the silver lining unless I look for it, and that's the place to start. Even the smallest positive effort has a positive impact. Let's start there. -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Feedback Takes Practice

How good are you at providing feedback? If you're not sure, ask your team members. If you are good at it, they'll tell you. If you're not good at it, then maybe they will and maybe they won't. Feedback does not come easy. Skillful, useful feedback that improves both performance AND self-esteem is a delicate balance of recognizing positives and occasionally providing insights on areas of improvement -- all placed into the context of why it matters. Without the "why" -- why the feedback matters, why the improvement matters, why the performance matters, all the feedback you can muster will only fluster whoever you provide it to. Tell them what they did that was great, ask how they could make it even greater, and share with them why it all makes a difference. Because unless it really makes a difference who cares? Feedback, like any skill, takes practice. -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Let Them See You Work

If you can't seem to hire good performers with a solid work ethic, you might need to develop them. Maybe start by showing them what that looks like, or as John Maxwell has said "Know the way, show the way, and go the way." You know, walk the talk. I know a LOT of leaders who complain about work ethic. Maybe they need to let their people see them work... -- doug smith  
Post a Comment
Read more

Pausing Purity

Judging someone does not change them. Still, don't high performance leaders need a sense of judgment? Forgiving someone does not correct the fault. Still, isn't forgiveness necessary for a growing leader? Changing does not change the past. Still, leaders always change. Purity is a tough standard to match. Maybe pause perfection long enough to improve. -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Building Discipline

It would be easy to skip my morning, or afternoon, or evening push-ups. Heck, I did skip them for most of my life. But regular exercise is a discipline that won't do itself.  We don't have to like or enjoy discipline-building habits in order to need them. The drills prove, over and over, that we do. Start small if you need to, but definitely start.  -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Get Ready

Leadership: you can plan the very best plans possible and still miss. Whatever you were expecting, get ready for a surprise. Is that sometimes annoying? Sure -- and if we frame it cleverly enough, the surprises can also be energizing. They are coming anyway, let's make the best of it. -- doug smith
Post a Comment
Read more

Push Beyond

  Standing still is not an option. We can pause, we can relax, and we can certainly breathe, but there is work to be done. There are problems to be solved. There are goals to achieve. The status quo is not for you. High performance leaders push beyond the status quo. -- doug smith
1 comment
Read more

#ethics21 Leadership and the Duty of Care

I've been casually following a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) structured by Stephen Downes , Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care . While it is mainly focused on how ethics applies to analytics (particularly Artificial Intelligence) and learning, it strikes me as relevant to well, everything. In particular, leadership. Leaders must make decisions guided by their ethics on an almost daily basis. As the discuss in #ethics21 has pointed out, though, while it may seem clear what ethical behavior means, it is much more complicated than that. Ethics, when examined with any level of curiosity, uncovers more questions than answers. Maybe that's best, but it is also challenging. I did take one course in ethics in graduate school working on my masters in Organizational Leadership. Every course, though, contained ethical overtones. I learned that leaders must examine their motives and reconcile them against their values while behaving ethically. I learned that there are many more sha
Post a Comment
Read more