Category Archives: Leadership Lessons

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Leaders and Conflict

What can you do about it?

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Leaders and Conflict

I have been thinking a lot lately about conflict and conflict resolution. I think we can all agree that some level of conflict is unavoidable. However, how we face it and whether or not we resolve that conflict says a great deal about our own leadership styles and abilities.

Consider the following statement by Warren Bennis, one of the foremost writers on leadership and organizational and management theory.

“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity.” 

Leaders, this is one of your primary responsibilities. You cannot delegate this to one of your followers. Nor can you pretend that conflicts do not occur within the organization that you lead.

Conflict is unavoidable

I have spent much of my adult life working in the corporate world during the week and serving in a non-profit and volunteer organization on weeknights and weekends. And let me assure you that conflict is common to all organizations. Yes, you will even find conflict within churches and religious organizations. But we, as leaders, have the responsibility to sense conflict at its earliest stages and resolve it before it affects the entire organization.

True leaders do not avoid it nor do they run from conflict. I am not suggesting that they go and seek it out or that they invent it where it does not exist. But, great leaders must lead in times of calm and in times of conflict.

Conflict must be resolved

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Do You Know Where You Are?

That is the first question!

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do-you-know-where-you-are

And, perhaps more importantly, do you know for sure what it is exactly that “got you here?”. Such is the dilemma that so many leaders and organizations face. They have no idea how they got “here.” And they have no clue how to get “there!”

A Really Good Book

“What Got You Here Won’t Get You There” is the title of Marshall Goldsmith’s book. It was published in 2007 and is available on Amazon via this link. I highly recommend the book. In that book, Goldsmith helps the reader how to handle what he calls the “paradox of success.” Goldsmith says that folks who have achieved success share some common characteristics that have attributed to their success. Unfortunately, it is those same characteristics that will make it difficult for them to adapt and to change to meet the needs of an ever-changing world.

Do you know where you are?

Goldsmith is great and he has sold way more books than I have. But, I see things a little differently from where I sit. My first question is this. Do you even know where you are?

If you don’t even know where you are, you have no way of determining if you are where you want to be. Sounds rather simple and fundamental, doesn’t it? Yet, so many fail to stop and take a look around to see where they are relative to their intended destination. Do you know where you are?

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The Persistent Pursuit of Leadership – Baidu

How persistent are you?

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Persistent Pursuit of Leadership

There are many things that we take for granted in life. “Google” is probably high on that list. At least it was for me.  That was until I took my first business trip to China several years ago. I also didn’t realize until that trip just how important social networking sites like Facebook and Google’s search engine were to me.

I learned a lot on that first business trip back in 2014. And I learned some stuff in some very unexpected ways.

Most of the people that I spoke to while I was there about this did not really feel a sense of loss. Perhaps that is because they do not know what they are missing. Or, perhaps it is because there is an alternative that provides most of the features and functions of the suite of tools and portals that Google provides. China’s equivalent to Google is “Baidu”. Baidu exists because China has blocked Google’s access to the 1.2 billion people in the country through its state-sponsored filtering software.

Baidu Logo - LargeThe name, Baidu, was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamor with the search for one’s dream while confronted by life’s many obstacles. Consider this line from that poem.

“…hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos,
suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning,
and there she stood.”

What is the leadership lesson here?

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The Tough Questions

Leadership Lesson from an Unusual Source

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the-toughquestions

This is the time of year when many of us as leaders are “asking the tough questions” about our organizations. It is the time of year when we seek to evaluate and assess how our organization has performed and whether or not we have accomplished our goals in this last year.

I live in two worlds. One is a for-profit entity within the corporate world. That industry has been impacted significantly by the economic downturn and some economic policies that many folks would argue are hurtful and damaging to our opportunities to succeed. These economic times have caused us to reexamine our performance and how we go about our daily business. We have always prided ourselves in being an incredibly efficient organization. Much more so than our competitors. Well, these economic conditions have provided the opportunity to prove that theory. We know how to and we ask tough questions on a daily basis.

My other life is within the non-profit world. I spend as much, if not more energy, working in that world. It is painfully obvious that this world does not know how to ask these kinds of questions. Oh, we give “lip service” to asking them. But we really don’t.

Perhaps that is because these organizations are non-profit and ministry organizations. So, we feel that asking that kind of question would be too business-like, mean, or “un-Christian.” And when we do ask questions, they are usually not the right questions. And they certainly aren’t tough questions. They are usually softball questions or questions that don’t really offer any hope of getting to any root causes or issues.

The Unusual Source

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Leadership Can Be Messy

Leadership Lessons from Christmas Morning

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leadership-can-be-messy

How many of you took a photograph of the kids all in the pile of torn paper, ribbons, and bows after all of the presents had been unwrapped on Christmas morning?

Oh, wait, you are one of those neat freaks who cleans up the wrapping as you go along? Well, read on anyway. It may have some entertainment value for you. If you are like most folks who have a giant mess in the middle of the floor after unwrapping presents, read on. There is an interesting leadership lesson to be learned.

Christmas morning can be a messy process

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Rockhopper Penguins

Leadership Lessons from an Unlikely Source

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rockhopper-penguins

It would be a great thing if I could choose from where inspiration would come. But that is not the case. Today it comes from a documentary that I was watching recently about the migratory habits of penguins. That’s right, penguins!

