What’s Your Style of Leadership: The Big One, The Trendy One, or The Child…

July 29, 2013 by

Leadership-Style-BowlingIf you visit a bowling alley and watch the bowlers, there are a few things you might see. There will probably be the big guy with a loud voice, throwing the ball as fast as he possibly can. There might be the trendy lady who doesn’t want to bend too much because her pants are too tight. You might see the five year old; who walks up to the line, bends over, and pushes the bowling ball.

All of these bowlers start with the same chance of getting a strike, but the likelihood of succeeding is all in their style.

Leadership is a lot like bowling, it takes… style. You need to be able to identify your style, and adjust for each situation. Using the big bowler as an example, his first throw down the alley might result in nine pins knocked down, leaving only one. If he uses the same approach with his second toss, he might miss completely. He will have a much better possibility of success if he slows down and focuses on the remaining pin.

When leading, take a few moments periodically and reassess the style you are using. It could be that what worked at the beginning of a project, is not the style that is needed in the middle or the end of a project. Keeping a team focused and enthused about their goal takes effort, and needs a bit of adjustment now and again. As teams mature, the style needed to lead them will also change.

What style works for you?

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Self-conquest – A Step to tapping into The Leadership Potential within You

March 13, 2013 by

Self-Conquest-Ogwo-David-EmenikeThe issue of tapping into the leadership potential within us is so a versed topic that it can lend itself to various elucidations by various people at various time and circumstance. Time and space would not however, permit us to embark on this journey fully. But suffice it to say that self-conquest is, in itself, a step to tap into the leadership capability in us.

In a conscious effort to tap into the enormous leadership potential that lay within us, we must endeavour to conquer ourselves – a disciplinary step to become better persons that will inspire the society at large to lead a better life. Mahatma Gandhi took this further with his assertion: “The great change of the modern age is not to remake the world but to remake ourselves. Be the change you wish to see for the world.”

Can a man who cannot guide himself guide another? The first step to becoming an efficient leader is the ability to conquer oneself. By conquering yourself, I mean gaining total control of yourself, your emotions, your reasoning; being able to establish a level of imperviousness against situations and not allowing sentiments to becloud your better judgment.

You can only lead others as far as you have gone yourself. Can the blind lead the blind? No! It will worth our while to note that leadership is impossible without a guiding vision and purpose that generate passion for accomplishment. Leadership is born out of character and a determination to be and express one’s self fully. It is the discovery and marriage of purpose, personality and potential.

The world has come of age. It is now goodbye to the type of leadership where the leader is one who stood above his men and shouted order to them to obey. Leaders who first conquered self have an edge over others in terms of wisdom, courage, honesty, patience, integrity, meekness, self-control, etc. They guide by influence, directing by going before and along with the people. Their kind of leadership is by inspiration. It is the opposite of intimidation, and absolutely void of manipulation. There are many so-called leadership situations where fear is the motivator rather than commitment based on a response to an inspired life.

If we keep harbouring the thought that only a few lucky ones are born into the sacred position of leadership, we end up surrendering our life’s affairs to some masters we made for ourselves – we slowly become their victims, as they exercise control and authority over us. This is a flaw – this thought and waiting for the lucky ones. “If a man therefore purges himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” (2 Timothy 2 vs. 21). Why must the world wait for a few individual to be born before they can enjoy the services of great leaders?

We need millions of Moses, Mahatmas, Mandela, Martin (jnr.), Abraham Lincoln, to mention but a few, but history has given us only one of such men. The leadership traits and potentials they possessed lie within us. You may not have the crowd to lead like them, but assuredly you’ve got yourself to lead, and that is the first step to becoming a great leader in this day and age. It is being said, “He who would move a mountain must first start with stones.” These men we idolize their leadership prowess started by conquering and leading themselves first.

 “ Be the change you wish to see for the world.” ~Mahatma Gandhi  Tweet this

The individual who aims at reaching the top in leadership must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break and dismiss those habits that can break him, and advance to embrace those practices that will become the habits that will help him achieve the success he desires in leadership.

