Archive for Gratitude
Starting with What is Personal
By · February 22, 2009 · CommentsLeadership is personal.
It includes beginning with who you are. Once you have a solid, sustainable and enduring personal approach in place, leadership outcomes for you also depend on planning, and the outlining of a strategy to carry you forward. This will serve as a roadmap for you, and is outlined in the second section of ‘How to think Like a Leader’.
All leadership also involves others, not much as followers, but as collaborators. The third major component of leadership to delve into is people and relationships. This includes bringing out the best in yourself, and in others. Finally, as leadership by definition includes catalyzing change, think about the major components of change and how to influence it.
The personal, planning, people and change categories of leadership are the same four categories that over a hundred of the major leadership models in the literature can be grouped into. This is also why these are the areas for you to focus on. They are the four major areas to be thinking about as you gain further clarity on where you are in your personal leadership expedition.
But start with what is personal, and who you are, to set you on your way.
Goals Initiated
By · January 2, 2009 · Comments
A new year brings new plans and renewed optimism as various projects near completion and endpoints appear in sight.
Before long ‘When will your book be finished?’ will be replaced with ‘When can I read it?’ The vision of a book in hand drives me forward and images of those I care about perusing it make the final stages manageable as my impatience grows.
‘How to Think Like a Leader’ is comprised of skills and habits that will take readers forward on a personal leadership journey, where they will look closely at sixteen specific and essential skills for leadership; habits to practice and reinforce so they become very natural. If you are looking to better understand who you are and your role and you will new insights through a more comprehensive understanding of what leadership is comprised of, and the supporting scientific and cognitive research that supports a strength based approach to leadership. This will also lead to a more practical understanding and direct application to help you build and expand your thinking.
This means you will have greater opportunities to choose your own leadership direction, and determine outcomes you wish achieve for yourself, and those you lead. As a result you further the causes and initiatives that are meaningful to you and ultimately make a difference.
There is no better time than a new year to find your place, explore your purpose and discover the leader in you.
The Leader in You
By · December 19, 2008 · Comments
Why write a book? Everyone has a book in them because everyone lives a life full of rich experiences, lessons, learning and stories that need to be told.
I am writing ‘How to Think Like a Leader’ because it feels like a calling; it is a book that wants to express itself and a labor of love for those who have asked me write down what leadership is all about. I am writing not just from personal life experiences but rather from the perspective of accumulated and compiled lessons observed over the years.
‘How to think Like a Leader’ will support and guide you as you seek to increase and reinforce your capacity as a leader. You have the skills and abilities to be an even stronger leader, and there is also always a next level, and a next step waiting for you. This is whether you are a CEO, or seek to become one, an aspiring manager, a professional, an activist or currently a student. The book will help you to move from where you are today, into the realm of expanded leadership thinking.
You have the foundation for great leadership, and in some areas you may have highly developed strengths, while in others there is a greater potential you can reach. So this book will be for wherever you are you are on your leadership quest. To document optimal leadership thinking is deeply challenging and rewarding, a formidable task, my current focus and what I work on during both waking and sleeping hours.
Where are the Leaders?
By · October 8, 2008 · Comments
Leaders, whether you or others, permeate your personal and professional life, and as has been so frequently noted, leadership truly does belong to everyone.
You are already a leader, but leadership is a continuum, where you develop new targets that will take you into new phases of your learning. To grow is human and to seek development is our special differentiator. Positive leadership exemplifies humanity at its very best, with the enduring capabilities that make life a rich combination of change and discovery.
You have a potential that seeks expression, a set of inner possibilities ripe for realization, and a world of opportunity that beckons your participation. Now is the time to respond to the leadership challenge with breakthrough exploration and elevation, into the realm of a transformed future.
Now is the time.
Luck for those who Look
By · September 17, 2008 · Comments
People believe in luck, and so do I, but I also believe you can make your own luck by thinking about that which you want. Your thoughts matter when it comes to luck. From leadership thinking, we can learn the optimal things to think about, best practices in thinking, and essential thought patterns to understand and reinforce.
Since there is much for you to think about, it is helpful to pattern your thinking optimally, and have some help deciding and understanding where you thoughts can best be directed. Being more attentive and conscious of your thinking will help you to better guide it. Your thoughts do matter, and they affect outcomes for you because they direct your beliefs, determine your feelings, help establish your actions, and then ultimately create outcomes for you. Create your thoughts, create your own luck.
