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Billy Long

I am a Christian, a Husband and a Father, in that order. Leadership is important to me, because I see too many outside influences acting on the lives of my children, and I need support to make sure I am the most dominant influence. I appreciate your feedback and enjoy reading your input. Thanks in advance for being part of this endeavor.

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A Committed Team

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A Committed Team - 1I would like to discuss commitment.

An online dictionary I checked out has no less than seven (7) different definitions for commitment, all the way from …“The act or an instance of committing, putting in charge, keeping, or trust….” to “the act of being locked away, or the act of perpetration in a negative manner such as a crime.” As equally interesting are the synonyms they list, such as allegiance, dedication, duty, loyalty, obligation and vow. Now I am sure we have discussed commitment in this forum before but I am going to try a different spin on it. Please be patient. I would like to discuss what is a more important commitment, the leader to the team, or the team to the leader?

A Committed Team - 2The quality of a persons life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Vince Lombardi

I know this sounds a little strange, everyone would say “Isn’t it inherent that all Leaders are committed to their cause?” I would say, not always. Lets spend a minute discussing commitment and how it pertains to leadership. I would say most people focus only on one side of the leadership equation, what is important to the team. They pose questions to themselves, such as “What’s the minimum I must do to satisfy my commitment?” I propose a committed leader needs to focus more on the other side of the equation, themselves. They need to think about “What can I do to make the most of this opportunity?, How can I leverage my position to make a positive impact?”  After all who are you really committed to? Your followers right? Now many of you know my background is the military, so commitment means something special to me, I was committed to a team, a special team, a team of men who would stop at nothing to “solve a problem”. I propose that commitment means something different to different people, but I also propose nothing great can be accomplished without commitment.

I would argue that being a committed follower may be harder than being a committed leader. I say that because a follower doesn’t always know the whole picture, a follower doesn’t always know the end game. He knows what is required of him or her, and knows the best way to accomplish the goal. I think being a committed follower, or team member, means being whole heartedly engaged in all aspects of the team.

A Committed Team - 3Compare a bacon and egg breakfast to commitment, to be a part of the meal, the chicken is just participating, but the pig, he is committed.
Anonymous

So leaders, be committed to your team, look into your heart and figure out what your team needs. Followers, team mates, be committed to each other and your leader, keep your eyes up and your feet on the ground. Be prepared to carry a team mate, be prepared to support your leader, stay focused on your tasks.

What is your life committed to, I challenge you to ask your wives, husbands, kids and friends, what they think about your commitment.

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Does “Manly Leadership” Have a Softer Side?

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Softer Side - 1Can you lead, be a man and have a softer side?

I not only believe that you can, but I think a leader must have a soft side. I don’t mean a soft side that bends the rules or overlooks things that are wrong, I mean the kind of side that is nurturing, is approachable, and is caring. Maybe the first thing we need to remember about leadership is, although leadership starts at the top with the leader, its never really about the leader.

As the leader you need to be hands on, but your primary objective is to empower others to make decisions and take actions that are aligned with your vision, purpose and strategy. These nuances are the softer side of leadership. These things are what can make or break your leadership, and they are not simple. It takes real effort and commitment to empower people and to continuously reward with praise and acknowledgement.

Softer Side - 2So as Men, sorry ladies, talking to the other guys here, are we capable of being soft, and still being an effective leader? I think professionally it is pretty easy to be “softer”, you know the old saying “You can catch more fly with honey than vinegar”. So I want to focus on our leadership of our families, here for a bit. Being a father of girls I have had to learn a little about leading softly as they respond better to a quiet conversation with Dad then to me yelling.

Softer Side - 3

“Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness, I was taught to be kind to everyone;….But when someone is unkind to me, weak is not what you are going to remember about me.”
Al Capone.

We also must remember “Soft Manly Leadership” is not weak leadership.

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A Leader’s Role in Their Team’s Performance

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A Leader's Role in Their Team's Success - 1It may be obvious to most people that a leader’s performance is directly proportionate to their teams success or lack thereof. But it occurs to me that there are teams that have succeeded in spite of their leader and surely there are teams that have failed even with quality leadership. So I set out to discover if there are any connections or similarities that we could find, to determine just how much of a team’s success or failure is because of the leader.

It occurs to me that a leaders specific role may change slightly depending on the team or the goal of the team, but surely there are things a leader does or doesn’t do that helps or hurts a team. These are some of the things I found:

Aggressor: I think this happens when a team leader is directly compensated for his team’s performance. He or she has the ability to block the introduction of new ideas and concepts by minimizing and deflating the status of other team members and creating a sense of intimidation. If this behavior and role is not checked it will tend to decrease the team’s overall motivation and subsequent member involvement.

