Right Wisdom

Giving your followers or those who report to you small opportunities to lead will help build their confidence and help to build their leadership skills. If you have aspirations to become a leader and are not in that type of position you need to look for opportunities in which you can lead. Here are some opportunities you might consider that will help you with your leadership skills. Serve on a committee and volunteer to lead one of the projects. Ask to be the chair of a committee and start letting those leadership skills shine. Look for ways in your job to be a leader. Maybe there is a project or something you are working on where you can hone those leadership skills. Find a leadership class, seminar or a training session that your company will pay for and take it. Take it all in and learn what you can. Find a mentor who can help evaluate your leadership skills and help you find other opportunities within the company. Follow this things and you will start to form ...

It all started tonight, the life group journey. I started a leadership life group at my church and tonight was the first night. I only had two people but it is a start. My question for the blog today, “as a leader, what things can you do to promote your project”? My vision for my life group is to create a group in which we all can find out who we are and the gifts God has given us. Then take those gifts and use them as a leader in the church, community, home and work. Once a quarter we will spend some time volunteering in the community. My hope is that people will discover their gift and use it for the glory of God and to help others. It will also help the person attending become a servant leader. Here is my list of things a leader can do to promote a project. ·          Network – Find those you know and get them on-board with what you are doing. ·          Explain your vision – Hopefully this...

Today I am going to throw a question out there and I would like to see your responses in my comments. The question today is “What is your most frustrating part of being a leader?” We learn by asking questions and we learn buy understanding what makes ourselves and others frustrated. What happens when a leader is frustrated is that they can let their guard down and lose control of situations. A leader needs to either be in control or always seem like they are in control. The one thing that frustrates me as a leader is when people don’t listen and they don’t do what you expect of them. When this happens it sometimes means extra work for the leader or taking extra time to explain the process. In the busy world of leadership you want people to get it right the first time. To be fair it may not be their fault it is important that you as the leader explains things clearly the first time. Here are some things the leader can do to prevent them getting frustrated when people don’t lis...

" Saying No to your Boss " can be a difficult task. It is almost easier to suck it up and do the work even if it means burning the midnight oil. Fortunately we have been given a good article written by Ernie Humphreys. He gives us five approaches we can take to say no without really saying no. I am looking at each of those approaches and looking at how leaders should react if they have an employee or a follower use one of these approaches. Today I am combining the 4 th and 5 th approach. The fourth is “ Let a task stew to see if it still remains relevant”. This approach is making a point of not saying anything but instead let the project or task sit for a while and see if your boss still remembers it. Sometimes bosses will think of something and then think out loud, not really assigning the task. If you leave it alone it may go away. As a leader this is a harder approach to combat or embrace. It might be that you are serious about the task or maybe you were just thinki...

What if one of your employees or followers comes to you and says no to one of your new projects or tasks? I have been looking at an article by Ernie Humphreys on “SayingNo to Your Boss” . He gives five approaches someone can take when saying no to your boss. What I have been doing is looking at the approaches and looking at what the boss should do when confronted with the creative no approach. The third approach is “ directly state your opinion supported with facts as to the relevance of a request”. This approach is the employee coming in and actually saying no but supporting that no with facts as to why they shouldn’t take on this new task. If they have done their homework and formulated a convincing case you may not be able to get upset with them for saying no. Here is what you should do as a leader when you are confronted with this approach. First of all do not get mad because the person isn’t jumping for joy over the task or project. Embrace the fact that they did their rese...

As you compile your project team you need to be sure not to leave out any outfielders. They are an important part of the baseball team and they are also an important part of your project team. In baseball each of the outfielders has different skills that they use. We will look at all three outfielders during this one blog. There are three outfield positions in baseball, left, center and right. What you want to do for your project team is find someone who has the important skills of all three positions. Centerfielder – Needs to be quick and be able to cover a lot of range. They act as the leader in the outfield. Having good leaping abilities help to steal homeruns from opposing batters. Leftfielder – Needs to be good at determining distance to avoid running into the wall when chasing foul balls.   They need to be able to handle strange caroms that get caught in the left field corner. Rightfielder – Besides the same skills as the leftfielder they also need to have a good...

Third base has always been my favorite position in baseball. I didn’t quite have the arm to make that throw across the diamond. That is a key to having a quality third baseman. He needs to have the arm to throw all the way across the diamond to first base. Third base has always been called the “hot corner” because of the how fast the ball comes off the bat and gets to third. Your third baseman must have quick reflexes to be able to catch those hot smashes. The third baseman also needs to be able to anticipate the bunt. As you form your project team you will need that third baseman. What will that project third baseman bring to the table? A strong arm – The third baseman on your project team will be the one who can do the heavy lifting for the team. They will be able to carry the group and do some of the tasks that require some heavy lifting (crunching numbers, preparing spreadsheets or doing some serious research).   Quick reflexes – The third baseman you choose needs t...

I have been blogging about baseball and building a quality project team. We are in the middle of the infield. The shortstop is a key player on the infield. They tend to be your leader, directing the location of the other fielders and shouting words of encouragement. The shortstop also plays a similar role as the second baseman. They are part of the double play team and they also take relays from the outfield. The shortstop also must have good range and an accurate arm to make that throw to first base. As you build your project team you will have to recruit your shortstop. Try not to just get a second baseman and think they can play short. They are similar but there are some differences. Besides the similarities to a second baseman here are the qualities to look for in your project team shortstop. Your shortstop must have leadership qualities – They would be the one you would look toward for running part of the project. They should have leader qualities. The shortstop mus...