Majestic and Vital Leaders

We are the giants that are so dependable. We have risen from the ground,weathered the seasons and the storms. We stand tall against all skies, the bright blue ones and the ones that are grey and daunting.
Yes my friend,we are as the mighty oaks.
Beautiful and majestic and vital in a very special way.
-- David Spiegel

Do you have a mentor? Is there an older person in your life you trust who can guide you and coach you as you work on your goals?

I've been fortunate enough to have worked with some strong and bold mentors. They haven't always been older than me. Sometimes a great mentor is younger than you, and when you get to be my age, it's highly likely than many younger people can provide expert advice, guidance, and coaching. In fact, most of the best coaching I receive now comes from people younger than me.

Here's my point. Whether the guidance and feedback comes from someone older, younger, or the same point, don't disregard it. Think it over. Evaluate it. We all need feedback. We all need coaching. We all have blindspots that stand in our way. We all build walls that we need help navigating. I am so grateful for that help. Help from people older, and help from people younger.

When you look at someone older than you I hope you will recognize that they are still vital, still filled with life, still bursting with energy. Yes, our hair might be grey (or gone!). Yes, we might walk a little slower. But we are still powerful. You are also powerful. Centered, high performance leaders realize that it is in community with each other that we are all most powerful.

Just something to think about as you get busy on your next goal. You are busy, aren't you?

-- Doug Smith

Comments

Win The Game

It would be nice to win the game. But, do you ever feel like you're in a game that keeps shifting the rules and making it easy to make progress but impossible to win? You've probably noticed lots of game elements creeping into service. Points, incentives, expiring coupons followed by new expiring coupons, leader-boards...on an on a relentless attack on service comes from playing a game designed -- you guessed it -- to maximize profit. If the customer is happy, fine, but the point is to make money. Not to put too fine a point on it but that's a lousy point. What if there could be something better? What if customer service excellence became playing a game where the customer always wins and that makes you happy? You don't have to. "give away the store" to achieve a winning game for all of the players. Just stop stacking the rules against customers and watch how much more they will want to do business with you. -- doug smith

What to Blame

It's better to blame the product than it is to blame the customer because you cannot fix the customer. -- doug smith

Strategic and Communication Skills

Supervisors often bring strong technical skills to the job. When they have worked in technical jobs prior to becoming a supervisor, they were often the best at what they do. They know the ground level part of their business well enough to solve problems and deal with day to day issues. Leading is all that and more. High performance leadership requires attention to detail AND a constant view of the big picture: where is your team, your market, and your customer base headed? What does the future hold? Strong supervisors learn to add strategic and communication skills to their technical ability. What are you doing today to develop your sense of the big picture? -- Douglas Brent Smith

No Hiding The Truth

What happens when someone tries to hide the truth? It pops up, unexpected, full-blown and often unforgiving. There is no hiding the truth. The truth always bubbles to the top. Pushing down what we regard as worth hiding, even when it's clearly true, simply delays the inevitable. The truth comes out, and then whoever attempted to hide it looks doubly suspicious and unreliable. Also, when we try to hide the truth we suddenly limit our possibilities. What can we say? What should we suppress? Where are we headed? Who can know and who cannot know? Did we tell the wrong person already? Maybe we should just keep quiet... Truth we try to hide becomes our tallest wall. It's a weight we carry around wondering when we can let it go. It's a wall that prevents us from seeing the beauty that belongs in all truth, even the truth that troubles us. What secret truth are you carrying around? Isn't it time to let that go? -- Douglas Brent Smith Front Range Leadership: ...

Keep Reading

How many books do you read each year? I'm not keeping score And as a full disclosure you should probably know that part of what I do is sell books and learning resources. Even if I didn't, though, I am a big believer in continuing to learn. Read. Experiment. Explore. Talk about it. Try things. Watch videos. Listen to audios. Keep learning. The world is changing so fast, how will you keep up? How do you get the training the need when you're not being offered the training you need? Keep reading. You don't have to read every book cover to cover to find great value in it. I used to think that if I started reading a book that I'd have to finish it. That got me slugging thru some poor material. Now I know that you can glean a lot from a book by scanning it, skimming it, reading what you need and leaving the rest for another time. I do still read books cover to cover (some more than once!) AND I read a lot of books for what is relevant to me right now. Howe...

Tell the Truth

There's no such thing as a little white lie when you're a leader. I'm not talking about being blunt if someone asks "does this dress make my butt look big?" because we all pretty much know how that goes. What I'm talking about is telling your team members the truth in connection with your mission, your values, your goals. When it comes to what keeps a person on the team and what gets them an invitation to find a new direction. F ar more opportunities are lost by hiding the truth then from telling it. Your competition is searching for the truth. Your team is searching for the truth. Your inner self really wants to know and share the truth, doesn't it? It always comes out anyway. Why not get to the truth faster? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Keep Growing

Photo by Brian Miller How do you handle setbacks? I've had some big setbacks lately, mainly on the interpersonal side of my life, and I'm rolling with them. Evolving. Growing. But growing can hurt, and before you get to the top of the soil the garden looks really dark. Keep growing. Challenges I've never expected have emerged, pushing and shoving me around like some stranger in a subway. The tunnel is long and dark and cold. Keep growing. Work waits to keep some level of focus. Friends call and help. Crap keeps flying and even Facebook feels like a persecution chamber when things have turned against me. But I remember... Keep growing. Life's most difficult moments are not requested. We don't savor them. We don't celebrate them. But given the awareness to discover what led us to this point and what we can learn, we can grow. Keep growing. I'm hoping you are having a great week my friend. I'm hoping that you are learning and achievi...

Make the Hard Choices

Are you faced with a hard choice? A hard choice is one we don't want to make, and yet realize that sooner or later we need to. It could be making that big career change. It could be ending a destructive relationship. It could be selling that car that costs too much to keep repairing. Make the choice. Moving on is the direction of growth. Gathering the facts, discovering the reality of the situation, and making the choice is the way to go. We might need to get creative to do it. It may take all of our creative juice just to figure out a better way, but there is always a better way. A creative act may close a door or two but it will soon open thousands of possibilities. And possibilities are what we want. Positive, energized, growing possibilities. This all becomes easier when our goals are clear. When we know where we're headed -- and we're willing to do the hard work it takes to get there -- any distraction is more easily exposed. Choices become more clear. Make...

What Do Your Goals Say About You?

What would people think about you if all they knew about you was your goals? Would they consider you ambitious? Noble? Focused? Ask yourself that question and think about your answers. If I only knew what your goals were, would you be someone I'd want to spend time with? Help you with those goals? Tell my family about? I need to ask myself those questions, too. What makes my goals so special? What makes me worth talking to? I'm with you on this one today. What do our goals say about us? -- Doug Smith

Letting Go of Perfect

My former acting coach, Brian McCulley once said that "done is better than perfect." I don't think he meant to minimize quality, because that is also important. But sometimes urgency is more important than perfection, considering that we'll never achieve perfect. There are no perfect people. There are no perfect products. There are no perfect processes. We may travel John Wesley's road to perfection without ever getting there. That is completely fine. I've learned to seek wisdom rather than perfection since discovering the endless amount of personal flaws has destroyed any illusion of perfect. Still, I travel that road, whether it's driving or as a passenger. It's a good road, even when it never ends. I've also learned not to let it grieve me. We are all here to improve. Let's keep improving. When we look into the mirror, let's not expect perfection. Let's not let disappointment cloud our days. Expecting perfection is not a...

High Performance Leadership

Search This Blog