Issue No. 138 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features a book that will challenge your conventional leadership thinking—and help you “RE:Vision” leadership with a new set of eyes. With 30 short snippets, you’ll easily find five to 10 leadership insights to use at your weekly staff meetings. And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Beg for More Help
It comes with the territory. After 20 or more years (my estimate) savvy leaders notice they must work increasingly harder and harder to fight off the subtle signs of leadership arrogance. Experienced leaders remain as leaders because they’re good at stuff—but then they start thinking they are great at stuff. And then wham—the arrogance kicks in.
What’s the antidote to arrogance? There are many (including a truth-telling spouse), but I encourage colleagues and clients to read-up-a-storm. Diligently. With books that challenge the status quo and the conventional wisdom. This week’s book does that.
If you have any symptoms of attention deficit disorder, this book is made to order. I first scanned the 30 tempting chapter titles and couldn’t decide where to start first. So I read Chapter 29, “Soar on Your Own Wings,” then jumped back to Chapter 1, “Don’t Waste God’s Time,” then to #27, “It’s Not Your Stuff Anyway,” and as I began to rate each five-page leadership lesson, I gave five stars to Chapter 4, “Time-Management Training Can Be a Con Game.” (How can you not read that one?)
In his con game chapter, author Jim Seybert begins when Jesus sent out 36 teams of two each. “It’s clear that Jesus understood the futility of having too few people assigned to an important job. The size of the task exceeded the limits of the available workforce, and Jesus tells his followers to pray that more helpers will join them along the way. The additional bodies were not going to come by chance; the Lord of the harvest would provide them.
“We don’t see Jesus urging his followers to ‘work smart,’ nor do we see him sending them to class so they can learn how to use a Day-Timer. The world’s most effective leader very distinctly encouraged his followers to beg for more help. I have a hard time imagining he would suggest such a thing were he not certain their prayers would be answered and that more people would be added to the effort.”
So….when is the last time the first item on your To-Do list was to beg the God of the Universe for more help? When someone challenges your leadership premises, it’s a good thing. You’ll get similar wake-up calls in Seybert’s chapters on “Customers Don’t Always Come First,” “Good Leaders Are Self-ish,” “Stand in the Spotlight,” “Must We All Get Along?” “Eat With the Troops,” and “Play Chess Not Checkers.”
To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: Leadership RE:Vision – Looking at Leadership With a New Set of Eyes, by Jim Seybert.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author says “your role as a leader includes the responsibility of providing for and protecting the people God has called you to lead.” Describe a situation (at another organization) where you felt unprotected by your boss—and then a time when you felt protected. (Please change the names or organizations to protect the guilty!)
2) If you were to write a chapter for this book—challenging the conventional wisdom on leadership—what would you title the chapter, and why?
Should You Walk AND Chew Gum? - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Strategy Bucket, Chapter 3, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to hold high a B.H.A.G., a Big Holy Audacious Goal—an organizational goal or target on the wall for the next three to five years that is the catalyst for everything you do.
When reporters and pundits last week evaluated U.S. President Barack Obama’s first 100 days, some remarked that he had launched so many initiatives and was firefighting so many crises, that the American people were confused by the myriad number of priorities.
I agree with that observation. You can’t do everything well. And even though Obama says he can walk and chew gum at the same time, every leader must recognize that too many spinning plates will make the audience dizzy.
So ask your trusted internal and external colleagues: “Is our message getting out there? Are we trying to do too much?” Without prompting, can your colleagues articulate your BHAG—your one crystal clear goal you want to achieve by December 31, 2011 (or whatever date you’ve set)?”
For more resources and book recommendations to help you with your strategic planning, visit the Strategy Bucket page at my Management Buckets website and check out other resources and downloadable worksheets in each of the 20 buckets.
NEXT STEPS: I can help you integrate these leadership and management best practices into your unique setting and help you assess your competencies in the 20 management buckets. Email me at John@JohnPearsonAssociates.com or visit my website at www.JohnPearsonAssociates.com and my book website at www.ManagementBuckets.com. Look for me on Facebook and tweet me at http://twitter.com/JohnWPearson.
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