Right Wisdom

Another important aspect about being a leader is making sure you institute an open door policy with your people. They should feel comfortable being able to come and talk with you. It is part of the leadership language. You need to convey a sense of concern and empathy to your people so they feel comfortable speaking with you. Make sure if you do have an open door and you receive those visits that you listen intently and you stop what you are doing and spend some time really understanding the concerns of the person. It is possible there is a conflict and you need to act as the mediator to resolve the issues. Remember leadership isn't about you it is about everyone else. You are leading them and you want to show them that you have the leadership qualities that will help them be successful. The open door policy also encourages collaboration and allows everyone to speak freely. It fosters a sense of idea sharing and creates an atmosphere of success. If you close the door and tr...

Many sports require a proper follow through to make sure the job is accurate and complete. In golf and baseball without a good follow through the ball will probably not go very far. When you throw you need to complete your follow through to make sure your throw is accurate. Every day leaders expect follow through from their people but the leader doesn't always follow through. That is a poor example of leadership. Leaders need to make sure that if they expect something from their people that they also should be following their own rules. Far too often leaders will say they need an item done by tomorrow. Then when the item is finished and given to the leader for review it isn't returned for weeks. If a leader has a sense of urgency of their people they must display that same sense of urgency. Part of the leadership language is leading by example and doing what you say you are going to do. Use the following guideline when determining what you will present to your peopl...

Do you love meetings? It seems a day doesn't go by without a meeting on the schedule. As you climb the leadership ladder you find yourself immersed into more and more meetings. Meetings for this project, meetings for that projects, even meetings to discuss the meetings. It can get tiring attending meetings. Sometimes they are also not necessary. Today as part of the leadership language series I would like to look at meetings. Meetings are part of the leadership language. It is a way for the minds to come together and share ideas and brainstorm. Knowledge exchange is good and helps in driving the success of the ideas. Meetings are also held unnecessarily. Some people schedule a meeting when a simple phone call or email would suffice. Here are some guidelines on determining whether a meeting is necessary or not. Does your idea or project require brainstorming or knowledge exchange? (You should have a meeting) Do you need to present an idea or results of a project. (You should...

Have you ever played one on one basketball? When you do you have to know the skills of the person you are playing or you will definitely lose the game. You need to understand their moves and their go to shot. A leader needs to understand the people who work for them. They need to understand their skills, moves and what their go to project is. Understanding your people doesn't happen overnight. It takes time and effort. It probably takes some one on one time. If you are new to your leadership role you need to spend some time learning your people's jobs and duties. I used to be the director of a learning center and before I even started on the job I met individually with the people who would be working with me and discussed their passions, desires and duties. It helped me going in to have a good knowledge of those I would be leading. Leaders should have one on ones with their people and they should use that time to communicate their vision. They should also use it to listen t...

In this day and age of communication e-mail has exploded as a way to send messages and ask questions. Sometimes I think that there is an email overload. Too much email and too much time spent answering e-mails. As a leader how do you handle the email overload? Email is part of the leadership language. It is a way that leaders communicate on a daily basis with those that work for them and those they work for. It is a challenge to be able to manage all of the emails that come into your box. You need to start to get selective with how to manage the emails or you will spend all your time answering and no time being a leader. Here is a list of ways you can manage your emails. · Create folders to move emails and organize them. · Create forwarding messages to automatically move them to folders. · Flag important messages. · Only answer e-mails twice a day. · Delete unnecessary emails (The kind where someone responds back with a thank you) Once you have done these thi...

Have you ever heard a leader say the words "We've tried that, it doesn't work". Are these the words of a true leader. I don't think so. I have heard that phase used a lot by people in influential positions. I have never understood why they would utter such defeat. A leader needs to utter encouragement and use gentle guidance. Today we are looking at leadership language and how words can shape your leadership role and shape the future leaders. Uttering negative comments will defeat those around you and they won't want to offer up suggestions in the future. Your leadership and the group you lead will plateau and become stagnant. A leader needs to offer up hope and even if an idea was tried before and didn't work that doesn't mean you don't have the players in place now to make it work. What if in baseball the manager called for a suicide squeeze (That is when a runner on third takes off during the pitch and the batter bunts the ball to hopefully ...

How is your leadership language? Do you talk the talk but not walk the walk? There are many people out there who talk a good game but when it comes to producing results they fall flat. Leadership is no different. There are many leaders out there who do a good job pretending to be leaders but they have nothing to show for all of their talk. It is not about how good you look in that leadership role it is all about whether you can get the job done or not. This holds true for political leaders, business leaders, family leaders and church leaders. It doesn't matter what your leadership role is you need to get the job done. There are many leaders out there you have made a great living leading groups of people down an imaginary primrose path. The whole time they collect the big bucks but the others do all the work and the leader has had no vision except to line their coffer with the sweat of those they lead. Don't just talk, be a leader of action. Do what you say you are going t...