Good to Great proved you don’t have to be a celebrity type personality leader to be effective. In this post by Joseph Lalonde he drives home the value of the introvert in relationship to leadership:
“The world tends to praise the extrovert. The outgoing. The person stealing the show.
And the introvert gets relegated to second fiddle. And forgotten about.
It’s time we change our perception of the introvert.”
Sometimes we confuse roles and goals with responsibilities and tasks. There is a difference and unless you understand it you may not be successful in any area. Michael Hyatt knows the difference and he takes on the goals task with listing several common mistakes:
“It’s time to begin thinking about goal-setting for 2014. I don’t know about you, but I have been going through this annual exercise since my second semester of college, when a friend introduced me to the concept. Almost immediately, I loved the concept and saw the potential.”
Pastoral leadership is hard enough and there are so many different ideas that they have to filter through. The temptation is when things are not working well to try the latest and greatest new idea only to see it fail as well. Eric Geiger deals with this common mistake as well as two other important ones:
“I was recently honored to discuss leadership on a panel at the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference with Greg Matte, Rodney Woo, and Jack Graham. People submitted questions beforehand, and one of the questions that Pastor Greg sent my way was “What are the most common mistakes pastors make?” Here are three:
When it is all said and done all potential employees will be evaluated under the two broad categories of character and competency. The more important of the two is character because you can help most people through training to improve their skill set but you may never be able to overcome who they are as a person.
Once you have narrowed the number of resumes down to the people that you may be interested in it is very helpful to conduct an initial phone interview. It is very important to learn how to ask open ended questions that will allow the person to talk beyond the typical scripted answers. As quickly as possible find out what they are passionate about and what they are capable of doing.
The next step is to send them a series of questions and assessment tools that will give you an even clearer understanding of the person’s strengths and personality tendencies. This should be compared to a very detailed reference resource form that looks for the not so obvious information. A good question might be if you were to see them in a totally different field of work what would it be and why?
By the time you get to a face to face interview the issue is more about character and chemistry than it is competency. I have found it very beneficial to involve other team members in this process to see how they read the fit for our organizational culture.
I would never hire anyone for any kind of significant role without first meeting their spouse. Seeing a couple interact with each other can tell you a lot about the person. Probably one of the most important things to do is get the person in several casual settings where they will not have their game face on and you can listen and observe how they interact with other people.
This entire process could take several months but remember the only thing worse than not having a position filled is to have it filled with the wrong person. When in doubt move on to the next person because as a leader your gut is probably right.
What practical steps do you include in this vital process?
I really don’t like average, maintainence, mediocere, or status quo. I like over the top, excellence and the absolute best that can be done. Simply reason for me I am a Christian what else can I do in response to all that He has done for me.
The last place you normally look for greatness is at a fast food business. Most of the time the core values are price and speed without any serious thought for high end customer service. The one major exception for me is Chic-Fil-A where I always see a culture that values people over pricing and not a common get you out the door mentality.
I have been a regular customer at one fast food place lately and about once a week I have interaction with this one person who is always very friendly and makes sure to call you by your name as you leave with big thank you. Now that was all just nice because he was reading my name right off my debit card and that was more than usually get but still not really big deal.
That was until yesterday when I pulled up and he was in parking lot going home and I spoke to him about leaving so early. Then he did it, a major nice response with my name right where it has always been and no debit card in his hand. Wow, now I am impressed and big fan because he was going way beyond what is expected and taking it to max not at Ritz Carlton but at a hamburger stand.
In the impersonal high tech fast paced world we live in today you can really make a major impression by simply being nice to people and going the extra step to personally connect. It always has been about giving that last 10% of effort that separates greatness from simply good.
Next time I go back I am going to get his name and remember it. He has really inspired me and set the bar where it needs to be and I really hate just being one of the crowd. I want to be like Him!!!!!!!!!!
What separates great leaders from the crowd?
There is always the debate about what is the most effective strategy for reaching new people, change an existing church or simply start a new one with its own unique culture. In my opinion both have their strengths and weaknesses, so the decision should depend upon the context.
There are several things I have noticed when churches are started with one particular age group in mind as the target. All of your programming, especially your worship can be one style depending upon the age group in the room. The staff and the facilities can be designed with the needs of this age group in mind as well.
Although this may work for a short period of time there eventually will be serious challenges that must be addressed. One day all of these single adults will get married and then they are going to want programming for their children. Eventually, this same group will become empty nesters and that will bring on another whole set of needs.
My point is simply this, every church given enough time will become multi-generational unless you are going to tell people at some point you need to leave. Since that is a reality then why not start with a multi-generational model from day one that will avoid all of these potential crisis points that can kill momentum and destroy unity.
An even more significant reason is that it is biblical. Every person is important to God from the youngest newborn to the oldest senior adult. The gospel will always be more receptive with younger people but the ministry of the church must include the widow who is all alone.
Bill George
In order to understand the real reasons for the crisis, everyone on the leadership team must be willing to tell the whole truth. As J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said at a panel I chaired at the World Economic Forum at Davos in January, “It’s not sufficient to have one person on your team who is a truth teller. Everyone on the team must be candid in sharing the entire truth, no matter how painful it is.” How can we solve problems if we don’t acknowledge their existence?
