High Performance Leadership

  Are you bumping up against tradition? As leaders we are often breaking barriers. We're constantly knocking down walls. Sometimes, we're stepping on toes. We change things because that's what leaders do but it does matter how we change. Are we graceful, or clumsy? Are we considerate, or brutal? Are we deliberate, or chaotic? Change is necessary because it's where growth happens. Doing that change we can forget about or even demolish tradition. "If it mattered we'd keep it," right? It matters. How we handle tradition tells our team how we will eventually handle each and every one of them. What has been placed there before us has been trusted to us. We can improve it, always. Must we ever destroy it? Seldom. As I write this, I can practically hear my friend and fraternity brother David Spiegel singing "Tradition!" from "Fiddler On The Roof." It has honor. It has value. It has multiple meanings. Ignore tradition and you'll lose stabil...

  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

  A useful question: what would be an even more creative way to make this better? -- doug smith

  As far as you've come, there is more to go... High performance leaders push beyond the status quo. -- doug smith

  High performance leadership starts with preparation. Learning, practice, dialogue, planning -- having some idea of what to expect and how to react to surprises. Because leaders know that surprises go with the territory.  -- doug smith

  High performance leaders create success thru focus and action. Focus on what is most important. Act with relentless intention. One without the other goes nowhere. Both combined can go anywhere. -- doug smith

How powerful do you want to be? Or better still, how powerful do you want your leader to be -- the person you must answer to? High performance leaders do develop power. The key is to develop power responsibly, cooperatively, collaboratively. Otherwise, no matter how much power accrues, it eventually collapses. People may promote absolute power but they will all too soon tear it down. We don't like kinds and yet we keep trying to create them. Relax. Relate. Collaborate. -- doug smith