Introduction

•             Who you are, your personal proficiency is a key predictor of how much you can help others, teams and organizations

7 Qualifications to Lead

1.            Practice clear thinking: rise above the details.

•             Clear thinking – combination of intellect and intuition – reason and emotion

•             The necessity of clear thinking in leadership – can you see themes, patterns

•             Get beyond the details – easy for some; very difficult for others

•             See broader implications

•             How can you learn to do this –

• Make yourself get out of the details
• Practice discerning the “why” – look for patterns

•             Chess master – look/visualize moves ahead

•             Think conceptually and communicate broader objectives

•             Master the principles – allow others to determine the practices to achieve the principles

•             Courageous leaders have personal confidence. They make mistakes and learn from them

2.            Know yourself.

•             Understand your predispositions

• How are you wired?
• Prefer to work alone or with others?
• Seek risk or avoid it?
• People or data?
• Ideas or action?
• Patient or impatient?

•             Personal insights should liberate not limit

•             Predispositions are simply starting points

•             How do you discover predispositions?

• What work is easy, energizing and enjoyable?
• What comes naturally?
• What on your “to do” list do you naturally want to do?
• What challenges do you love?

•             “signature strengths” what you like doing and are good at

•             Ask others for candid observations

•             Working outside of our strengths will take a lot of energy and focus – especially at first

•             Build on your strengths that strengthens others

•             When your actions and positions mesh it builds your confidence. When using your strengths to             help others builds their confidence in you and lets you lead

•             Do I build on my strengths?

•             Do I use my strengths to help others?

3.            Handle stress.

•             Most would acknowledge to feeling at times some level of stress

• Work load
• Expectations
• Potential consequences – lose house
• With constant connection now hard to be removed from work
• Some days nothing seems easy

•             Fear of failure often source of stress for ambitious people

•             Leaders take risks – sometimes don’t work out

•             Formula for risk taking: will to win divided by fear of failure

• Increase the will to win – personal passion, desire to succeed and balance in the outcomes of your agenda

•             Best leaders recover quickly from setbacks – they have emotional resilience

• Sense of optimism
• Externalize failure – don’t tie their self-worth to the failure. Learn & move on

•             Leaders who “lose it” when under pressure are limited and lose influence

•             Remain in control of emotions

1. Have Truth Tellers. As leaders we must make sure that we have people close to us who will tell us the truth even if it hurts. One of the challenges of organizational leadership is often the leader is shielded from bad news. Obviously, in time the bad news becomes readily apparent but often much time which could have been solution focused has been lost.

2. What is your ask/talk ratio? Become an expert in asking questions. The better questions we ask the better information we are likely to receive. In addition, questions are a wonderful way to build connections. The better the questions the more meaningful the answers.

3. Get Great People. Governor Haslam’s third leadership reminder is to build a team of highly qualified, effective leaders. One of the most important responsibilities of a leader is for the quality of people they add to the team. When I am adding a new team member I start with the three C’s – character, chemistry and competence.

4. Focus. Leaders, especially organizational leaders, must focus on the essential rather than the less important. The ability to prioritize and then exercise the self-discipline to work your priorities is a hallmark of the best leaders. As leaders, our primary attention needs to be on the areas/tasks that only we can do.

Which of Governor Haslam’s four leadership principles is your greatest challenge?

1. Plan the fun. As a family plan some intentional fun activities at least one time per week. This doesn’t have to be an expensive vacation. Depending on the age of your kids have a water balloon fight in the yard (my family has soaked me a few times upon my arrival home), go to a park with a picnic; rent a movie (bed times are often more relaxed in the summer), etc. Let each member of the family offer suggestions and perhaps be in charge of developing the activity for a particular week.
2. Plan to serve. One of the best things any of our families can do is to experience serving together. Is there a project or cause that your family can benefit from through service? Whether it’s at church or a neighborhood project, summer provides a window for a new experience. Start serving together.
3. Plan to grow. Summer often provides, because of relaxed scheduling for kids, opportunities for intentional growth. A few possible growth possibilities include:

• Visits to the public library
• Begin a family fitness program. Start walking or play the Wii together
• If you have elementary, middle or high school students, check out the Faith Promise Church summer camps. Camp provides a great setting for our children to deepen their walk with the Lord in a fun filled environment.

Ready or not summer is headed toward your family. Start making plans today for a great summer.

1. What gets scheduled gets done. Having a task list is a good starting point but doesn’t provide a specific time to complete the task. Give tasks a scheduled time in your calendar just like a meeting appointment to get them completed.
2. Get out in front. As I evaluate my own planning and productivity, I recognize the need to get out further in front of heavy preparation activities. Because I invest a good amount of my work hours with people, it is critical that I am at least four weeks ahead on preparation for upcoming events/projects. When I get out in front of upcoming projects/speaking events the quality is better and the stress is lowered.
3. Develop systems for repetitive activities. Build your own system for email, phone calls, appointments, filing, exercise, reading, etc. Maximize efficiency and effectiveness by creating systems that allow you to determine your own operational rules. Work through intentionality rather than default. Develop systems to enhance your productivity.

I believe that every communicator should attend the SCORRE Conference because of the following three key ingredients that helped to create an exceptional experience.

