by tashmcgill | Aug 19, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Strategy
I was talking with a recent design graduate the other day. They were talking about how they were never going to ‘sell out’ by working for a big corporate agency. Their philosophy was pretty simple – as far as they were concerned, working for a big agency would mean working on big client accounts that would always be driven by money, not by the integrity of the art.
I hear this all the time – first from cynical Generation Xers and now from optimistic Millennials. And every time, it frustrates me to see intelligent, smart and talented people constraining their own potential to influence amazing creative work and see demonstrable change. Here’s why the graduate is wrong and you should consider encouraging more people to ‘sell out’. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jun 17, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas, Strategy
As kids, we’re taught that honesty is simple. Tell the truth, it’s better that way. We learn that honesty is black and white, everything is either true or untrue. We learn that lying is usually a tactic employed while trying to cover up something else. So we get schooled in confession – the act of coming clean.
Truth is so much more than confession. Confession (and honesty) is like a doorway for truth-telling. It’s opening a door for truth to take a more prominent and transformational role in your life. Honesty is a philosophy, a habit, a way of speaking and sharing – it is a practice. A way of engaging with the universe and others, but it is not a substitute for truth.
When people talk to me about their search for identity, for meaning and purpose or when they talk about their relationship and work struggles, often I find myself observing the bigger truths that people avoid through focusing their honesty in the wrong place. Honesty has become a series of trade-offs we make to fake intimacy and avoid discomfort. It’s not how honesty was meant to transform us or weave us together through sharing our victories and struggles.
Honesty might be admitting you’ve had a tough day at work. Truth is admitting you’re not making it any easier fo (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jun 12, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Strategy
Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the right thing. – Warren Bennis, Ph.D. “On Becoming a Leader”
Doing the right thing is much more complicated that what we like to admit. Doing the right thing usually means dealing in truth in such a way that truth takes a leading role. Leadership is knowing what to do with the truth.
Sometimes we don’t like that because if the truth is in control, inevitably we’re left with the test of character: how we respond to truth & how we help others to respond to the truth.
Becoming a leader means having a courageous and transparent relationship with truth in all it’s forms.
- offering honest and constructive feedback to those around us
- dealing with self-reflection and objective appraisal as habit
- understanding ourselves, our capabilities and that of our team
In the last fifty years – we have come to expect leaders to be more like superheroes who woo and charm us. We’ve also sat gleefully by whilst they meet our expectations of failure and inability to live up to those superhuman standards.
A leader that makes a practice of knowing and facing truth is rarely afraid of it and often, humble. A leader who helps others to engage with truth in meaningful ways will nurture, grow and encourage others.
Don’t be the kind of leader who works behind closed doors too often, who shifts to the left and the right trying to be all things to all people. Be someone who deals in truth and be true, define what is true and what is real.
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
– Max DePree The Art of Leadership
by tashmcgill | Jun 11, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Strategy
“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford
What cripples people from becoming the leader they want to be is how they deal with failure. First, their own mistakes and failures but most importantly, the mistakes and failures of others.
That’s why people won’t follow a leader who doesn’t empower others to fail forward. When failure builds a culture of fear in your team, your team won’t have your back when the time comes and their best will never be good enough.
Nobody wants to make mistakes. Nobody really enjoys addressing failure. But nobody wants to work with a leader who relegates mistakes and failure to the end of the line, so you have to navigate people through failure to the next thing.
Failing forward is more than having a good attitude about your mistakes and a step beyond being will to take calculated risks. Failing forward is the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction. Failing forward is a culture that inhabits the atmosphere around great leaders. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jun 10, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Strategy
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Extraordinary leadership will be not be defined by those leaders who will settle for executing great commercial or political strategy. The great leaders will be those who, learning from histories of failed political, religious and industrial change, realise that leadership is about people.
(more…)
