Big Is The New Small

Leadership is all about having a winning team, unfortunately some leaders are more focused on their individual wins and stats than they are getting a team win.  This is played out in many different ways. What I’m specifically referring to is the mindset and philosophy that some leaders have—the thought process that basically boils down to “I’m Not Buying In Because It’s Not My Idea.”

These particular leaders will turn down, refuse to entertain or flat out dismiss any idea that’s not their own. If it didn’t come directly from them, it’s not happening.  What occurs in these types of situations is team members will eventually stop bringing great ideas to the table, because they already know what the answer will be.  Some team members are witty enough and have the patience to circumvent this inept type of leadership by manipulating the leader into thinking an idea originated from them. Voilà!  All of the sudden the leader is excited about their new concept.

Leadership is about collaboration and remembering that teamwork makes dreams work.  If a leader relies on their ideas to be the only ideas that are implemented, their area of responsibility and organization has a very short ceiling. Leadership is about celebrating the wins of others, giving credit where credit is due and understanding it doesn’t matter who makes the play. The goal is to get a win.

I’m Not Buying In Because It’s Not My Idea is a very bad idea.

Have you experienced this type of leadership?  Share your thoughts!

Each and every week for the last eight weeks I have watched this young man Tim Tebow exemplify what being a winner is all about.  It’s about focusing on the task, giving credit where credit is due, understanding there is no “I” in team, making those around you better and embracing the concept of competitive greatness.

The short and skinny is that against all odds, critics and naysayers, Tim Tebow led the Denver Broncos, and keeps getting it done.  The Mile High team is 7-1 since Tebow took the helm as the starting quarterback and continues to leave many scratching their head, and others are becoming believers by the week.  It’s not simply that the Broncos are winning, but it’s the fashion in which the victories are happening.

Tim Tebow has led more 4^th quarter comebacks than any other QB this season besides Eli Manning.  Yesterday’s win over the Chicago Bears was probably the most improbable as the Bears led 10-0 with 2:08 left in the game.  Let me repeat that, the Broncos beat the Chicago Bears in overtime after trailing 10-0 with 2:08 in regulation.

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The term “Leader” carries a great deal of responsibility. Once a person obtains the title of Leader, they also get the bonus baggage of “The bucks stops with me!”  No matter how you slice, sugarcoat, twist, manipulate or make excuses for organizational outcomes; the bottom line is that “It’s All Your Fault!”

Leaders are generally comfortable carrying the “It’s All Your Fault” tag when their team, area or organization is experiencing success. When things take a turn for the worse, wins are hard to come by and “Big Mo” has left the building; the excuses will begin to roll like the Alabama Crimson Tide, or for the sake of the BCS conversation roll like the OSU Cowboy offense.  Stop with the excuses, stop blaming your team and look in the mirror, because “It’s All Your Fault!”

Sometimes it may not seem fair for the leader to take all of the blame, as they don’t have control over every decision that others make.  There are simply too many variables that are out of their control.  Leadership is not about fairness, and the responsibility nature of it is just part of the game.

I remember having a conversation with a leader who had dotted line responsibility for one of the team leaders under my tutelage.   They asked me the following question about this particular team leader, “Is so-and-so’s area successful because of their leadership or in spite of their leadership?”  My answer was, absolutely because of that particular leader and not in spite of.  If things were failing and falling apart it wouldn’t be in spite of that particular leader.  It’s a two-way street.

Dear Leaders, if your organization is failing, people are leaving, people are not being developed, people are not growing, people are unhappy, leaders are not rising to the top, momentum is long gone and you can’t seem to spell suczcess. “It’s All Your Fault!” If things are great and success is happening, enjoy the season because “It’s All Your Fault!”

There is no need to complain about the outcomes, just embrace the reality.  Next time your boss starts complaining and making excuses, simply look them in the eyes and say “It’s All Your Fault!”  Keep in mind, just because it’s their fault doesn’t mean they won’t pull a Donald Trump on you and look you in the eyes and say, “You’re Fired!”

The person who complains about the way the ball bounces, is likely the one who dropped it. ~Lou Holtz

What do you think?

Leadership is the most commonly used word when it comes down to the success of an organization, product, group or team.  No matter how you slice the success pie, the success pieces all boil down to leadership.  There are countless books about how to be a successful leader, 21 laws of leadership, how to go from good to great and the list goes on and on.  People thrive on learning about leadership, the fact that John Maxwell has sold over 19 million books is a clear indication of such.

There are many reasons that contribute to the success of a leader and just as many reasons for why they fail.  I am a firm believer that you can learn as much from your failures and working around poor leadership as you can successful leadership.  I wrote about it in a previous blog entry entitled Stop Complaining and Start Learning.

Why do leaders FAIL?  Below is a list of 4 memorable reasons leaders FAIL in an easy to remember acronym FAIL.