1. The People. The SCORRE team is impressive. The level of customer service and professionalism I experienced was well above the norm. In addition, the quality of presenters and small group leaders is terrific. This team knows how to help communicators develop their skills. In addition, the quality and diversity of attendees helped make for a rich experience.
2. The Process. Much of the SCORRE Conference is devoted to learning and practicing the SCORRE method of preparation and presentation. For me, this process will be a “game changer” in my speaking. In time, (right now it is still new and a bit awkward) this process will increase my clarity and greatly improve my delivery mechanics.
3. The Product. SCORRE works. The final product, when you listen to speakers using the SCORRE method, is a strong presentation. Each session the presenters would model the SCORRE method and delivery with great success. The SCORRE conference and system has been around for 30 years. It’s time tested. It works.

I am so grateful I had the opportunity to attend the SCORRE Conference. I believe the long term impact to my speaking will be extraordinary. If you would like to improve your communication skills, especially your presentation skills, it is without hesitation that I recommend SCORRE.

Dads, if you have a teenage daughter or younger, plan a special night for the two of you. We have an incredible opportunity to show our daughters how they can expect to be treated on a date. More importantly, the affirmation and attention we provide our daughters will likely have a profound impact on how they see themselves.

Likely, most of us will literally make hundreds of seemingly small choices today. Such choices as:

• What time to get up
• What to wear
• Whether to brush our teeth or use deodorant (those around us would say thanks for choosing yes)
• What to have for lunch

Overall, these choices will have a rather minimal impact.

Another choice we each make daily concerns our attitude. I love the freedom to choose our attitude. Certainly, there are factors that can have a temporary influence on our attitude. However, overall it’s my choice.

Our attitudes announce our arrival when we enter a room, accompanies us wherever we go, influences others.

Out attitudes will greatly influence the quality of our relationships and play a huge role in our success or failure.

What an incredible freedom. Each moment we get to choose our attitude.

Let’s choose our attitude wisely.

Q – Do you invest in the leadership development of everybody on your team?

A – Yes, to the extent that leadership development is part of your teams culture & values. There should be opportunities and resources that encourage everyone’s development.

Q – Do you personally invest the same amount of time & effort in the leadership development of everybody on the team?

A – No, in order to maximize your time you will need to prioritize with whom you invest your leadership development time.

Q – How do you decide who will get priority time in leadership development?

A – I generally invest priority leadership development time in:

• Team members who because of their role, if they were a better leader (example: go from a 5 to 7) it would significantly and positively impact our team/organization
• Team members of high potential who although they are not yet in a top leadership role, will likely be in such a role in the future
• High potentials generally young leaders both within and outside of the organization, who are highly teachable and have a thirst for personal development

Unfortunately, because of the time constraints, those who intentionally invest in the leadership development of others will have to prioritize with whom they invest their time.

How do you decide who get your leadership development time?

I want to share a couple of parenting principles that jumped out to me based on one scene from the movie. In this particular scene a little boy (8-9 years old) had spent considerable time practicing tying a tie for a formal event. The little boy was proud of his hard work and ran to show his dad. The dad immediately began to fix his tie and remarked something like “you need to learn to tie a tie.” Naturally, the little boy was demoralized.

Parenting Principle: Recognize, appreciate and encourage our kids when they have tried their best even if the outcome is less than desired. They won’t always hit a homerun or make straight A’s. If they did their best, recognize their effort. If necessary, we can then focus on how we can appropriately help them. Our words are powerful and can impact our kids for years or even a lifetime. Is it really a big deal if an 8 year olds tie isn’t perfect?

In the same scene the grandfather of the little boy criticizes his son’s choice of suits. This criticism was so similar to the way his son had just criticized his grandson about his tie.

Parenting Principle: We often parent like we were parented. Let’s keep the positive parenting examples we learned from our parents. However, let’s not repeat the characteristics or habits that don’t benefit our kids.

If you didn’t have the blessing of Godly parents I encourage you to seek out parenting role models. While there are no perfect parents, Biblically based parenting is God’s best for our kids.

1. “Be a professional”

• What would the most professional person in my role do in this situation?
• Great reminder that professionalism is needed in every leadership situation

2. “All praise goes down and all pain stops with me”

• Give/share praise with team members
• Give credit for success to others
• Take responsibility for team mistakes

3. “It’s easy to sit in the staff office”

• In challenging times lead from the front
• The team gains strength form seeing the leader “in the battle” with them
• Get out in the field

4. “When in doubt – attack”

• If you are uncertain regarding your next leadership step – keep moving the team forward
• It’s easy to get “stuck” while waiting for clarity

5. “Restate priorities at every opportunity”

• Remind the team of the vision often
• Restate what is most important

6. “A bedrock of integrity”

• The foundation of leadership
• A leader with integrity earns trust

7. “It there is a distraction that is work related – fix the problem”

• Eliminate unnecessary distractions that would prevent a team member form achieving the best performance

8. “I signed the letters”

• The weight of leadership
• The leader takes responsibility for their team

Colonel Garrity did a terrific job of making the above leadership quotes come alive with vivid stories from his experience as a military leader. If you are in east Tennessee make plans to attend the next leadership seminar on May 17.