Three Pillars Of Leadership

The three pillars on which leadership thrives are actually three areas of personal mastery – focus, feedback, and leadership. They will pay the greatest dividends for the time invested. With them, you'll lead effectively at the highest levels. Without them, your execution excellence potential and consistency is severely limited regardless of your role or station in life.

There are two categories of people in personal and professional development – the ‘green and growing’ and the ‘ripe and rotting’. In other words, the people who need training and performance improvement the most want it the least; and the people who need training the least, want it the most.

Let’s study the three pillars intensively:

Focus:
Everyone knows that focus is absolutely essential for success, but what everyone does not know is that focus is under attack from entropy, which is your constant enemy. It stands for ambiguity, chaos and confusion. The devil everyone is fighting constantly. Entropy is the second law of thermodynamics and essentially states that in nature, everything goes from a state of order to a state of disorder - naturally, by itself. In other words, at this very moment dust is settling everywhere around you. Just as your car is decreasing in value; and mechanically getting worse, naturally, your teams and organizations also slacken naturally. They need constant light to grow and achieve their potential otherwise they quickly become more and more unproductive. So, you have to provide focus in the right manner with the right tools. Without the right skills and tools, leadership is doomed to never realize the full potential of the team. This may be your single greatest calling as a leader.

Feedback:
Leadership thrives on feedback, even if some of it might cause heartburn for some time. Execution is aided by the key competency of displaying meaningful metrics all the way to frontline people. After all, it is the frontline that produces the bottom-line, so allow them the visual depiction of goal progress via a scoreboard. Just as you wouldn’t drive across the continent with black tape across your automobile's dashboard, you cannot lead without getting feedback. You need to know how fast you're traveling and how much gas you have and so on and so forth.

Studies have revealed some astounding facts. A survey conducted by Harris Polling in 2004 revealed that out of 12,000 people in eight industries only 15% knew their organization's top goals and priorities, and only 16% said their organization provided a compelling scoreboard that depicted progress against their goals or organizational objectives.

Thus, this area is not the strength of most executives, managers or some coaches. The obvious reasons are lack of courage and incapability to make an improvement. After all, it is not comfortable to confront poor performance.
Delegation:
It's a well-known fact that delegation is not the strength of most managers. As Michael Gerber has written in his book The Entrepreneurial Myth that most managers, owners and executives are so busy working ‘in’ the business that they fail to work ‘on’ the business. You cannot work on the business when you are constantly in the business reacting to both urgent and important demands and fires to put out, to-do lists that are too long. Inability to delegate work springs from lack of clarity of goals. They can’t let go intelligently because they are not focused on developing people. To be able to delegate work to your employees, you need additional time to work on the business. Delegation is wrought with real risks. It takes real courage to let go. But, the dual benefits of increased personal time on your part and building and developing your key talent outweigh the associated risks.

