High Performance Leadership

I love a good goal. It makes me practically tingle inside with excitement. But hey, unless I design a robust plan and DO something about it, the goal just lingers there until it fades into the background of a busy day. When you find a goal you like, do something. Identify the next possible thing you can do on that goal and DO it. Build momentum. Act. High performance leaders create great goals and then ACT on them. Immediately, repeatedly, and regularly. When a goal grabs your attention, do something to move it forward! -- Doug Smith

Teams fundamentally want and need two things from their leaders: 1. To be challenged, and 2. To be supported You've got to have their back. You've got to protect their interests as well as the team goals. And you've got to challenge them to do more than they ever have before. Stretch, grow, respond. It's what your team wants. Are you delivering high performance leadership? -- Doug Smith

What if retreat is part of the plan? If our goals are truly ambitious, we will experience some difficulty achieving them. Tough goals cause us to stretch. Tough goals encourage us to grow, to adapt, to create. And, tough goals sometimes cause us to retreat. I do not like to retreat. I do not like to come up short. My ambition is to plunge ever forward at rapidly increasing rates of speed. But sometimes, crap happens. Sometimes, that action item is bigger than expected and more challenging than it at first appeared. We might miss. We might retreat. There does not need to be shame in retreating. It's just a dance step, really, leading to the next bold step up. We create some room, some breathing space. It's just a pause, or a parry. And then we leap ahead. That's how it has felt with one of my exercise goals. I do well, and then something happens that distracts or delays me, and a day goes by with a missed goal. I am making peace with that while NOT letting go of th...

Are your goals aligned with your mission? That, of course, implies that you immediately know your mission. So, if you don't, isn't it time to either: a) memorize your mission, or b) create your mission? We achieve our goals in order to achieve our mission. When we've created true alignment in our efforts, when our goals support and bring about our mission, we gain the leverage to accomplish great things AND enjoy the process. What do you think? -- Doug Smith

Stuck? Sitting still? Blocked by some hardy wall? The secret to motion is possibilities. The key to progress is motion. The heart of growth is uncovering what choices remain (and here's a secret to the secret, the choices are unlimited.) It's a leader's job to find better possibilities and bring them to life. Start digging. -- Doug Smith