Can you help me?

Can you help me - 1“Can you help me?”

Those are not words that flow easily from our mouths as leaders.  But maybe they should be.

I recently took an international business trip.  It involved 6 flights, 4 trams, 4 shuttle busses and 2 taxi cabs in order to get to where we needed to be.  I have taken many international flights in my line of work.  And I am accustomed to many of the rigors of travel.  But, for the first time in 13 years of international business travel, I had to ask for help to get from one gate to the next to make my final connecting flight on the way home.

Can you help me - 2I arrived at Liberty in Newark, NJ late last Thursday afternoon and by the time I cleared customs and boarded the tram and got to my gate at the next terminal they were already boarding the flight.  Imagine my surprise to see a nearly empty gate.  What I discovered at the gate was that United had decided to change the departure gate to the other side of the terminal.  My gate was no longer Gate 125.  It was Gate 75.  I was not going to make it.

But at my age and after already flying for almost 10 hours I made the tactical decision to seek assistance in reaching my goal.  My goal was to get home and see my family.  And I did not have enough strength to get from Gate 125 to 75 in time to make my flight.  So I approached the counter and requested one of those electric carts that you see in airports.  You know, the ones that annoy you as you are trying to walk to your gate!

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Encouraging Leaders

Encouraging Leaders - 1The English language is tricky.  You can read the title of today’s article in two ways.  You can read it as an admonition that we should encourage our leaders.  And that would be a great admonition and a great article.

But my purpose today is to view it from the obverse perspective.  I want to admonish leaders that we should be “encouragers” to those around us.  And who doesn’t need a little encouragement?

Encouraging Leaders - 3One of the most important tasks of a leader is to encourage his followers.  Leaders often have to lead in the midst of difficult times and through tough circumstances.  These times and circumstances weigh heavily on our team.  And one of the things to which they will look to their leaders is encouragement.

Are you an encourager?  Do you build your team up?  Do you take pro-active steps to speak positive words to your team as they struggle with the tasks that you have given them?  Or are you demeaning and demanding?  When your team sees you approaching are they looking forward to what you are about to say?  Or do they feel a sense of dread and foreboding in your presence?

Encouraging Leaders - 2If I were to make a list of those who need encouragement from me, as a father, I need to look no farther than my own home. 

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Throwback Thursday: Constantine

Constantine - 1Constantine the Great: (February 27, 272 – May 22, 337), was also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine.  He was the 57th Roman Emperor and reigned as Emperor from 306 to 337. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman army officer, and his consort Helena. His father became Caesar, the deputy emperor in the west in 293. Constantine was sent to eastern portion of the empire where he succeeded militarily and rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under several. In 305, his father, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus, the senior western emperor and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in what is now the British Isles.

He was acclaimed as emperor by the army after his father’s death in 306, Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against several other emperors to become sole ruler of both the western and eastern empire in 324.

Constantine - 2As emperor, Constantine enacted many political, financial, social, and military reforms that strengthened the empire.

  • The government was restructured and civil and military authority separated which is key separation of powers that has been imitated in many political and governmental systems such as our own American system of government.

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A Leadership Formula

A Leadership Formula - 2I often wonder what makes a good leader. I think back to some of the leaders I have experienced in my life and try to remember what they had in common. What I remember is, externally they were all different, there was a teacher, there was a coach, there was a boss, and there were a couple of commanding officers. However internally, or spiritually, I think they were very much alike.

I realized much later in life that someone would have to really want to teach or coach, and really love it, because there was no one getting rich from teaching or coaching on the local level. Secondly there was a boss at my first job, he really helped set the work ethic and began laying the ground work for how a leader should treat their team members, and was a great example of how to treat others. Lastly there were some officers in charge while I was in the military. These men taught me about a chain of command, and respect, and how important being a member of a team really was.A Leadership Formula - 3

So what is the formula that makes these people great leaders? I think they all shared some similar spiritual traits, if you will. Consider these:

  • They wanted to lead
  • They had the ability to lead
  • They felt a need to lead
  • They just had to lead

So I would like to discuss each of these things briefly to see the “make up” of a leader.