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Repairing the Damage of a Past Leader

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Repairing the Damage of a Past Leader - 1In my circle of friends and peers, there is a lot of discussion about who the Republican Party will get to challenge for President in the next election. The conversation is almost always who is strong enough and conservative enough to try and undo all of the damage that has been done. I don’t claim to know enough about politics to have a good argument, so I want to bring this a little closer to home.

Repairing the Damage of a Past Leader - 2Some of you know and some of you don’t know, that I am a senior part of a competitive BBQ cook off team, and we are in the midst of our busiest season. We are coming off a fall and winter of several small cook offs and preparing for our biggest of the year. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo BBQ Cook-off is a big deal for us. I have been a large part of this Team since my father died in 1999. Being a salesman, I have used it as employee appreciation and a customer appreciation opportunity on more than one occasion. This year the leadership of this team has begun to take it a little more serious than I think they should.

The two guys that are really “in charge” of this team, are not strong leaders, and are causing some strife among the, what I will call part time members of our team. The budget has gotten tight as we have lost a sponsor for Thursday night, and instead of closing ranks, shrinking expenses and “chiving on” the stress has run some friends off. The leaders are saying, “no free entry for friends”, “only a couple of spare entries per member” and we are raising prices. So as I deal with some folk who are saying, “This isn’t fun anymore” it occurs to me that this must have happened in the Leadership arena before.

Repairing the Damage of a Past Leader - 3So I ask you, how does a new leader repair the damage caused by a past leader? How do you go about undoing something that was done, maybe incorrectly, by a previous leader, without causing them any embarrassment? Especially when there is a chance, the former leader is still involved? Surely there has been a new CEO take over only to have his predecessor become a board member or consultant.

I have exercised my leadership to the extent I can, but I don’t own the large pit we use, and the spaces are not in my name. Other than ask for forgiveness not permission, I am struggling to maintain the fun, which is why people come hang out with us. I am afraid if I just put my head down and try to solve the problems as they arise, I will end up by myself. Do I assert myself, and take a chance on hurting my relationship with these guys that were my father’s best friends? Do I get some of the other members together and form a mutiny? Or a hostile takeover? Surely there is a way to obtain new leadership without causing an implosion.

I am looking for your thoughts and feedback on this leadership question.  Let’s use the collective wisdom of the 1,000 folks who are reading what we are publishing.  Be courageous and leave a comment.

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Where have all the good (young) men gone?

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Where have all the good men gone - 1

– Herman Melville, Moby Dick

I have had a few instances in the past few weeks where I have had to think to myself, what would your father think about that? Not only your earthly father but your heavenly father as well. Sometimes I get the idea that some young men (not all) don’t think they will ever have to be accountable for their actions. Back to that in a minute…..

First of all I want to thank a few of you fathers out there that are raising God fearing young men. I think it will save me a lot of time with a shovel, when my girls start to date. I ask you though, where did you learn the lessons you are sharing with your sons? I bet it was your father and grandfather. I am confident my parents would still be married today if my father was still alive, and I watched my grandfather sit beside my grandmother’s hospital bed as leukemia took her.

Where have all the good men gone - 2Please don’t get me wrong, I am not the perfect father, Lord knows, I ask for help. But sometimes I see or hear of something some young man has done or said, and my first thought is not, What would Jesus Christ think…..It is what does your father think? Is no one accountable anymore? Are we a soft enough society that a village no longer raises a child? I am pretty sure all of my neighbors had “Beat on sight when necessary” instructions for me when I was a kid.

We spend a lot of time on this blog discussing leadership, and I have come to think as leaders we are responsible to not only each other, but those without a good example. I said to someone, “…that really isn’t any of my business…” and their response to me was “Why isn’t it?” It has taken me all week to figure out that, maybe I should make it my business. Maybe we should all start making a few more injustices our business.

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Leadership and Sacrifice

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Leadership and Sacrifice - 1I recently spent an afternoon with some other former, retired military men, and we went to see the Lone Survivor movie. I guess it never occurred to me before the sacrifice made by Lt. Michael Murphy. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I won’t spoil it for you, but in a nutshell, he made the ultimate sacrifice for the rest of his team. Couldn’t he have commanded another to do what he wanted? Surely he wasn’t the only member of the team capable of making that call. It occurs to me that maybe sacrifice is the most important piece of leadership. I am sure we have heard this before, but I think it bears repeating.

