Issue No. 611 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting features another book from WSJ bestselling author Matt Mayberry and a Leadership Pop Quiz! Plus, click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), and click here for more book reviews. Also, read my recent review of How Leaders Learn: Master the Habits of the World's Most Successful People. Bonus! Read this week’s blog commentary on "Oh Happy Day," by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, in our toe-tapping feature, Johnny Be Good.
The stirring pre-game locker room talk by Al Pacino in the movie, Any Given Sunday, is referenced in Matt Mayberry’s new book, The Transformational Leader. View the clip here. (Note: Several “non-church” locker room words!)
POP QUIZ! NO CHEATING!
#1. What are the five pillars of every great leader? (Extra Credit: List at least one specific action step for each pillar in the “Code of Leadership.”)
#2. What are the five imperatives in a leader’s Communication Toolbox? (Hint: “Adapt Your Style” is Imperative 3, but what are the three learning styles that may require you to adapt your own communication style?)
#3. What are the five pillars of emotional intelligence? (Extra Credit: List one action step for each pillar. Hint: Try a team-building exercise with a tent and a blindfold!)
#4. What are the four coaching imperatives? (Extra Credit: List three popular excuses for why many leaders do not invest time in coaching their team members.)
#5. What are the five sacrifices of transformational leadership? (Have you ever thought about this before? See the five warnings for wanna-be leaders!)
ANSWERS? Sorry…you’ll need to read this powerful new book:
How the World's Best Leaders Build Teams,
Inspire Action, and Achieve Lasting Success
by Matt Mayberry (May 7, 2024)
I’m partial to any author who once played pro football for the Chicago Bears and delivers fresh and practical content in bite-sized portions—perfect for your weekly staff meetings. Matt Mayberry checks all the boxes and his new book is jam-packed with wisdom, encouragement, and frequent pokes-in-the-ribs for every leader.
Much like Marshall Goldsmith’s warning, “What got you here, won’t get you there,” Matt Mayberry is concerned about the leadership crisis today. “Leadership, as we know it, is extinct,” he writes. “Many leaders still use management competencies learned early in their careers despite changing workplace dynamics.”
He adds, “Leadership isn’t just a title; it’s a ripple effect. Great leaders can inspire us, but bad ones, driven by ego, can wreak havoc.”
I took my own medicine and approached each of the 27 short chapters with a “Pop Quiz” exercise. (By the way, “27” may be the new trend. How Leaders Learn also has 27 short chapters.) Example: Mayberry introduces a topic with three, four, or five key pillars or principles—and I’d try to guess what they were. (Apparently, I’m not a good guesser and I still have much to learn.) I came close with one or two ideas—but his full lists are PowerPoint-worthy. And as I mentioned—perfect for your lifelong learning moments in your weekly staff meetings. More examples:
• “The 8 Building Blocks of Inspirational Leadership.” Yikes! I may have overemphasized the Results Buckets, to the neglect of the People Bucket. Mayberry notes a survey of 60,000 workers that gave higher ratings to leaders “who adopted a dual focus on results and people.”
• LOL! Mayberry explains why “Skill” is not listed first on the “6 Components of the Influence Model” (Head, Heart, Skill, Connect, Trust, and Inspire). He writes, “…there’s a good reason it’s not number one, and that reason is the talented jerk we all encounter at some point who produces incredible results but destroys everyone around them.” He quotes Charles Swindoll, “Leadership is influence. To the extent we influence others, we lead them.”
• You’ll appreciate Mayberry’s precise choice of words—explaining why we must address ineffective leadership models (“with all its traditional wisdom”). It requires debunking, dismantling, and abandoning the old leadership lingo—and moving to a gardening and cultivating mindset. (This reminded me of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s metaphor in Team of Teams.)
KEEPERS. The featured quotations are keepers (Churchill, Spurgeon, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tom Landry, Indra Nooyi, Warren Buffet, Craig Groeschel, and numerous other leaders). In his chapter on “Authentic Leadership: Leading with Integrity,” Mayberry reminds us, “…we do not define leaders by their rise to prominence, but rather by their ability to resist external pressures at the top, where temptation is the strongest.” (See also The Leader’s Palette, by Ralph E. Enlow, Jr.)