He who can conquer himself is greater than the fearsome warrior. To conquer yourself you must conquer your mind. You must ensure that you control your thinking. A leader must be controlled from within and disciplined. Self-control is learning how and when to say “NO”. As a leader, you should not be easily manipulated by the behavior or offenses of others. If somebody can make you mad, it means that person has controlled you; and if he can control you, then you have no control over yourself. The same goes for the person who can “turn you on”.

Conclusively, in a quest for self-mastery for better leadership, you must break yourself off from pride (the need to elevate one’s self by the devaluation of others; an attempt to secure a sense of superiority by the maintenance of the feeling of inferiority in others), ego (the sense of exaggerated self-importance), and jealousy (the wrong measure of one’s success by comparison to the accomplishment of others).

If we possess the inner strength to break deeply embedded habits that weigh us down from becoming better persons, then we have begun to tap into the leadership potential within us.

Filed Under: International Leadership Blogathon Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Have Time

March 4, 2013 by

Time-Management-effective-leadership-Brendan-HoweI am declaring war on the phrase “I don’t have time”. It’s a very common sentence I hear way too often from leaders, managers and employees.

If you EVER use this phrase or a variation of it, I will suggest two things about you:

  1. You are not as accountable as you should be; and,
  2. You are bad at time management.

Tough medicine? Well, let me explain why I think this way and why it is so important that leaders never to use this phrase.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day, whether you’re Bill Gates or the garbage man. It comes down to how you use that time and being accountable for that.

Effective time management is constantly making effective decisions to direct your time toward the activities that are most important in hitting your goals.

If you say “I didn’t have time to do that,” you are essentially blaming something else – some other force of time – for not being able to do something. In reality, you chose to do something else instead and you need to be aware of that and accountable for that decision.

If that decision was spending more time with your family or watching the football game, there’s nothing wrong with that, just be aware and accountable for the decision you made.

I’ve gotten frustrated with staff before and told them if you don’t hit your goals for the week I’d like you to say the following to me:

“I decided that everything else I spent working 40 hours on last week was more important than what you asked me to do.”

Harsh? Well, it’s to make a point. I’m sick and tired of people pretending they don’t have control of their day or week. We all have tons of interruptions and distractions. You need to understand that if you don’t get something done, you’ve assigned a higher priority to whatever else you did.

One of the most important things any successful person can master is time management but you will never do it unless you accept that you are the one ultimately responsible for how you spend your time.

The other part of this is making sure you have clear goals and a purpose. You need to know what your goals are for the quarter, month, week and day in order to make those effective decisions about how to spend your time.

If you have clear goals, then when someone comes to your office door and asks you to do something, you will measure doing that task against what you need to get done for your goals that day, plus the list of other things you need to do.

If you don’t have clear goals, you might just go off and do whatever someone asks you to do that’s urgent to them. Or you might spend your day responding to emails and putting out fires.  Then you get to the end of your day and realize you haven’t gotten anything done.

I’ve found the more I focus on managing my time to hit my goals, the more it forces me to figure out how to do more in the limited amount of time I have every day.

It all starts with never saying “I didn’t have time for that.” I’ve told members of my team to call me on it if I ever say that.

So here’s a challenge for you. The next time someone asks you if you’ve done something, keep yourself from saying “no, I didn’t have time to do that.” It may be a little difficult but I’m confident you can do it.

Instead, say something like “I haven’t done that yet” or “I wanted to finish that sales proposal yesterday first before doing that.” I can guarantee you will feel much better about yourself and more in control.

By eliminating “I don’t have time” from your vocabulary you are becoming more accountable and you’re forcing yourself to be better at time management. You’ll be much more successful as a result!

How do you feel when someone tells you “I don’t have time?” Post a reply and I will take the time to reply.

One of the most important things any successful person can master is time management. ~Brendan Howe Tweet this

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