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Showing posts from December, 2020

High Performance Leaders Train Their Team

  Every leader is also a trainer. You either train well or lose ground. High performance leaders train their team members. Coach the skills, develop the bond, build your team. It will make you a more effective leader. -- doug smith

Starting Over...

How many times have you started over? Not a minor change, I mean completely started over? New job, new relationship, new car, new year? Starting over is tough, but necessary. It's aggravating, but essential. To get where we'd rather be we have to change where we are. Changing feels like leaving an old friend behind and that makes us drag our feet. Yet here we are, in constant unrelenting need to pick up our feet, to move on. It's good. Change gives us chance -- the chance to improve, to learn, to grow. How many times have we started over? Every day we're starting over. Let's start over in joy. Let's start over with learning, with growth, with new levels of understanding, understanding that we can't possibly know it all and that is fine. We just need to keep starting over.   -- doug smith

Of Course It's Not Easy...

Do you ever get discouraged trying to lead your team forward? I know, they give you challenges that annoy you. They forget what you've already taught them. They miss time after time after time. And yet, they also bring a smile to your face. They surprise you with an insight that goes far beyond anything you've ever taught. They connect with customers in ways that reflect how YOU feel. They also bring you joy. Up and down. Down and up. Leadership is one challenge after another, randomly peppered with joy. If leading was easy they wouldn't have to pay people for it. But if there weren't rewards far beyond the money, no one would do it. Leading is tough. Leadership is the best. -- doug smith

Set Your Own Goals

Who sets your goals? Yes, there are goals we must achieve because we're in a job and because a boss sets them for us -- but those are just an entry ticket into the big game. The bigger game, the big picture, includes the goals we set for ourselves. Some people will understand that, and some will not. Be careful about letting anyone else judge your goals. They have their purpose, you have yours. Your goals are your business. -- doug smith

High Performance Leaders Set the Example

How successful would your team be if everyone on it worked as hard as you do? That's a question with more than one implication. Are you working hard enough to set a great example? Or, are you setting the bar so low that results suffer? The leader sets the example. The leader, as John Maxwell as said, "models the way." As leaders, let's model ways we'd like our team members to follow. Let's work hard. Let's work ethically. Let's work together. -- doug smith  

Questions about Advice

Do you like to give advice? I don't know how many times people have asked me for advice and in return I just let them hear what I had to say about what I thought they wanted to know. That has two big problems:  Maybe I haven't really understood their issue, and Maybe they aren't really ready for advice until they've thought it through By asking questions, I can learn more about their situation to find out if I even have advice worth sharing on that situation. Sometimes, they have all they need to solve the problem by themselves. Also, by asking questions and letting them think through the situation in greater detail, they can tell that I'm not just going to pull out a stock answer -- and the answer will come from our dialogue together, not some ready-supply of world wisdom. I'm smart, but I can't solve everyone's problem. How about this -- do you like to get advice? Asking for advice (without paying for it) can be an imposition. It can also be rude. It c