Making Choices And Decisions

Life is like a road. There are long and short roads; smooth and rocky roads; crooked and straight paths. In our life many roads would come our way as we journey through life. There are roads that lead to a life of single blessedness, marriage, and religious vocation. There are also roads that lead to fame and fortune on one hand, or isolation and poverty on the other. There are roads to happiness as there are roads to sadness, roads towards victory and jubilation, and roads leading to defeat and disappointment.
Just like any road, there are corners, detours, and crossroads in life. Perhaps the most perplexing road that you would encounter is a crossroad. With four roads to choose from and with limited knowledge on where they would go, which road will you take? What is the guarantee that we would choose the right one along the way? Would you take any road, or just stay where you are: in front of a crossroad?
There are no guarantees.
You do not really know where a road will lead you until you take it. There are no guarantees. This is one of the most important things you need to realize about life. Nobody said that choosing to do the right thing all the time would always lead you to happiness. Loving someone with all your heart does not guarantee that it would be returned. Gaining fame and fortune does not guarantee happiness. Accepting a good word from an influential superior to cut your trip short up the career ladder is not always bad, especially if you are highly qualified and competent. There are too many possible outcomes, which your really cannot control. The only thing you have power over is the decisions that you will make, and how you would act and react to different situations.
Wrong decisions are always at hindsight.
Had you known that you were making a wrong decision, would you have gone along with it? Perhaps not, why would you choose a certain path when you know it would get you lost? Why make a certain decision if you knew from the very beginning that it is not the right one. It is only after you have made a decision and reflected on it that you realize its soundness. If the consequences or outcomes are good for you, then you have decided correctly. Otherwise, your decision was wrong.
Take the risk and decide.
Since life offers no guarantee and you would never know that your decision would be wrong until you have made it, then you might as well take the risk and decide. It is definitely better than keeping yourself in limbo. Although it is true that one wrong turn could get you lost, it could also be that such a turn could be an opportunity for an adventure, moreover open more roads. It is all a matter of perspective. You have the choice between being a lost traveller or an accidental tourist of life. But take caution that you do not make decisions haphazardly. Taking risks is not about being careless and stupid. Here are some pointers that could help you choose the best option in the face of life’s crossroads:
Get as many information as you can about your situation.
You cannot find the confidence to decide when you know so little about what you are faced with. Just like any news reporter, ask the 5 W’s: what, who, when, where, and why. What is the situation? Who are the people involved? When did this happen? Where is this leading? Why are you in this situation? These are just some of the possible questions to ask to know more about your situation. This is important. Oftentimes, the reason for indecision is the lack of information about a situation.
Identify and create options.
What options do the situation give you? Sometimes the options are few, but sometimes they are numerous. But what do you do when you think that the situation offers no options? This is the time that you create your own. Make your creative mind work. From the most simplistic to the most complicated, entertain all ideas. Do not shoot anything down when an idea comes to your head. Sometimes the most outrageous idea could prove to be the right one in the end. You can ask a friend to help you identify options and even make more options if you encounter some difficulty, but make sure that you make the decision yourself in the end.
Weigh the pros and cons of every option.
Assess each option by looking at the advantages and disadvantages it offers you. In this way, you get more insights about the consequences of such an option.
Trust yourself and make that decision.
Now that you have assessed your options, it is now time to trust yourself. Remember that there are no guarantees and wrong decisions are always at hindsight. So choose… decide… believe that you are choosing the best option at this point in time.
Now that you have made a decision, be ready to face its consequences: good and bad. It may take you to a place of promise or to a land of problems. But the important thing is that you have chosen to live your life instead of remaining as a bystander or a passive audience to your own life. Whether it is the right decision or not, only time can tell. But do not regret it whatever the outcome. Instead, learn from it and remember that you always have the chance to make better decisions in the future.

Developing Creative Thinking

Creative thinking is an ability of an individual to provide ideas and thoughts that are not something the average people would think of. Creative thinking can be defined as thinking outside the box, which means thinking beyond the normal boundary.
There are many techniques for creative thinking, it is usually something people have to develop as it is not usually a second nature. When a person develops their creative thinking abilities, they will find they can come up with ideas quickly. They will likely begin with the not-so-obvious answers to questions instead of jumping right in with the obvious solutions. Individual like that is a great contributor to a problem-solving situation.
The thought process of a creative thinker generally goes through the following four steps...
Step 1: Analysis
It starts by looking over the situation. It involves finding out the who, what, where, when and how of the situation. When analysis is complete, you should be able to completely explain the situation including any obvious problems or issues.
Step 2: Brainstorming
This is the true area of creative thinking. Once the situation is fully understood, a brainstorming process is spawned. Brainstorming can take on many forms. You can write things down, talk things out or even conduct experiments. Since brainstorming is free flowing, you should write them down so no good ideas are lost.
Step 3: Break It Down
Once ideas and possibilities are collected, you can start to link together related ideas and weed out those that are not relevant. Eventually, you will end up with ideas that seem to be the best solutions.
Step 4: Review
The final step involves reviewing several related ideas and come up with a final one or two ideas that seem to stand out and be the best ideas.
Being a creative thinker involves being able to think without a lot of structure, these four steps are the basics of any thinking process. They can help to organize your though processes. Of course these four steps need to be nurtured and developed over time until they become your second nature. That's how you develop your creative thinking ability. Hope you find this article useful.

