High Performance Leadership

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." Joseph Campbell Responding to my email from yesterday, I heard from a dear friend. She commented "Loved this thought for the day!". It made me smile. It also gave me pause to remember how and when she and I first met. We were freshmen together entering college, away from the comfort and safety of our parents homes. We had the same major at the time, music. It was during those early days of being on my own, that I chose to pledge a fraternity. I truly believe this experience was a significant part of me becoming the person I am and not the wuss that I could have been. This was not what anyone would consider the party animal or jock mentality frat that you often see portrayed in movies. It was however a place where the notion that you stand up to a challenge, rather than run away from one became part of who I am. It would have been easy to spend my college days anonymously,gett...

When it's all important, it's important to determine what is MOST important. Filling our days with little things could squeeze out the big things. The big things matter. High performance leaders keep the big picture in mind from project to project and from goal to goal. -- doug smith

How much of leadership is service? Maybe a better question is, how much should it be? It is not unusual to struggle with serving and being served. As we progress as leaders, it can feel as if we need to be served a bit more. We have people report to us. We have responsibilities and levels of authority. And yet, at the heart of it all, isn't what high performance leaders do most is serve? We serve our mission. We serve our goals. And, most importantly, we serve our people. Team members, customers, constituents, peers, leaders...we serve our community. When we do that, it suddenly all makes much more sense. The strongest motivator is service to others. Are you ready to serve? How will you serve your people today? -- doug smith

Are you working hard on your goals? I hope so. Goals require attention, effort, and energy. And you know what else goals benefit from? Help. Specifically, help from other people. And where do those people come from? They could be your team. They could be your peers. They probably START though with people you have helped before. When you help others to achieve their goals, they become remarkably more available to help you with yours. When you help other people achieve their goals they become more powerful allies. Whether you are working on goals that need help or not right now -- reach out to see who else you can help. Maybe they'll reciprocate and maybe they won't -- but there's nothing TO reciprocate unless you help first. -- doug smith Leadership Call to Action: Think about a friend or co-worker who is working on a project that you are not involved with. Sometime in the next week, call them and ask how you can help.

How many moments does a leader have? How many do YOU have? We don't know, do we? What we do know is that we have this moment, right now. What we do with this moment is done and then over. What we do with this moment is our choice. Let's do something great! High performance leaders set great examples by doing great things in the moments that they have. Right now is the perfect moment. Can you feel it? -- doug smith

Are you a patient person? At one time, I was not a patient person. I had things to do, places to go, people to see. If people were slowing me down, it got me upset. If people were taking too long to do what seemed like an easy task, it got me upset. The problem with having no patience is that you could spend a lot of time being upset. And what does that give you? I've been working on it. While leaders may benefit from some impatience (are you done yet?) they truly need patience to achieve their mission. The big goals, the vision, the mission - all that takes time and patience. Let the butterfly work its own way out of the cocoon. Let the plant grow. Let your team member learn how to do what they need to do (even when, not if, it takes longer than it would have taken you.) Patience takes practice. How do you practice? Every time you feel impatient, breathe and whisper to yourself "ah...this is a patience growing opportunity." Silly? Not as silly as living ...

I’m numb to judgement — even my own judgement of myself. I know I’m doing the best I can. Judging yourself is a huge vulnerability because everyone else is already doing it for you. And if you’re not in that place, you’ve got no shot. Everybody else sucks at stuff too.    ~ Gary Vaynerchuck I'm sure that if I took a look back at my writings from this time of year for the last few years, my messaging to myself would be pretty much the same.  New Year's day is just one more day on the calendar. January 1st does not bring new a new beginning to my life. The idea that this upcoming year will some how magically be better than the last one is silly to me. Simply put, I wake up each day with the knowledge that I will work hard at being better today than I was yesterday. Just that simple. Every day is an opportunity to create a better version of me than I was the day before. Therefore, it is only logical that by doing this, this year will se...