Callan … Coffee … Contemplation – For the Week of January 27, 2014
Every day we share our Leadership Reflections on our social media pages. Our daily reflections are quick thoughts on leadership that you can quickly and easily digest over a cup of morning coffee!
Here is the collection of last week’s reflections:
MLK … Crossing Thresholds
In 1965 Martin Luther King was leading a march from Selma to Montgomery and the Edmund Pettus Bridge was on his route. King needed to cross the bridge to continue onwards to Montgomery. King’s opponents didn’t want him to cross that bridge. As King stood at one end of the bridge and peered across to the other side, he was confronted with the present danger of an angry opposition, but equally, by his own inner fear and self-doubt. This was a decisive threshold moment: Should he cross and pursue his destiny, or turn back and seek safer ground? King chose to cross the bridge, and in doing so, he pulled himself, and our society, across a transformative threshold. The bridge King crossed that day was short in physical distance but immense in terms of defining a heroic life. As leaders, we too will come to threshold decisions in our lives. And like King, we’ll find ourselves standing on the near side of that threshold—the side representing our present condition–and be confronted with the decision to cross over to the far side–a new state and new condition. Will we move forward and pursue our destiny? Will we endure the crucible to achieve growth? Or, will we turn back and seek safer ground? Such is the nature of all threshold decisions: Do we leave our comfort zone and heed the call to heroic purpose, or return home and accept something less?
Heroic Leaders Surround Themselves with Strong Teammates
When reflecting on the mythic image of King Arthur and his famed Knights, the image of the Round Table comes to mind. As its name implies, the Round Table at which Arthur and his Knights met had no designated head, implying that everyone assembled had equal honor, a valued voice, and an obligation to contribute. This obligation to be present, to think and act, and to value strong teammates, was considered the highest order of chivalry at King Arthur’s Court. As modern leaders, we too should possess the strength of character to seek out, and welcome, strong teammates. Attracting strong teammates requires us to have an abundance mindset where we are not afraid of others’ strengths; where we are willing to share credit and good fortune. Additionally, attracting strong teammates helps us hear contrarian voices and not fall prey to group think. Strong teammates, welcomed to our own Round Tables, help us avoid blind spots in our personal thinking.
Heroic Leaders Embrace Intuition
The acme of battlefield generalship, most often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, is the term coup d’oeil, which means the “power of the glance.” A general with coup d’oeil can arrive at a battle, observe the emerging conditions and situation, and trusting his well-honed instincts, plan his strategy intuitively. It isn’t that facts or intelligence aren’t important, they are. However, the dynamism and fluidity of the battlefield demand agile, integrated, and rapid “deep knowing.” Modern Leaders must learn to hone and trust our intuitions too, because there is no such thing as certainty in leading. The only exact science is retrospect. Our modern world prizes complex analysis, as if complex analysis automatically equates to deep knowing. Too often, complex analysis results only in decision-making paralysis. So what is intuition? It is pattern recognition! Once a leader detects a pattern, he must trust his rapid cognition, and decide intuitively. Heroic Leaders know, and value, the power of the glance.
Heroic Leaders Speak the Language of Leadership
Communicating–deeply connecting to and resonating with others—is the key distinction between great leadership and basic management. Heroic Leaders understand they must first speak to hearts
before they try to appeal to minds, and in connecting with hearts, leaders must provide answers to these three elementary questions: Who? What? and Why? Armed with answers to those three questions, followers will naturally activate their inner motivation, unleash their passion, and rally to noble purposes. The language of leadership has a unique style using basic conversational tones, an
active voice, and a personal and clear delivery. The language of leadership avoids tech-speak and mind-numbing bureaucratic jargon. Heroic leaders make extensive use of metaphors, parables, and stories to paint mental pictures and to portray galvanizing end states. The language of leadership gets us out of our heads and into our hearts—the source of all championship performance.
Manufacturing Wins & Leveraging Success
Great leaders create positive momentum for their teams. Be they in sports, business, or the local community, great leaders create opportunities for “small wins” and, once achieved, the leader publically celebrates these team achievements to create a centrifugal force of positive energy, optimism, and confidence. In this sense, great leaders serve as catalysts—or maestros—orchestrating wins by expertly applying pace, flow, and tempo. When leaders manufacture wins and leverage success in this way, they create an organizational affect we can think of as “patterns of achievement.” This is what in sports is often referred to as “learning how to win.” Once we master a pattern of success, we come to expect it, and we know how to achieve it. Success, like heroic leadership itself, is both a mindset and a habit. By paying attention to small things and small rules, great leaders create a rising tide of success. Why? Because great leaders understand that the accumulation of small things, done well, has big consequences!
Check back next Monday for a round up of this week’s social media shares. Or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest to see our posts every day!
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