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The Blindness of Showing Up

jk-simmons-growing-up-fisher

Courtesy NBC Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Recently, I began watching a new Sitcom called Growing Up Fisher. The show is told from the view of a middle school boy whose father happens to be blind. You find yourself rooting for the Father as he struggles to manage a law firm, a recent divorce, two children, and a new seeing eye dog named Elvis. Sounds bleak but it isn’t for many reasons. The show is worth watching. It is rare to find a kind-hearted show on the tube these days.

The show reminded me of a father who attended every one of his son’s Little League baseball games. He never missed one game during that season. Not a big deal eh? What made it unique is that the Father is blind.

Yes. He couldn’t drive to the game or gripe about traffic or complain about parking too far from the field. He was blind! He couldn’t watch his son play. But he was present and in attendance supporting his son every game.

Walter would sit in the stands with his walking stick and watch his son play baseball. (How he got there…I haven’t a clue.) He may have been physically blind but he wasn’t blind to the needs of his child and the importance of showing up.

What blinds you to the needs of your family? What keeps you from showing up?

 

Things They Never Tell You – Part One

Things they never tell you - 1 - 1“I wish someone would have told me about that!”

How many times have we said that as parents?  I know that I have said it about a bazillion times.  Or, I have said it at least “ten hundred million” times, which was the largest number that I could comprehend as a child.

Human nature assumes that someone out there knows all of the answers.  And if that person would just share that knowledge with us, then we would be able to navigate the difficulties and challenges that life throws our way.  So human nature insists that there is information that is out there, but it is not always shared with us.  That may or may not be true.  I am hoping that some will respond to this with some thoughts on whether or not they believe there is some great cosmic consciousness that contains all that there is to know.  (My personal belief is that the Bible contains all that is necessary to do whatever we need to do in life — including parenting.)

But the thrust of Fatherhood Friday today is that although there are tons of things that we think someone should have told us, we probably would not have believed them if they did.

For instance, I returned from an international business trip last night just before my grandchildren’s bedtime.  I left home last Saturday morning and I returned home late last evening.  I was gone nearly six full days.  I never really travelled on business very much when our children were little.  I was away overnight a few times.  But not many.  And I was surprised by just how much I missed them after only a few days away.  And I was really surprised by how much they seemed to miss me!

Things they never tell you - 1 - 2My point is this.  People told me how much I would miss my family when I was gone.  But, I didn’t really believe them.  I really love my children and yet I did not realize the intense connection that exists in some (not all unfortunately) between a father and their children.  I can remember very clearly my own father travelling when I was young.  And I know how much I missed him when he was gone.  But I never looked at it from his perspective.  

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Leadership and Fear

imageIt seems that no matter what we do there is an element of fear involved. I guess first we need to define fear, fear as I know it is not being scared. I believe being scared is the emotion that causes people to freeze up or panic, and fear is something that can be overcome by courage and preparation. I am sure there will be several different definitions, but this is my post so you have to deal with my interpretations of the definitions. This is going to be a discussion about fear, the kind of fear that should push us, the fear of failure, the fear of disappointment, the fear of underachieving.

image“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt cautioned Americans with these words during the 1932 presidential election because he knew the power of fear to bring down an economy, to cripple a nation and to stifle the ingenuity needed to create better solutions in turbulent times.

The words leadership and fear seem to be in direct contradiction with one another, yet if we are honest and authentic, I believe most leaders would admit there is something that they fear. As a leader, it can be alluring to let fear dictate your decisions. NO RISK=NO FAILURE, and in the short term, that type of thinking might seem easier. However the nature of fear can be debilitating and often times can leave you stuck in the same place.

