Leadership
Everything falls in leadership. When things go great, the leader is the best.
Everyone is cheering for him/her, the higher-ups are happy, even stakeholders say, “what a great leader”, but when things go wrong, they immediately turn on the same guy/girl that was awesome a week, a month, a year ago. Most of the time, they end up firing the leader.
In fact, my coach and mentor, John C. Maxwell, told a story in one of our conferences in Orlando, Florida.
The story involved John, a chairman of a famous company, and a leader running a company.
John met the chairman of a company whose job at the time was to fix bad financial situations for companies.
The chairman told John that whenever his people take over an organization, they start by doing two things...
1. They TRAIN the staff to improve customer service.
2. They FIRE the leader.
John was as surprised as I was with the chairman’s answer. Funny to say, but John and I had the same question. John asked, “Don’t you talk to the person first – to check him out and see if he’s a good leader?”
The chairman responded...“No, if he’d been a good leader, the organization wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in.”
That just makes my statement true. Everything falls in leadership!
So here are 3 excellent qualities that you must have if you want to be a great leader and be successful not only in your professional life, but in your personal life as well.
Intentional Listening
Intentional listening sounds easy, but it’s not. In fact, it’s super hard to stay focused for more than a few seconds. It’s crazy how studies show that a goldfish can focus longer than a human.
Can you believe it?
I was shocked to find out that “Nemo’s” cousin had a longer attention span than me. Intentional listening is a powerful silent commodity.
When you practice intentional listening, you are telling the person in front of you, “I care about you.” Don’t you just hate it when you are trying to share something important with someone, and they’re paying more attention to their phone than to you? How does that make you feel?
Ignored, angry, not valuable. NOT a good feeling!
So next time you’re speaking to someone, give them your full attention. Believe me. It will make wonders in your relationships.
Connecting with others
Have you ever had a difficult time connecting and building a relationship with a co-worker or a family member?
I have!
It’s hard to connect with others when you don’t have anything in common. By nature, we look for places where we belong. What’s the first thing people do when they meet someone?
They start asking questions.
What’s your name? What do you do for a living? Where do you work? Do you have any kids? Do you like fishing/football? Etc.
Every question is a filter to see if there is any compatibility between the two.
“If you like what I like, then I like you. If you don’t, then I don’t want anything to do with you.
Unfortunately, leaders make this mistake too, and instead of building a great team, they end up destroying an entire department.
If you want to succeed as a leader, you must be willing to accept people for who they are.
The easiest way to connect with people is to find common ground.
Remember... people don’t remember what you do, they remember how you make them feel.
This might sound cliché, but it’s 100% true!
3. Two-way communication
Ok, we touched on intentional listening, and we talked about connecting with others.
Let’s talk about one and two-way communication.
Have you ever known a person with a “My Way or the Highway" attitude?
This is a one-way communication.
I know leaders with this type of attitude. In fact, I had a leader who openly and consistently preached these words “You can complain all you want, but in the end, this is how things are going to be done.” It was tough to work for this guy!
Generally, this type of attitude comes from the leader not being confident and not being willing to be vulnerable because they believe that vulnerability is weakness.
It’s not, it’s an “EGO” thing.
As a leader, you can’t afford to make these mistakes.
If you want to be a great leader that people follow because they want to and not because they have to, then be willing to practice two-way communication.
I can’t tell you how many times my team had better ideas than me. We got the job done, and we grew closer as a team just because I was willing to practice two-way communication.
To Recap...
Practice intentional listening.
Find common ground to connect with those who are different than you.
Be willing to practice two-way communication in a one-on-one or a team conversation.
Hope this helps!
Check out the resources below.
Become a great communicator with the Maxwell DISC Method.
Send me a direct text message with the word “DISC”
Take a DISC Assessment and have a one-on-one DISC debrief of your report with me via Zoom.
I’m curious… what’s your communication style?
D - Dominant
I - Influencing
S - Stable
C - Compliant
Contact me directly via text/call...
· (281) 839-0200
Text the word “DISC”
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