Lesson #2: “No matter how bad things are, they will get worse.” Faced with bad news, many leaders cannot believe that things could really be so grim. Consequently, they try to convince the bearers of bad news that things aren’t so bad, and swift action can make problems go away.
This causes leaders to undershoot the mark in terms of corrective actions. As a consequence, they wind up taking a series of steps, none of which is powerful enough to correct the downward spiral. It is far better for leaders to anticipate the worst and get out in front of it. If they restructure their cost base for the worst case, they can get their organization healthy for the turnaround when it comes and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.
Lesson #3: “Build a mountain of cash, and get to the highest hill.” In good times leaders worry more about earnings per share and revenue growth than they do about their balance sheets. In a crisis, cash is king. Forget about EPS and all those stock market measures. The question is, “Does your organization have sufficient cash to survive the most dire circumstances?”
Goldman Sachs, where I serve on the board of directors, anticipated the difficult times and built up its cash reserves. When the markets got really bad, Goldman had adequate cash reserves to weather the storm.
Lesson #4: “Get the world off your shoulders.” In a crisis, many leaders act like Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. They go into isolation, and think they can solve the problem themselves. In reality, leaders must have the help of all their people to devise solutions and to implement them. This means bringing people into their confidence, asking them for help and ideas, and gaining their commitment to painful corrective actions.
Lesson #5: “Before asking others to sacrifice, first volunteer yourself.” If there are sacrifices to be made – and there will be – then the leaders should step up and make the greatest sacrifices themselves. Crises are the real tests of leaders’ True North. Everyone is watching to see what the leaders do. Will they stay true to their values? Will they bow to external pressures, or confront the crisis in a straight-forward manner? Will they be seduced by short-term rewards, or will they make near-term sacrifices in order to fix the long-term situation?
Lesson #6: “Never waste a good crisis.” This piece of advice comes from Benjamin Netanyahu, the next prime minister of Israel, at the panel I chaired in Davos.
When things are going well, people resist major changes or try to get by with minor adaptations. A crisis provides the leader with the platform to get things done that were required anyway and offers the sense of urgency to accelerate their implementation.
Lesson #7: “Be aggressive in the marketplace.” This may sound counter-intuitive, but a crisis offers the best opportunity to change the game in your favor, with new products or services to gain market share. Many people look at a crisis as something to get through, until they can go back to business as usual. But “business as usual” never returns because markets are irrevocably changed. Why not create the changes that move the market in your favor, instead of waiting and reacting to the changes as they take place?
The Bottom Line:
In a crisis we learn who the real leaders are, and whether they have the wherewithal to stay on course of their True North.
About the Author
Bill George, author of “True North,” is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School. He is also the former CEO of Medtronic and serves on the boards of directors of ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs and Novartis.
I have had two very bad experiences with customer service this week. Not only was I the recipient of this bad “service” I also saw several other people having the exact same horrible experience.
In both situations the people assigned to dealing with the problem made promises they did not keep. For example setting pickup times and assuring you that if they did not call it would be ready, status updates that did not happen and the approach let’s just try this and I am sure it will work when they really did not have a clue about what to do.
Here is the interesting part at least for my situation. With both companies only because of my pushing I was eventually given to a supervisor to help me resolve hour’s worth of wasted time and finally fix the problems.
When I communicated with these new people they had a much better attitude and brought product knowledge that the front line people did not know. They did simple things like returning my calls on time and then committed to do whatever it took to resolve my issues.
Here is my question? Why not set the bar for all of the front line people in your organization at the same level where the supervisors were operating either in technical training, people skills or the authority to make it happen.
You will never convince me that it is cost effective for any company to pay less than qualified people to take hours of their time and your customers offending people that will probably never come back unless they get the slim chance to talk with their boss.
The front lines of your organization where interaction takes place with the people who are experiencing what you have to offer will always be the place where you want to make the best impression. If you’re weakest and newest team members are given these roles thinking they will grow into the job eventually the problem will solve itself because you will not have any more customers to deal with.
I just read this book by Joel Comm on how to dominate your market one tweet at a time. I am really just beginning to understand all the dynamics of social media so I am trying to read all I can.
All social media seems to be trying to either build community on the one hand or build market share on the other. When I see that was a good hamburger tweet or please follow me so I can reach 1,000 followers tweets both seem to add little value.
Occasionally I come across people that really seem to want to help other people by supplying helpful information and encourage them in some personal way. When I find this I think it is extremely positive.
This is a very good book for someone who not only wants to know the basics of microblogging but how can this very powerful tool be used to its maximum potential. Social media in its simplest form is content that has been created by its audience.
In one sense twitter is very restrictive with its 140 characters max on each tweet. However, that small message can reach thousands of people in a matter of seconds and then be resent to thousands of other people all over the world.
My first month on twitter has been a very good experience even as I continue to learn something new every day. It forces me to think about major subjects in very succinct and relevant ways and that has to be a good thing for anyone who wants to communicate information that other people really want and need.