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How I Found Life in the Cemetery

Have you ever found yourself going through life, day after day just going through the motions? You sense inside that you were meant for something bigger and greater, but you just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe you’ve dabbled with the ideas for a while: a blog, a new career, a healthier lifestyle, a fulfilling relationship. Perhaps it’s time for you to take the leap and go all in!

Life in the Cemetery

I sometimes like to find new places for my prayer times. Being outside often helps me feel somehow more connected to God. I was exploring the campus of a nearby Catholic college for such a prayer-place and came across a cemetery for the Jesuit priests who had served faithfully at the school. The dates went way back into the early 1800s and as I walked among the grave markers, it felt like such sacred ground. Looking more closely at the tombstones, I noticed that instead of simply engraving a birth year and death year, there was a “middle date” or in Latin – Ingressus.

As I thought about it, I quickly deduced that this was the date they entered the priesthood. I thought about how at this moment in their lives, everything changed. They left their old life behind completely to enter into the life they were created to live – a life in service to God and others. This was no flippant decision, no small choice. It was an abandonment to immerse themselves into this life-choice. It was clearly the defining moment of their life – memorialized on their tombstone for generations of people to see.

How about you? Do you have a defining moment? Would you have a “middle date” that was so important it would need to be inscribed on your tombstone? What’s keeping you from going “all in”? Obviously, I’m not talking about going into the priesthood. (Unless, of course, that is your calling!) I’m talking about you making the decision to become your best self, to not hold back any longer, to abandon yourself to become everything you were created to be, using your gifts in service to God and others. Perhaps you’ve dreamed of a life like this, but you are just waiting for the right moment. Well, here are a few things I’ve discovered about the perils of waiting.

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Wit & Wisdom from Dwight Eisenhower

“You do not lead by hitting people over the head — that’s assault, not leadership.”
Dwight Eisenhower

W&W - Eisenhower - 1

We have all probably suffered under the kind of leadership that “Dairyman / Fireman / Journalist / General / President” Dwight D. Eisenhower mentions in one of his famous quotes on leadership.  Eisenhower lived a varied and charmed life.  It was not an easy life and he knew tragedy and death as a child and again as a young father.  But he persevered and became one of the most beloved presidents that our nation has ever known.  He was from humble beginnings in Denison, TX and went on to West Point and then went on to become one of the last 5-Star Generals that our military has produced.

He was a man who knew a little about leadership and physical assault.  He was acquainted with both by profession and experience.  But through it all he determined that leadership was not necessarily manifested through physical prowess.

In this quote he does not tell us exactly how he defines leadership.  So, I will ask you today.  How do you define leadership?  What exemplifies leadership to you?

Photo credit: cliff1066™ / Foter / (CC BY 2.0)
Photo credit: The National Archives UK / Foter / No known copyright restrictions

Does Your Organization Have A Leadership Culture?

A Leadership Culture - 1The purpose of leadership in any organization is to advance the mission, vision, scope, or return on an investment.  It is the strong leaders in an organization who can take your mission farther, faster than trying to do it alone.  Unfortunately, some organizations or senior managers (leaders) do not foster a leadership culture.

When this takes place, everyone and everything loses.  The organization loses.  The senior manager loses.  The community loses.  The investors lose.  People lose.  Everyone and everything loses.

There are many reasons for this.  And I will not take time to deal with them here.  But fear plays a huge role.  Fear that they will get cast aside by the new leaders.  Fear that they will not be able to compete against a younger and often a more energetic crowd.

But a leadership culture works both ways.  Older leaders mentoring young leaders.  And young leaders honoring and respecting older leaders who have paved the way to make their success possible.

The following are 10 Signs Your Organization Does Not Have A Strong Leadership Culture:

  1. Senior managers do not prioritize building relationships with management and supervisors down the line.
  2. Junior or younger leaders are often ignored.  Their contribution is not appreciated.  They are not consulted prior to key decisions or given a seat at the table when key decisions are made.
  3. The leadership level becomes a closed group or an exclusive “club”.

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