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.
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by tashmcgill | Jun 9, 2014 | Community, Culture & Ideas
A secret can be a sacred thing – something that deserves to be hidden away, held precious, close and carefully. But in turn, some secrets need to be shown the light – gently and gracefully. Some of the secrets we hold are keeping the dampers on life: releasing them is like turning up the colour, the volume, the taste of it.
Some secrets are like a kiss; so intimate they bind us to each other and their keeping is a safety net, a close retreat.
I think of my soft-hearted friend, whose empathy is a gift to the world but they struggle to reveal it through insecurity and bravado. They keep the secret of who they are tucked away, asking me to keep its hiding place quiet too. The secrets of ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ really matter much; but the secrets of who we really are – those are the ones that need the most wisdom.
That’s the lesson about superhero super identities: who you reveal your deepest, secret self to is probably one of the most important decisions you can make. Those people will either be your worst enemies, or your very best friends.
Considering how much I’ve written about honesty and being honest this year, it’s only fair to keep things on a level footing. Here’s the truth of it: life is full of little secrets. Things we keep to ourselves and things we keep hidden for other people. I keep a lot of secrets. Maybe it’s not so bad, a little mystery. Or maybe it is. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Jun 3, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Leadership, Strategy
“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain
Imagination is the ability to form a mental image of something that is not yet perceived through the senses. It is the ability of the mind to build mental scenes, objects or events that do not exist, are not present or recreate events that have happened in the past. Imagination is about creating a new story, a new picture that also is attainable to the everyday person. It’s the ability to both see what is not yet, and what can be…
It gives a leader the ability to look at any situation from a different point of view, and enables one to mentally explore the past and the future. A developed and strong imagination strengthens your creative abilities, and is a great tool for recreating and remodeling your world and life.
We use our imagination everyday, whenever we plan a trip, our work schedule or even how a meeting will run out. We imagine the important and non-important but pleasurable moments we are planning throughout the day. We use it when we describe an event, explain how to arrive to a certain street, write, tell a story or cook a meal.
The creative power of imagination has an important role in the achievement of success in any field, not just the creative arts.
There were two essential ingredients, behind the genius of Churchill’s wartime leadership. Imagination and Courage. Great leaders are those who have great imagination and great courage. Imagination is a more encompassing idea than vision.
To be imaginative, however, as a leader, is to cultivate a finely balanced ability to imagine a future possibility and also see with clarity all the possible ways to be able to communicate that vision as realistic and achievable. Churchill cultivated each of these processes of the truly imaginative person. He had a solid grasp of the contemporary world crisis that he faced. This gave him the ability to be a realistic visionary, and he also possessed the gifts of an artist, to articulate and demonstrate a picture of what can be, a picture that all can participate in creating.
Our modern plight: we rationalize and formulate instead of imagining. We make decisions with such objectivity, we create a culture of reductionism and deduction. Truth & knowledge (the tools of a leader’s trade) have become universal and generic. Leadership becomes the right application of technique and models instead of a desire to be imaginative and follow the spirit of innovation and creativity.
Let your imagination run wild.
These posts were originally broadcast in a radio series, in 2009. If you are interested in talking more about leadership or you’d like me to speak with your team about maximizing their leadership skills – just get in touch. Tim Keel wrote a book called Intuitive Leadership where he agrees that imagination is critical to leadership, read it.
