Tag: leadership

With all the books that I’ve been reading recently, this one seemingly is the one that sums up the main theme of what I’m re-discovering. I use the word “re-discovering” on purpose.  What Andy writes about in this book is simple. It’s so simple that when I tell you, you’ll say, “I already know that!”  It’s so simple…

Ridiculously Simple

Here it is:

Attention establishes direction which in turn determines destination.

In other words, it’s the advice your momma always gave you.  It’s the result of hind-sight, which we all know is 20/20.  But what I appreciate about this book was not about WHAT Andy communicated, but HOW.

The first thing I appreciated is that this book, unlike other books of this genre is driven by the principles found in scripture and promotes the “Principles of the Path” by the illustration of scripture.  In every section of this book, Andy seamlessly weaves principles of scripture into truths that everyone already knows, but hardly anyone follows.

The second thing I appreciate about this book is Andy’s ability to “tell it like it is” but do so in a way that you know he’s communicating with the desire to see you succeed – not so he can stand back and say, “I told you so.”

This book covers a lot on achieving your goals/dreams/calling/etc, but what I believe separates this book from “the pack” is the willingness of Andy to answer the question and reality that no other writer of these type of books seems to answer.  What is that question?  What is that reality?

What do you do if you realize your dream will never come true?

The reality is that there will be some dreams/goals that will NEVER be fulfilled

I believe this book answer those questions. How?  Well, you have to read the book!  Remember, this is just a review, not your college Cliff’s Notes!  But here are some quotes to wet your appetite:

• To get from where we don’t want to be to where we do want to be requires two things: time and a change of direction.  There isn’t a quick fix.
• Direction – not intention – determines our destination
• Today’s decisions are informed and influenced by their impact on tomorrow.
• The primary difference between the prudent and the simple is not what they see but how they respond to what they see.
• Our propensity to defend our happiness decisions with justifications that aren’t founded in truth is what sets us up for trouble when the road divides.
• You can’t get to where you want to be in life until you are willing to admit where you are to begin with.
• There are better decision-making strategies than simply following your heart.  The truth is if you let it, your heart will direct you down a path that leads to the very spot you most want to avoid.
• Your decision-making environments are not emotionally neutral.
• The best counsel in the world is wasted if our minds are already made up.
• You will never reach your full potential without tapping into the wisdom of others.
• We don’t drift in good directions.  We discipline and prioritize ourselves there.
• Pause before devoting your attention to anything.

In John Maxwell’s newest book, Put Your Dream to the Test:10 Questions to help you see is and seize it, John tries to tackle the many questions about having life dreams/aspirations/goals and the path to pursue and hopefully achieve them.

I’ll admit, the initial impression of what I thought the premise of this book would be didn’t really appeal to me from just a judgment of the cover.  I’m not one for your “self-help” pick-me-uppers ,which is what I thought this book was going to be about.  But as I began to read I was more than pleasantly surprised.

As I read this book, I began to realize that the word “Dream” here can be replaced with what I would describe as “Calling.”  My calling is directly affected by my relationship with Christ because I have committed to being someone who “Delights in the Lord“, allowing Him to give me the “Desires of my Heart.”  It may just be a matter of semantics, but it made all the difference to me.

Personally, this book touches specifically on just a part of the spectrum good leadership (which is my favorite subject of study at the current moment) or what Covey would call a “Highly Effective Person.”  The idea of a dream is what drives the human nature.  Some “experts” of personal development call it “seeing with the end in mind”.  In the Christian world, it has even been called in a round-about way, “Holy Discontent.”  In normal circumstances this book might have been a snoozer for me, but at this particular juncture in life, evaluating my “Dream” is exactly what I needed – and this book had a lot to offer.

Here are just a few quotes:

• …a dream is an inspiring picture of the future that energizes your mind, will, and emotions, empowering you to do everything you can to achieve it.
• Failure is the price we must pay to achieve success.
• Followers don’t give their best to something they don’t understand.
• Yes, we do need to aim high.  However, we don’t have the ability to attain whatever we seek.  I don’t possess the ability to achieve every potential I can imagine. I don’t believe that I can achieve any goal. That is not reality.
• …you have to take a realistic look at yourself to know where your habits are taking you.
• …complacency kills passion.  It reduces us to average.
• It is impossible for me to ignore the reality of my present position and be successful.
• Successful people think differently from unsuccessful people, especially in the area of failure.  They see it as a regular part of success, and they get over it.
• The great men and women of history were not great because of what they earned and owned.  They were great because they gave themselves to people and causes that lived beyond them.