• Fake-  A leader who attempts to be someone they’re not instead of simply being themselves will always have a difficult time succeeding, at some point it just catches up to them.  This also applies to the leader that has a different face, different persona, different tone and different everything when certain people are around.  In other-words when the big boss comes around they put their fake-face on.  Not to say a leader might not make some adjustments when “company” comes around; however the super-fake-face comes from insecurity of their true self.  Remember: Don’t be fake, be yourself.  “Do You! It’s A Statement… Not A Question!” Fake Leaders Fail!

• Attitude- One of the primary reasons that a leader fails is because of a poor, negative or a no-can-do attitude.  If a leader thinks he can fly and has a positive can-do attitude; even though they may not be able to fly they will come close.  The reason why attitude is important is because that leader’s attitude will rub off on their team members and their followers. Remember: “Attitude reflects leadership, Captain.” ~Julius in Remember The Titans  The outward negative attitude is generally a sign of internal struggles, challenges or insecurities.  Leaders with Bad Attitudes Fail!

• Integrity- If a leader doesn’t exhibit a high degree of integrity they will fail.  The integrity issues will either catch up to them (what’s done in the dark, will come to light) or those that follow them won’t respect them.  If team members or followers don’t respect the a leader, it puts the leader in the place of pushing a snowball up hill… it’s a difficult task.  These integrity issues run the gamete: profanity, lying, cheating, stealing, affairs, flirting, yelling, substance abuse, pride-filled decisions etc.  I have worked with many high capacity leaders in both the secular world and ministry that have failed because they allowed their integrity to get off track.  Remember:  Integrity is doing the right thing, even when nobody is watching. The recent failure episodes of the Herman Cain’s and Jerry Sandusky’s of the world demonstrate how the lack of integrity will always lead to failure of the leader.  Unfortunately, it demonstrates that leadership failures can leave a trail of wounded followers behind.  Leaders who lack of integrity Fail!

• Lacking-  Although everyone has potential for some degree of leadership in them; the bottom line is that some leaders fail because they are either: a.) Not the leader they think they are, or b.) Promoted above their leadership capacity/leadership role has outgrown them, or c.) Not a visionary, or d.) Not a leader at all!   They are lacking what it takes!  Remember: Just because someone has an office, role, title or responsibility doesn’t mean they are a leader.  Leadership is an art, a skill, a craft, a gift… and it must be developed!  A leader must have the ability to inspire people to do more, be more and go farther.  If a leader lacks genuine followers or lacks what it takes to be a leader, they aren’t leading, they are simply going on a walk.

Share your thoughts and experiences.  Add some additional reasons leaders fail to the above list.

Although there are thousands of leadership books and leadership gurus to learn from, leadership isn’t something you can simply read about.  It takes more than reading or trying to implement tactics derived from a leadership workshop.  Leadership is something that you have to do, it’s an experiential science. It’s not rocket science; it’s a simple science.

Leadership is just like swimming — you can’t just read about swimming, you have to get in the water, kick your feet and stroke your arms.  Leadership is the exact same way – you have to get in the leadership waters, kick your feet and stroke your arms.

The Simple Science Of Leadership Boils Down To These Simple Things:

• Believe In Yourself
• Believe In Others
• Point The Direction
• Embrace The Concept Of Team
• Provide An Environment For Growth
• Inspire and Motivate Others
• Move People From Where They Are To Where The Need To Be
• Develop, Develop, Develop, & Develop
• dream BIG. think BIGGER.

Often times managers make leadership more difficult than it has to be, by micro-managing, trying to hard, squashing creativity and making a simple science into rocket science. Leadership is about influence and relationships.  Leadership Is Simple.

Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu says it this way, ”When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.” Simply put, it was simple.

Is leadership that simple?  Share your thoughts and experiences with leadership being made more difficult than it had to be.

Trying to answer the question of “why an organization or an individual failed?” generally creates some great dialogue. It forces individuals to ask deeper questions and generally prompts individuals to start pointing blame.

Over the years in working with many organizations, individuals, political candidates, teams etc., I have found some pretty common and simple themes as to what contributes to failure.