What did I see?

I saw a group of very dedicated penguins trying, trying, and trying again to come ashore on one of the Falkland Islands and return to their nesting ground. With each attempt to come ashore onto a steep and rocky shore, another wave would come crashing in and sweep them off the narrow ledges that they were standing on as they tried to ascend the steep cliffs to its breeding grounds. It would wash them back out to sea and they would have to swim back and begin the ascent up the rocky cliff as wave upon wave tried to knock them back down.

The easy leadership analogy

The easy leadership analogy would be to take their persistence in relentlessly pursuing their goal of reaching their breeding grounds. The urge to breed is certainly a driving force in their lives. In fact, that drive is one of the strongest in our lives as well. These little penguins would try and try, and try again. And more often than not, they would be knocked off the cliffs and fall back down below and bounce into the surging turf. Fortunately, their little bodies were covered by a thick layer of fat and feathers to protect them from the elements. And each time they fell they would bounce around and then pop back up.

The other leadership analogy

But then I saw it.

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Full Contact Leadership

Are You Ready For Some Football?

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We are in the beginnings of football season. The college season started two weeks ago and the pro season started last week. But, teams have been practicing for quite a while.

I played football many years ago in high school. To be honest, I wasn’t that good at it. But I remember it well. And I was thinking about those experiences recently.

If you ever played football in an organized fashion you will remember that there were multiple kinds of practices. In the summer, there were “2-a-Days”. Those were a morning session of practice followed by lunch followed by another practice followed by complete exhaustion. There were “Walk-Throughs”. Those were usually conducted in very light athletic gear. That meant that we wore no pads and sometimes even wore no helmet since no one was going to get hit. They usually were more strategic and educational. The coach taught us new plays and showed us our blocking and routes.

Full Contact Leadership

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Who Are Your Cohorts?

Cohort? What’s a “cohort”?

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Who Are Your Cohorts?

Leadership can be a lonely endeavor. As recent as January 8th of last year I wrote an article entitled Loneliness in All Aspects of Leadership. In that article I dealt with the sense of loneliness we can experience when we lead with a strong sense of conviction that may be at odds with popular sentiments.

What Can Be Done About Loneliness in Leadership?

Leaders many times feel lonely because there are often not enough peers in their immediate circle of influence who have a common understanding and sense of what they are experiencing. That is merely a restatement of the problem. But, what can we do about it?

Recognizing a problem is always a first step in solving a problem. Leaders must recognize their loneliness and sense of isolation. They must then move on with confidence that loneliness and isolation are not signs of weakness in a leader. They just go along with the territory.

Now That We Recognize It, What is Next? 

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Don’t Confuse Loving With Following

Just because I love and admire you, doesn’t mean I will follow you.

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Don't Confuse Loving With Following

Feelings and emotions will deceive us. This is especially true when it comes to “love.” And it can be dangerous when it comes to how we view our leaders. What a shame. Especially when they can be so strong and so certain at the time. Emotions, such as the ones we experience in a loving relationship, that are unbridled can cause us to make some very poor decisions. Emotions are not bad. In fact, just look at some studies in the area of Emotional Intelligence and you will quickly see that emotions play a significant role in our personal and professional lives.

What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Love is a wonderful thing. And love is a great filter through which we need to view the world. However, love can cause us to overlook or make excuses for failures and shortcomings when it comes to our leaders.

Many organizations have leaders who are beloved. I have witnessed this over the years many times. And it is very common in the non-profit world where I do a lot of coaching. In the nonprofit world, you will find leaders who are often in leadership roles for which they are not particularly suited or gifted.

These leaders are frequently appointed or even elected to their positions. As followers, we do this as a way of showing how much we love this particular person. What can possibly go wrong with that?

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Be A Lighthouse

Leadership Lessons from a Lighthouse in Maine

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Be A Lighthouse

Photography has always been a passion for me. And one of the things that I love to capture with my camera is a lighthouse on a clear day. Recently, my wife and I spent a week along the coast of Maine. This is a beautiful area of the country and if you have not visited this part of the country, you have missed some gorgeous scenery. And you have missed some spectacular lighthouses.

We all have an image in our mind of the quintessential lighthouse. It is likely the lighthouse at the tip of Cape Hatteras in North Carolina. It is the tallest lighthouse structure in the U.S. One website that I consulted declared it as the tallest of the 437 lighthouses listed according to their height. It stands at a height of 210 feet. Many will recognize it because of that beautiful diagonal stripe painted on the tower that supports the light. I have not seen it yet, but I understand it is worth the trip.

The lighthouses that we saw last week were much shorter in height than the one on Cape Hatteras. My favorite lighthouse was the one at Cape Neddick Point. It is known as the Nubble. By contrast to the one at Cape Hatteras, the Nubble is only 41 feet tall.

Now wait a minute! Isn’t the height the central and most important feature of a lighthouse?

It was during this trip last week that it dawned on me that the central and most important feature of a lighthouse is its “light” and not its “height.” After all, it is called a lighthouse and not a heighthouse!

What is the leadership lesson from the Cape Neddick Lighthouse?

The leadership lesson from the Cape Neddick Lighthouse is that one of our primary functions as leaders is 

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