I really needed this book at this time in my life, and I was glad to have read it and gained some insightful wisdom on how to approach the journey of going after my “Dream.”

Got dreams?

If there is one book I could say would most practically help every Pastor, both lead and associate, function in a healthy way, this would be it. I’ll be honest and say that if I knew what I have just read in this book before going into the “workforce”, I wouldn’t have had to learn most of these principles “The Hard Way.” Notice I didn’t say “ministry”. Why? Because this book isn’t written to Guys in ministry. It was written to people out in the secular workforce. But…all the “Feiner Points” apply to healthy, functioning leadership because Pastoring/Ministering is leadership.

The subtitle of this book is, “The 50 Basic Laws That Will Make People WANT to Perform Better for You” but this book is so much more than that. When picking up the book, you can feel like this is going to be ANOTHER book on leadership. I’ve read tons of those, and while I was excited to read this book because of another pastor who said he liked it, I was a little skeptical of what this was going to bring new to the table.

“The Feiner Points…” is more than a typical leadership book. It’s a book about “follow-ship”. Not many of us are or will be the CEO or “Top Executive in our field, but almost all of us are subordinates. This book is great for giving practical principles for success as a leader who is subordinate to someone else.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

• Leadership can never be something practiced by an individual in isolation.
• …leadership is like an iceberg: Ninety percent of it is hidden below the surface
• …every High-Performance Leader…had both strong management and strong leadership skills
• …an imbalance between leadership and management can lead to problems not just for individuals, but also for an entire organization
• To lead your people, you must know your people (The Law of Intimacy)
• The Law of Intimacy does not mean you need to become friends with your subordinates, or that you need to socialize with them outside of work. You do not and you should not…knowing your people stops short of befriending them.
• If a leader wants a subordinate to be committed to the succeess of the leader and the leader’s organization, then the leader must be committed to the subordinate – to his or her growth and development, and to what’s important to him or her both inside and outside the office.
• (The Law of Feedback) It means telling a subordinate what he or she needs to do more of, needs to do less of, or needs to do differently to improve performance.
• Bosses should encourage feedback from their subordinates, who will often have a much better idea of their boss’s effectiveness than the boss will.
• To be effective, feedback must be camera-lense: he leader should indicate the specifics of what he or she observed that led to his or her judgement of the subordinate’s performance.
• (In relationship to bosses) Respect the office even if you don’t respect who sits in it.
• You must preserve your self-esteem and integrity by knowing how to push back, by knowing how to tell the Emperor that he or she is wearing no clothes…the hardest concept to get people to acept is that, as a leader, they’re obligated to tell bosses when they’re naked (not doing things right)
• You should never apologize for leading a group of your peers.
• Each meeting nees an agenda….the team must own the agenda for the meeting, which means not that the leader tells them that they own it, but that everyone has a role of shaping it.
• If you’re having a problem with a colleague…you must assume you’re the cause and you’re the source
• People look to a leader’s substance, not style, to validate their leadership value.
• High-Performance Leaders…seek to create healthy conflict…

Ok, there is so much more I could write, but you have to check out this book for yourself. If you buy it and don’t like it, send it to me. I’ll find someone who could benefit from it!

And so the beginning of my arduous adventure into tackling the plethera of books I received for my birthday. Thanks Mom and Dad Beron. I started with Jim Collin’s book entitles “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t” I’ve seen it on the shelves and hear a lot about it, being touted as a #1 best seller. Being that leadership and such has been a subject of study that interests me immensly, I decided to place this book on my list of, “Must Reads” This 300 page book (of which 100 pages includes an extensive appendix and notes) was a really good read. I’m no fortune 500 company owner, but I was intrigued to find that the principles which governed success for great companies are the principles that govern successful lives. Here are a couple of quotes:

• Few People attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.
• …the type of leadership required…self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy – these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.
• You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit – Harry S. Truman
• Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce results.
• Level 5 leaders set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation, whereas egocentric Level 4 leaders often set up their successors for failure.
• The good-to-great leaders began the transformation by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.
• Concerning people decisions:

1. 1. When in doubt, don’t hire – keep looking.
   2. When you know you need to make a people chance, act.
   3. Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

• Charisma can be as much a liability as an asset, as the strength of your leadership personality can deter people from bringing you the brutal facts.
• Spending time and energy trying to “motivate” people is a waste of time…if you have the right people, they will be self-motivated.
• The transition (from good to great) begins not by trying to discipline the wrong people into the right behaviors, but by getting self-disciplined people on the bus in the first place.
• “Anything that does not fit out Hedgehog Concept, we will not do.”

In short, I feel that a lot of the principles that Covey brought to us in “7 Habits…” were wonderfully purported in this scientific analysis of what made companies leap and others not. I know that there were a lot of things I read that I am chewing on…things that I wonder would affect my ministry, my pool business, my life. It’s a fun read and it would be a great addition to your library of great leadership books. It’s also just a really great informational book with tons of history and revealing interviews.

Today I “threw down” on a book that was given to me last night by one of the members of our church. He noticed that I was on a Leadership Book kick and tossed me a book that impacted him in the arena of his “secular profession.” I have read MANY leadership books, and I make it a habit to continually do so, because leaders are learners and learners are readers. With that said, I’ve read many leadership books that I like and dislike, but then every once in a while a I’ll find a book that nails me right between the eyes. This book was one of them.

I’ll be honest, there were some things that I didn’t agree with theologically, but the author had a lot of great things to say about mistakes leaders make. As I read this book, I felt as though he was writing about me. The encouraging point is that this book is a definition of the author’s experience or personal observations of these mistakes. That’s why he says right from the beginning of the book (in fact it’s just the introduction) that,

“Top-Flight leaders really aren’t born, they learn by trial and error.”

Here are some other quotes worthy of mentioning from this book:

• “There is nothing in my organization that anyone does that I should not be willing to do myself if it promotes the good of us all.”
• “My job is to help those I lead release as much of their potential as possible. I do not do the work; others do it under my leadership…to equip them to do the work that must be done.”
• “It is almost necessary to be a workaholic to make it as a Christian leader. Unfortunately, many leaders are poor listeners because of this very problem.
• “Every person who aspires to be used by God in His service must have as a prime objective the same passion: to see people’s lives changed into Christ’s likeness.”
• “It’s a big mistake to stifle your brightest stars with the harness of endless committees, procedures, and paperwork.”
• Leaders should lead, not just implement consensus.”
• “Very often, how a project is done doesn’t really matter. If it is done differently but accomplished effectively then the job gets done-which is all that matters.”
• “I’d rather get ten men to do the job than to do the job of ten men. – D.L. Moody”
• “Delegation means giving people the freedom to decide how jobs will be done.”
• “As organizations grow…communication must be given more attention and must become more formal.”
• “The higher you go in leadership, the more sensitive you have to be about everything you communicate.”
• “The more people you lead, the more you must listen.”
• “Disrespect for authority should not be tolerated in a Christian corporate culture.”
• “If we hold to the standards of biblical Christianity, don’t we all believe the same way? The answer is a resounding no! Christians differ dramatically in both beliefs and values, and can best serve their Master if they yoke themselves with Christians in the body of Christ who see things in roughly the same way as they do.”
• “If you are a leader, lead those who, as closely as possible, value and believe what you do.”
• “Success without a successor is failure.”
• “Growth comes from change.”
• “I’m an eternal optimist…’expect great things, attempt great things.’ “

There is so much in this book that I WILL be rereading it. I’ve learned so much about my personal weaknesses through this book. Readers beware…reading this book will be like looking into the “leader’s mirror…you’ll see yourself in previously unrevealed ways and learn what it takes to ‘get presentable’ for effective leadership for His glory.” (quote from Joseph M. Stowell, President of Moody Bible Institute concerning this book.)

I totally recommend this book to anyone interested in guarding themselves from the top ten mistakes leaders make or preventing previous mistakes from happening again.