5 Reasons Businesses, Organizations & People Fail

• 1. Lack Identity- They don’t know who they are or who they want to be.  They are defined by the latest, greatest, newest trend and this is a cyclical process.  A person or organization without an identity or clear values to shape their identity is destined to fail.
• 2. Copy Cat- This is similar to #1; however the heart behind this one is to be like “so and so.”  It’s important to copy what’s burning deep inside you, not what’s burning inside of someone else.  If your only desire is to mimic someone else and not bring anything new, fresh or different to the table, you are destined to fail.
• 3. Don’t Solicit Proper Feedback- It’s important for individuals and organizations to have the proper people speaking into their plan and their life.  This helps to bring clarity to their identity and encourages individuals and organizations to be true to their unique calling.  Additionally, wise counsel can provide critical input that may alleviate some of the failure contributors altogether.  If you want to know if something is a good idea, ask those closest to you.  Not only those closest to you, but rather those closest to you that will shoot you 100% straight. (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly)  Without Good, Godly and Golden counsel, you are destined to fail.
• 4. Me Syndrome- If it’s all about you or your organization, you can almost guarantee it’s gonna be all about you, in your own little failure corner of your own little failure world.  Failure island is a lonely place to be for selfish people.  If it’s all about me-me-me, you are destined to fail.
• 5. Premature Quitter- I am a firm believer that there is definitely a time to call it quits.  The good wise counsel in #3 can be the group that help you ascertain, when it’s time to quit.  I think it’s important to always keep trying to change and move the ball of success down the field.  Quitting is one of those things that you will often times have to even take one step past your wise counsel.  You must pull from deep inside to know your limits and how much harder you need to work.  Often times #1 or rather an individual or organization’s identity is defined in the moments they were thinking about giving up.  If you quit prematurely, you are always destined to fail.  “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot from a winning touch down. ~Ross Perot

I worked with, alongside, for and supervised many people who confuse activity for productivity.  These are two very different animals; however they are readily confused for being the same species.  Below are some brief definitions of the two:

• Activity- The state or quality of being active.
• Productivity- The efficiency with which work or output is produced.

Just because a person, group or team is active, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are efficient or productive.  This applies to both personal and business life.  When individuals make the presumption that Activity = Productivity, they create a system where their primary goal is to be active.  They will work long hours, always try to look busy, always try to work on something and encourage those around them to keep busy.  Each day they tell themselves, “I have lots of stuff to work on today, I need to get busy.” Their busyness can often be translated to slowness, because their driving force is to be active.

The productive person on the other hand will ask themselves these types of  questions: “What do I need to work on today?”  ”Am I working on the things that matter?” “What do I need to put on my not-to-do list?” “How can I become more efficient?”

For instance I could keep writing this post trying to drive the point home; however I’m convinced that I’ve stated enough for you to have a clear understanding that “Just Because You’re Active, Doesn’t Mean You’re Productive.”  For the sake of productivity, I’m done now and not two paragraphs later.

What do you think?  Share your thoughts and experiences with those that mistake activity with productivity.

The Jets Lose to the Broncos and Tebow Haters Keep Getting #Tebowed.  I have always been amazed by the Tebow haters and overall hatred that Tim Tebow has received over the life of his public athletic career.  When he was at the University of Florida many people couldn’t stand him; and the fact that he proudly represented John 3:16 on his eye black, his famous speech “The Promise”, the incident with blood running down his face, and the list goes on and on.  I always liked Tebow in college, simply because of how he represented himself, although I didn’t particularly like his coach or the Florida Gators.

Now that Tim Tebow is in the NFL this Love/Hate condition is even larger and on a more national level.  In the City of Denver, Tebow gets ripped by Anti-Christian groups on a regular basis.  Yet, he gets cheered on by thousands of fans that have made his Jersey one of the most purchased Jersey’s in the NFL.  Tim Tebow is more than a quarterback for the Denver Broncos, he’s an iconic figure that represents Christian, courage, honor, good and wholesome.

Tebow appears to have gotten used to the criticism and has never once backed down from outwardly sharing his faith, and as a matter of fact he boldly ends every interview with “God Bless!”  People in the media and NFL analysts are publicly concluding that the hatred of Tebow is primarily based upon his outward showing of his faith and religious beliefs.  Inside the NFL host “JB” James Brown asked his co-host Chris Collinsworth a question regarding how Tim Tebow is treated, and Collinsworth was straightforward about his thoughts.  Collinsworth said, “It’s unbelievable JB, that one of the best kids – pure kids that’s ever come into the NFL, is hated because of his faith, because of his mission work, because of the fact that he wears it on his sleeve…”

In Matthew 10 in the Bible, Jesus talks about people hating you because of Him.  I think Tebow not only understands that but lives with the understanding of Matthew 10:32-33 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”

It’s one thing to disagree with someone because of their views, however this hatred and dislike that comes from the Anti-Christian is superfluous.  The harsh reality is The Tebow Haters Keep Getting #Tebowed.  It appears as though in the Tebow situation the fans were right, while the analysts, experts and haters are being proven wrong every week Tebow takes the field.

After weeks of “Tebow” chanting fans in Denver, the 3^rd string QB finally got his start against the Miami Dolphins 5 weeks ago.  Since that start, Tebow is 4 and 1 as a starting QB and knocked off Miami, Oakland, Kansas City and New York.  As I type the words of this post, I’m watching the analysts on ESPN trying to make sense of it all.  New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan, in his post game interview, just gave Tebow mad props and said, “The kid just wins!”

