If you were stranded on a deserted island…

Have your children ever asked you this? I think that they think it is some sort of a riddle.

“Daddy what are the three things you would take with you if you had to be stranded on a desert island?”

They are always surprised when I tell them that it would be a boat, fuel and food.  What I find interesting is that they are always surprised at my way of thinking.  My daughters would apparently have the best wardrobe and electronics stores on this uninhabited inhabited island, but who knows.  So as I ponder this, this weekend, I think true leadership is sometimes like being on an island.  Sometimes you are the only one with the plan, you are the only one who knows the mission and at some point you may be the only one committed to the journey.

So growing up in the era I did, the only “real” deserted island I ever had any knowledge of was Gilligan’s Island. Now as you think of the players on this award winning “documentary” you realize that there could not have been a better team assembled to deal with the rigors of being stranded on an island. This is really not where this was headed, but lets go with it for a minute, I only want to address the two obvious leaders from the island, The Skipper and The Professor.

As the captain of the SS Minnow when the group set sail on the infamous 3-hour tour out of Honolulu, it would stand to reason that the Skipper would emerge as the group’s leader. After all, the captain of any ship should serve as the positional leader of the team.  However in this case, I don’t believe he wanted to be the leader.  I do think he felt responsible for their “predicament”.  When truly he was the one that saved them from dying in the storm. And a feeling of responsibility is a great place to start.

The Professor turns out to be the cerebral member of the group with an advanced education and an overall serious-natured intelligence. The Professor might be perceived as a likely leadership candidate for the group. However, book smarts and leadership savvy are not one in the same.  Just because he used his intelligence to make their life on the island easier, he was not necessarily the leader.  But he was a great resource to the team and the leader.

The problem with much of what happened on Gilligan’s Island is

I hate quitters, and it really doesn’t matter what they are quitting, I just don’t like it.

Now, I am not special, I have quit a few things in my life, I have quit a job or two, I have quit smoking, and I have quit working out and eating right more times than I can remember. That is not really what I want to talk about, I want to discuss, quitting things that matter, marriages, families, life, and I am sure there will be more things we come up with. Lastly I want to compare leaders quitting a team, versus team mates quitting a team.

Has anyone ever thought about what it means to give up? No I am not talking about the kind of giving up that can be positive….surrendering your life to Christ, giving up your old ways for a special woman, giving up some extras in life for a new child. I am talking about the, its too tough or hard, I will just stop trying kind of giving up. What have we done is society to make quitting acceptable? Why has is it become okay to decide either someone else will do it for me, or it just cant be done?

Have we ever stopped to think about where we would be in the world if there were more quitters? What would the Declaration Of Independence look like if those guys said this revolution is too difficult, where would we be if Noah had built a smaller boat because it was easier, and what would have happened to us if Christ had said, I cant put up with this any longer? So I ask you, why is divorce acceptable? How is leaving children to be raised without ok?

Quitting only seems easy from the outside, ask anyone that has ever quit a job, how hard finding a new one can be. Ask me how hard getting back in the gym is after being out of it for a month or more. Find a divorced guy and ask how much he misses his family. How about people who cant quit what they are doing? Ever consider asking someone in the military if they would like to quit what they are doing? You might hear someone say sometime, it takes guts to quit, I dare say it might, but it takes real heart not to.

So I did a quick internet search and perused a few sites and I found 5 common threads about why Leaders quit:

1. Burnout — So lead, but find some time for you,
2. Unrealistic Expectations —  Start with attainable goals, use other leaders to bounce your goals off of,
3. Criticism —  No one critic, or supporter gets to alter how you feel, you don’t have to respond to critics,
4. Discouragement — Surround your self with people that care about you, people who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you might want to hear. And lastly
5. Focus — Don’t lose focus on the goal, what ever it may be, make sure you speak with your team regularly about the goal.

I am going to make an assumption quickly, that our teams are teams because we share the idea that something is worthy of our focus. So saying that, here are

I 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?

The 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.

Compare 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.

Photo credit: eschipul / Foter / CC BY-SA
Photo credit: jimbowen0306 / Foter / CC BY
Photo credit: phil.lees / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Photo credit: glsims99 / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

What 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.

Most 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?