We have all heard and read great pieces by our members about servant leadership, and covenant leadership, leading by example and I am sure sacrificial leadership as well, so if I repeat anything in these ramblings I apologize up front.

I started doing some research on this topic, during the football games, and here are some of the things I discovered.

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A Gift and a Leader

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gift boxWhat is the best gift you can give as a leader?

So, I was sitting around on the couch Wednesday trying to keep glitter out of my coffee cup and avoiding an ever growing cloud of wrapping paper and ribbon flying though the air, and it occurred to me what is the best give I could give? So as I sit in my office on the day after Christmas, I have decided to do an internet search on Leadership and gifts, and I would like to share what my research has taught me.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, it seems as though honest feedback is the consensus best gift a leader can give their team. Everyone wants to know the truth, no matter how difficult it is to hear. But even though we want to hear honest and direct feedback, we generally don’t look on those occasions with much joy or pleasure.

A Gift and a Leader - 2Most people can come up with several traumatic stories from their pasts where they have given or received negative feedback. These negative experiences embed themselves into our psyche and become a source of anxiety. On the other hand, most people can also come up with an experience where a person gave them helpful feedback that contributed to a marked improvement in their effectiveness and influenced their success. So as leaders how do we help people see that whether the feedback is critical or positive it is a gift?

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Is a Step-Dad, Less of a Dad?

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Is a step-dad less of a dad - 1First of all let me say, I am not looking for any self-glory or attention. It’s just that this time of year make me think of how much more Christmas makes me think about family, so I begin to think about mine and how it came to be.

Yes I am a step-father. I was a step-father before I was a father, and I look back on that time in my life and it reminds me of a great man of God. His name is Joseph. I don’t claim to be like Joseph, or worthy of being Jesus’s step-father, however, I can possibly relate to some of his struggles, with attempting to raise another’s child.

Jesus’ dad or rather step-dad. Yes, you read right, step-dad. I don’t’ think people really ever think of Joseph in this way. Joseph knew all along that Jesus was not his real son. Yet, he loved him and raised him as if he was.

Is a step-dad less of a dad - 2We all know the story. Joseph was betrothed to Mary, mother of Jesus. He found out that she was pregnant. Now we all know he could have divorced her, in fact he had intended to, but quietly. In those times Mary could have even been sued, stoned or put in prison and Joseph would have been in the right.

However, an angel of the Lord visited Joseph in a dream and told him not to leave Mary. For she was not unfaithful to him but was in fact, pregnant by the Holy Spirit with God’s child. Well, this changed everything.

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Team Leaders and Judgment

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Team Leaders and Judgement - 1Team Leaders – Do we judge ourselves too harshly or not harshly enough?

The art of self-awareness is absolutely key to being a successful leader. Why? Because we always judge ourselves based on our intentions. And others judge us on our behavior.

My leadership experience allowed for some briefing and debriefing, I wonder if there is not some good business and life advice there.

We might think we are being focused, empowering, direct, authoritative, in control and motivational but we might actually be being seen as too controlling, too direct, too “over the top” or even coming across as a bully. But, sometimes these traits are necessary to lead, aren’t they?

Team Leaders and Judgement - 2I think team leaders need to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses and then build a team around themselves to make sure that a particular weakness is overcome by someone with strengths in this area. As a leader you must work with your hand-picked dream team so that you’ve got the whole picture of your objective covered – by the right people.

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Everything to Everybody

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Everything to Everybody - 1Can a leader be everything to everybody on your team?

First of all I hope everyone had as good of a Thanksgiving as I had. I love the opportunity to be surrounded by family and friends and the copious amount of food doesn’t hurt either. As I sit at my desk on this first Monday in December, I am thinking about the additional fun my extended family had at the Renaissance Festival yesterday. I am looking at a picture that was taken as we entered the gates, and was struck by what other people may think is an odd grouping for a family. I have three kids, all girls, ages 25, 11 and 9. Yes 25. She actually has little ones of her own now.

So I was thinking, does my leadership reach everyone on my team, the way I intend it too? Does it need too? How can I change to make sure I am leading everyone effectively? Do I need too? Finally as a leader is it my responsibility to conform to everyone on my team’s needs?

I do my very best to treat everyone on my team the same way. But we all know that really is not possible, I mean you can’t treat your children as you would treat your wife. And you most certainly can’t treat your grandchildren the same way you treat your children……Or can you?

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