For the Anti-Christians and those who hate Tebow exclusively because of his faith, I say get a grip.  Instead of always focusing on what you are against, take a play out of Tim Tebow’s playbook and focus on what you are for.  I’ll end this with a little wisdom and life perspective from a young NFL QB by the name of Tim Tebow who happens to be a man of faith,   “If someone asks, I’ll always be willing to share His will because I also know that there are a lot more important things than football and that is one of them. That ultimately overrides football any day of the week.”  

For the sports people, analysts and Monday morning quarterbacks that say Tebow’s unconventional style and running the ball being a key part of his arsenal won’t get it done long term, you’re fooling yourselves. Just because a person doesn’t meet the establishment’s guidelines doesn’t mean that they can’t be uber-successful.  If you don’t believe me, ask Tebow.

Broncos Head Coach John Fox, as he just took the podium after the Jets victory, said,  ”I thank the Good Lord for every player in that locker room.”  Shortly after Fox, Tim Tebow took the podium and is answering the reporters with “Yes Sir” and “No Sir!”  One reporter asked him what he’s going to do to celebrate the win?  His response was “I’m going to spend some time thanking my Lord and Savior, hang out with some friends and get some sleep.” Tebow also just said, (paraphrasing) “It’s just a game, it’s a game that we are passionate about it.  It’s more important for me to use my platform to honor God and influence kids in a positive way.”  When asked about the naysayers, Tebow responded “I don’t worry about the naysayers, I’ve had them since I was 7 years old.  I just have to focus on what I can control.”  He closed with, “I think analyst Hugh Douglas said that if the Broncos win, he will go to church on Sunday.  I’ll be hitting him up on Twitter and telling him to put on his Sunday Best.”

Gotta Love It!  I love that Tebow works hard, has the respect of his team and is the definition of a gamer. The fact that he has supernatural favor is a nice bonus.

#Tebowed – (verb) another word for #winning.

Share your thoughts on Tebow, His Game, The Haters and Success.  Sound Off!

As a leader it’s important to set the tone for your team or organization, especially as it relates to handling stressful or crisis situations.  If the leader wigs out, stresses out, worries or has a heart attack during high stress or crisis situations; there will always be undertones of that stress transferred to the rest of the team. Leaders must learn to keep calm in these types of situations.

I learned the importance of keeping calm during crisis situations during my tenure as a young 25 year old Prison Warden.  As you can imagine running a prison presents the daily opportunity for high stress, crisis and potentially life & death situations.  I had the personal choice of whether or not I allowed particular circumstances or people to stress me out.  I would watch the previous Warden get stressed out by the most trivial things and felt the stressful impact that it had on the staff.  Realizing that it was up to me, I developed philosophy and mindset to handle these potentially high stress or crisis situations.

The philosophy was simply this,  ”There is nothing that we can’t begin to fix in “5 Minutes and 5 Phone Calls.”  I trained my Chief of Security and my Officers to not sweat the small stuff and embrace the fact that crisis situations will happen.  Remembering, it’s not about the situation it’s about how you handle the situation.  This type of mindset allows leaders to set the tone of stress minimization in the workplace.

In my role as a prison Warden, imagine a high stress situation of a full-blown prison riot.  The process that my team would undergo within the first 5 Minutes would be to make the following 5 Phone Calls:

• Call Local Law Enforcement
• Call Me “The Warden”
• Call The Department of Corrections Liaison
• Call Vice President of Operations
• Call Media/PR Representative

This mindset puts all situations, including crisis situation into perspective.   It’s inevitable that we will face problems and potentially stressful situations on a regular basis.  It doesn’t matter if the problem that we face is work related or personal, what matters is there is the beginning to a solution around the corner.  Stop Wiggin’ Out, Tell Your Boss To Stop Wiggin’ Out and embrace the fact that every situation, including Life & Death one’s can begin the “fixing process” in 5 Minutes and 5 Phone Calls.

Once a leader comes to the realization that simplicity matters and the situation they are facing really isn’t that big of a deal, they can begin to embody Albert Einstein’s version of 5 Minutes and 5 Phone Calls. Einstein says it this way, “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

It’s not that serious, STOP STRESSING!

What do you think? 

I’m always amazed at the wasted time, effort and energy people spend worrying about what others think.  It really is a huge waste of time and energy.  I’m not encouraging people to be oblivious and lose their sense of self-awareness…  I’m simply saying Stop Worrying About What People Think.

The reality is people don’t care that much, because they generally spend too much time worrying about themselves to worry about you. The more time you spend worrying about what people think and trying to be a people pleaser, the more you lose your sense of identity and God created uniqueness.

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. ~Dr. Seuss

Do You!  It’s a statement, not a question.