A CONTINUOUS JOURNEY. With insightful color commentary from sports, coaching, and the military, The Transformational Leader will inspire you to elevate your aspirations. “Excellence isn’t a destination but a continuous journey of challenging ourselves to become better that we were yesterday.” Last week, I watched the new documentary film from Amazon Prime, The Blue Angels (2024)—the perfect companion piece to this book. I urge you to view this documentary with your team and host a conversation on excellence, succession, and much more.
View the official trailer for the documentary, The Blue Angels. “When you’re flying 12 inches apart, that can be scary!” Think excellence. Think discipline. Think teamwork. Think succession planning.
THERE’S MORE!
For an August preseason NFL game, prior to the 2023 season, Tennessee Titans Head Coach Mike Vrabel “stunned the football world and left us all in awe. Recognizing the ambition of assistant coach Terrell Williams, Vrabel stepped aside to let him take over the full scope of head coaching operations against the Chicago Bears.” Williams had the “whistle and clipboard” from Thursday afternoon until after the game on Saturday.” (Wow! You don’t see that often—in any organization!)
When KPMG challenged their team members to generate 10,000 stories on this global company’s impact on society—they received 42,000 “We Shape History!” stories! Read more in the Harvard Business Review article, “How an Accounting Firm Convinced Its Employees They Could Change the World.”
Mayberry quotes Tom Peters: “Leaders don’t create followers, they create more leaders.” And how’s this for an interview question from another CEO? “Don’t tell me everything you’ve done or accomplished. Give me examples of how you have helped others grow.”
OK…just one more Pop Quiz Question: Name “The 5 Core Tenets of Effective Leadership.” (Here’s a hint from the author: “Let me ask a blunt question: how can someone lead others if they can’t lead themselves?) This reminded me of Steve Brown’s helpful book, Leading Me.
Bottom Line: If you’re planning to showcase your same old/same old leadership to the next wave of coworkers and team members—good luck! I’m urging you to add this important book to your leadership library. (You do have a leadership library, right?)
To order from Amazon, click on the title for The Transformational Leader: How the World's Best Leaders Build Teams, Inspire Action, and Achieve Lasting Success, by Matt Mayberry. And thanks to the author for sending me a review copy.
2) The leadership books from Dick Daniels are also Pop Quiz-worthy. He writes “Communication is the primary competence of a leader.” (I named this book my 2021 book-of-the-year.) And in Hardwiring New Leadership Habits (2023), he coaches, “Among the three levels of a development culture, leading yourself is always harder than leading the team or even leading the organization.” QUESTION: What’s your go-to book for inspiring and coaching young leaders and managers?
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 14: Leadership & Management at War
Book #81 of 100: Leaders: Myth and Reality
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #80 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
Leaders: Myth and Reality
by General Stanley McChrystal (US Army, Retired),
Jeff Eggers, and Jason Mangone
Books #77 through #81 spotlight five fascinating books with military viewpoints on leadership and management. Book #81 features profiles of 13 leaders (some with warts) and some deep thinking on the myths and realities of true leadership.
• Read my review.
• Order from Amazon: Leaders: Myth and Reality
• Listen on Libro (17 hours, 2 minutes).
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list (from John and Jason Pearson).
The book’s approach is fascinating, disturbing, and thought-provoking. McChrystal’s compare-and-contrast model was Plutarch’s Lives—and, trust me, you’ll need a pen if you’re still reading books the old-fashioned way. Oh…and schedule a long vacation this summer—this gem is over 400 pages, plus notes.
Song #22 of 45: “Oh Happy Day"
Listen to “Oh Happy Day,” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, Song #22 of 45 in our blog series, Johnny Be Good. Read Paul Palmer’s heavily-researched color commentary and learn what Dick Clark said when the Singers appeared on American Bandstand! Reminder: Guest bloggers invited! More info here.
What to do when the CEO isn't in the room!
Last year, I reviewed another book by Matt Mayberry, Culture Is the Way: How Leaders at Every Level Build an Organization for Speed, Impact, and Excellence. He quotes this gem: “Culture tells us what to do when the CEO isn’t in the room, which is of course most of the time.” Read my review. For more book reviews, visit the Pails in Comparison Blog.
FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2024, while space remains, The Barnabas Group/San Diego is hosting John Pearson for his workshop, "The 4 Big Mistakes to Avoid With Your Nonprofit Board: How Leaders Enrich Their Ministry Results Through God-Honoring Governance." Location: Encinitas, Calif. Register here. ____________________________________
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