High Performance Leadership

Are your goals acquainted with your dreams? Are the things that you work on and focus your attention on in any way connected to your greatest dreams? If they aren't -- how on earth will you get there? Introduce your goals to your dreams. Focus on what matters. Work on what will make you complete. No one else will do that for you. Ever. -- Douglas Brent Smith

Can you remember the last time that you were wrong? How did it feel to discover your mistake? Do you remember the cause? Could your actions have been built on a false assumption? We all make assumptions from time to time. It's when we live in the world of assumptions that we really get into deep trouble. The more we assume, the easier it is to take comfort in our assumptions. But, our assumptions are often wrong. When we're leading a team, developing performance, running a project and doing the important work of a leader we need to check our assumptions at the door. We need to test our thinking and clarify our expectations. High performance leaders identify and test any assumptions before launching a project or reaching a major decision. After all, isn't it better to spot your mistakes before you make them? -- Douglas Brent Smith Are you developing leaders in your organization? Bring our two-day workshop for supervisors, managers and project managers,  Supe...

What stands in the way of achieving your biggest goal? There's always something. It might seem bigger than it is, but it's there. It might be hiding in the field like a clever little rabbit ready to jump out and bite with the force of a wolf, but it's there. And, the very thought that it's there can sometimes keep us from going through that field. Sometimes our fears of the barrier are bigger than the barrier. Get past the barrier. Go around it. Go over it. Go right thru it if you can. Get past the hold, the clasp, the fence, the fear. Get past the barrier. Sometimes a barrier is simply testing how much you want to achieve your goal. You do want to achieve that goal, don't you? Get past the barrier. -- Douglas Brent Smith Are you developing leaders in your organization? Bring our two-day workshop for supervisors, managers and project managers,  Supervising for Success  to your location. Contact me here: doug@frontrangeleadership.com

I like bold partners. Not too many at once, but someone to challenge me, to question my judgment, to test my assumptions. When I've directed plays I have found it very helpful to have a challenging stage manager -- someone who isn't wowed by my grand plans and simply knows how to get things done. Someone who can smell baloney no matter how many things are sandwiched around it. That approach is useful in problem solving, too. Fearless collaboration grows with a certain degree of comfort with conflict, with a shared understanding that assertiveness is an ally. Before solving that next problem, find someone who will see what you can't and express what you won't. You won't be sorry. -- Douglas Brent Smith Are you developing leaders in your organization? Bring our two-day workshop for supervisors, managers and project managers, Supervising for Success to your location. Contact me here: doug@frontrangeleadership.com

How often do you review what you've learned as a supervisor? I'm thinking about what you've learned from experience, from mistakes, from other people, from surprises, from training and development events. Learning something is only the first step. To make use of it we need to review and review and review until it becomes a tangible part of ourselves and then we have to use it. We need to put our learning to work to make it reach its potential. Successful supervisors review what they've learned on a regular basis. Could you spare 15 minutes today to review what you've learned this year so far? -- Douglas Brent Smith

It's not fair. It's not exactly logical. But how true do you think it is? Every generation creates its own problems -- and must solve the problems of the previous generation. Maybe it's the advance of technology. Maybe it's the quality of thinking. Maybe it's the incubator of time. What do you think? -- Douglas Brent Smith

Is it possible to be too creative? If you produce a mass quantity of creative work, will some of it miss your highest standards? Of course. Stay creative anyway. Sometimes volume produces the unexpected spark of genius that might otherwise go undiscovered. It's possible to be so creative that you produce some bad work. But what quality of work would you produce otherwise? Stay wildly creative. -- Douglas Brent Smith