Leaders are Champions

There is an old saying: Champions don't become champions in the ring - they are merely recognized there. Boxing is a good analogy for leadership development because it is all about daily preparation. Even if a person has natural talent, he has to prepare and train to become successful.

One of the most famous quotes of President Theodore Roosevelt uses a boxing analogy: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause."

From The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by Dr. John C. Maxwell

To lead is to serve,

Coach Carolyn

Empowering Others

I want to share this great article about empowering others by Brian Tracy. Enjoy!

Get the Cooperation of Others
Empowering people is the key to building a high-performance team. Once you empower people by learning how to motivate and inspire them, they will want to work with you to help you achieve your goals in everything you do. Your ability to enlist the knowledge, energy and resources of others enables you to become a multiplication sign, to leverage yourself so that you accomplish far more than the average person and in a far shorter period of time.

Determine the Key People to Empower
There are three types of people that you want to and need to empower on a regular basis. They are, first of all, the people closest to you: your family, your friends, your spouse and your children. Second are your work relationships: your staff, your coworkers, your peers, your colleagues and even your boss. Third are all the other people that you interact with in your day-to-day life: your customers, your suppliers, your banker, the people with whom you deal in stores, restaurants, airplanes, hotels and everywhere else. In each case, your ability to get people to help you is what will make you a more powerful and effective person.

Always Be Positive
Empower means "putting power into," and it can also mean "bringing energy and enthusiasm out of." So the first step in empowering people is to refrain from doing anything that disempowers them or reduces their energy and enthusiasm for what they are doing.

There are things you can do every single day to empower people and make them feel good about themselves.

Satisfy the Deepest Needs
The deepest need that each person has is for self-esteem, a sense of being important, valuable and worthwhile. Everything that you do in your interactions with others affects their self-esteem in some way. You already have an excellent frame of reference to determine the things that you can do to boost the self-esteem and therefore the sense of personal power of those around you. Give them what you'd like for yourself.

Continually Express Appreciation
Perhaps the simplest way to make another person feel good about himself or herself is your continuous expressions of appreciation for everything that person does for you, large or small. Say "thank you" on every occasion.

Thank your spouse for everything that he or she does for you. Thank your children for their cooperation and support in everything that they do around the house. Thank your friends for the smallest acts of kindnesses. The more you thank other people for doing things for you, the more things those other people will want to do.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, continually look for ways to make people feel more valuable and important. Say things to others that you would like others to say to you.

Second, express appreciation for everything anyone does for you, large or small. Say the words, "thank you" on every occasion.

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

Is it Race... Is it Gender... Or What?

Okay, I am at the end of my patience with the election machine. I say let's just vote already!

I am also quite tired of hearing about race and gender. We are missing the big picture: history has been made. I think that is fabulous. One can submit their name for a public office and not wonder about the color of their skin or the gender they were born.

I may not agree with all that I hear, but I am proud of the way these candidates have put themselves on the line for the sake of this nation; knowing that they will be allowed to voice their concerns.

My vote is not about race nor gender, but about the issues. What about you?

A Servant's Heart

This week, I am in our nation’s capital for a meeting for the Franciscan Action Network, a grassroots organization dedicated to education and advocacy on social justice issues. Because I am in the company of such esteemed colleagues, I ended up watching the Republican National Convention. Okay, I never watch those things; just the You Tube Highlights, you know the bloopers.

Anyway, I did want to check out the nominee for Vice President for the Republican Party, Governor Sarah Palin (pictured). Apparently she’s all that, but I never heard of her until a week ago. She’s cute and perky and had some decent one-liners. But one thing she did say struck me; she spoke of the nominee having a servant’s heart.

What did she mean by a servant’s heart? Well, I wager that her meaning would be the same as mine: a leader who is servant first, displaying compassion, empathy and deep listening skills, among other traits. I totally agree with Governor Palin that our next president should display a servant’s heart; that anyone who is to be an effective leader must have a servant’s heart. Whether I think that will come from the Republican Party will take another entire blog post to unpack, however, I do believe that having a servant’s heart is crucial for great leadership.

A servant leader is also one who can put aside their own agenda for the good of the organization. This is not an easy thing to do when most leadership is governed by ego. When leadership is ruled by ego, then there is no room for anyone or anything else. We must set aside our ego to effectively lead. And if you have to ask whether or not you are leading with your ego, chances are you probably are.

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

The Key to Leadership

A great article by author and speaker Brian Tracy.

The Key to Leadership

The Foremost of the Values
Winston Churchill once said, "Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend." The systematic development of the deep down quality of unflinching courage is one of the fundamental requirements for leadership in any field. Fear, or the lack of courage is more responsible for failure in management, and in life, than any other factor. It is always fear that causes people to hold back, to sell themselves short, to settle for far less than they are capable of!

Eliminate Fear and Doubt
I firmly believe that you can do, have or be far more than you now know if only you could eliminate the fear, doubts and misgivings that consciously and unconsciously interfere with your realizing your full potential.

Unlearn Your Fears
If there is anything positive about fear, it is that all fears are learned, that no one is born with fears, and that having been learned, they can be unlearned. If you want to understand the role of fear in shaping the course of your life, just ask yourself, if you had a magic wand that would absolutely guarantee you success in any one thing you attempted, what goal would you set for yourself.

The Great Question
"What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?" If you had no fears at all with regard to money or the criticism of others, what would you do differently? Most people can think of all kinds of changes they would, or could, make in their lives if they had no fears to hold them back.

The Origins of Fear
The development of courage begins with understanding the psychological origins of fear. The newborn child has only two fears; the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. All other fears that we experience as adults are learned as we are growing up, primarily as the result of well-meaning but destructive criticism from our parents.

How Fears Develop
When the curious child gets into things and makes a mess, the parent scolds and punishes the child, eventually building up a pattern of fear connected with trying or getting into anything new or different. As adults, we experience this as the fear of failure, the fear of risking, of making a mistake, of losing.

Action Exercises
Here are two steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, imagine that you had no fears at all. What would you set as a goal for yourself if you were guaranteed of success?

Second, decide exactly what you want and then act as if it were impossible to fail. You may be surprised at how successful you are.

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

An Equip and Empower Moment

"The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude;
be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully;
be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid;
be proud, but notarrogant; have humor, but without folly."

~ Jim Rohn, Motivational speaker, author

To lead is to serve,
Coach Carolyn

When A Leader Speaks

Recently I witnessed the following scenario:

At the busstop, a woman asked another woman when the next bus was due to arrive. The second woman, having just looked at the bus schedule, answered the question. The first woman then asked another person the same question, within earshot of the woman she had just asked. Needless to say, the woman became angry because it appeared that the first woman did not trust her word.

When somebody asks a question in a meeting, whom do people look to for the answer? Whom do they wait to hear? The person they look to is the real leader. Identifying a real leader can be easy - if you remember what you're looking for.

Don't listen to the claims of the person professing to be the leader. Instead, watch the reactions of the people around him. The proof of leadership is found in the followers. People listen to what someone has to say not necessarily because of the message, but because of their respect for the messenger.

So I must ask you this: How do people react when you communicate? When you speak, do people listen - I mean really listen? Or do they wait to hear what someone else has to say before they act? You can find out a lot about your level of leadership if you have the courage to ask and answer that question.

From The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by Dr. John Maxwell.

To lead is to serve,

Coach Carolyn