Underlying foundation

If you’re planning to build anything to an impressive height, be sure you first have a strong foundation in place. In any undertaking, the foundation is most decidedly not the exciting part. Yet it is essential for all the rest. The world does not see or marvel at the solid foundation, but without that foundation the world sees nothing.
Take a lesson from nature. The tallest and most stately trees have the strongest and most developed root systems. You don’t see the roots, and yet without them the tree could not stand.
Building a strong foundation in your own life may often seem limiting and tedious. Upholding your integrity is not always fun or easy. Developing self discipline often requires you to forgo the fleeting pleasures of the moment.
And yet, a strong foundation ultimately is not something which limits you. Rather it enables you to live life on your own terms. The energy and commitment you put into building and strengthening your own sturdy root system will continue to provide you with nourishment and support as you grow your life to spectacular heights

Leave Your "Comfort Zone"

Perhaps the best explanation you can find for "comfort zone" is from Wikipedia. It defines comfort zone as follow...
"A comfort zone denotes that limited set of behaviors that a person will engage without becoming anxious. Alternatively denoted as a "plateau" it describes that set of behaviors that have become comfortable, without creating a sense of risk. A person's personality can be described by his or her comfort zones. Highly successful persons may routinely step outside their comfort zones, to accomplish what they wish." - quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort_zone
If you have a house and family to go home to and you have a job that can support your daily basic necessities, it's ok to feel comfortable. However, you must always keep your 3rd eye open to the never-stopping of movements and changes of the world. The comfort zone can become the danger zone when you're stuck in it persistently even though you know that there is a better alternative.
The danger is that when you're deeply engraved in your comfort zone, you're mentally conditioned to feel safe without realizing that you're actually staying in a grave zone. This condition is best described by the following frog-boiling story...
It has been said that if a frog is threw into a container of boiling water, it will instantly jump out of the boiling water. But, if it is placed into a container of cold water, it liked it and stayed in the container. When the heat was turned on at the bottom of the container and the water get warmer, the frog felt comfortable and relaxed and even took a nap. The frog was so comfortable that it stayed in the container until it was “cooked”.
Most people are in the “comfort zone” and they prefer to stay there because it feels safe. Like the boiling frog in the story, we refuse to get out of our comfort zone and prefer to stay where we are because we feel warm and comfortable. We become unaware of the gradual shift of our comfort zone to danger zone. Remember that there is no such thing as “staying where we are”, because by nature things are evolving and changing. If we are always staying where we are, that means we're not moving ahead in life. And if we're not moving ahead, according to the law of nature, we're actually moving in the opposite direction... to the danger zone!

Leadership

The greatest leaders are those who lead not only with their words and ideas. The greatest leaders are those who lead primarily by their example. The most effective form of leadership is born out of the sincere desire and proven ability to make a positive contribution.

Those who lead best are those for whom leadership itself is not the primary aim. Those who lead best are those who can inspire others to embrace the positive values and priorities by which they themselves live.

True leadership comes not from position but from participation and effectiveness. Those who are willing and able to get things done are best suited to lead. To be a leader, be a shining example. Do that which you would lead others to do, and do it spectacularly. Leadership at its best enlarges and duplicates the efforts of the leader. Make those efforts the best they can be, and they’ll result in true, effective leadership.

The World Around You

The way you see yourself is the way you see the world. And the way you see the world is the way you see yourself. To live in a world that is filled with kindness, be kind. To enjoy a world that is respectful, practice respect for others. If you wish to live in a world filled with abundance, be creative.

When you wish to feel better about yourself, make an effort to help someone else. Admire the beauty of the world around you and that beauty becomes a part of you. Value and appreciate the achievements of others, and you strengthen your own capacity for achievement.

There is an entire universe which surrounds you, and it is yours to experience. The quality of that experience is largely up to you. Those who seem to hold the world in their hands do so by virtue of the way they perceive and relate with the world.

Forge a positive relationship with the world around you and the world will become a better place for you to live.