Breathe

Effective leaders in life and in business take breaks to think, to be strategic, to make room for new ideas and to just breathe.  In the rush of life, in the madness that can occur in running a business the real movement and growth comes from a leader that takes time for solitude. In these moments of solitude, the mind is free to relax, free to discover new methods and to renew the energy required to navigate the road ahead.

Follow these 6 steps below to effectively breathe and improve your performance:

1. Set a time each day to be quiet, remain still and gather thoughts.  The best time is when you first wake up and greet the day.
2. Set a time each week that you will remove yourself from fighting the fight and just dream about what the future can be.  Literally, block out your schedule.
3. Schedule one fun day/night per month.  If married or dating, regardless of your age, keep dating.  At work, schedule a lunch, a happy hour, something fun for you and your team.  Don't talk business, just enjoy the time.
4. Plan a vacation, and take it, at least one a year.  If finances are an issue to keep you from traveling, still use the time to be away from the normal routine and play.  Go to the park, have a picnic, see a movie or go to the zoo.
5. Always be reading a book that has nothing to do with your work.
6. Keep notes of what you come up with in your quiet times and breaks.  These concepts and thoughts are important to action steps needed to grow.

YOU ARE a leader!

No matter what your role is as one leading others, you are always in a position to lead.  Leading is influencing another in action, thought or direction.  Regardless of your role or position, if a person or group listens to you, or models your behavior, they have followed you and therefore you have led.

People say to me all the time, "Randy, I am just not a leader, I don't see any leadership traits in me".  Or, I will hear, "I have no title, I am just a clerk".  And one of my favorites is "I don't work, I am just a wife and mom".  Well, let me be the one to remind you that in each of those people above is a leader, and so are YOU!

Life is a journey taken with others, and in business, groups and families, decisions are rarely made without consult of others.  People working each day observe their peers in action, they refer to others for advice, they even vent and complain hoping for someone to help them.  And as for a mom or dad raising kids, is there a more fitting description for what we do...we lead our kids to adulthood.

Recognize that you are a leader.  It is tough to soak in what a leader should be and do until you accept that fact that you are one.  To someone each day, you are in a position to help them, encourage them, to guide them, for them to see you work in an ethical manner.  When you make your family priority number one, yet still get the job done, you are leading to those that have not yet found that formula.

The world is starving for leaders, for honorable people to lead the way.  Start thinking you are a leader, I promise you...many will follow!

People never disagree, argue or fail.

One thing for certain in life is that is can get messy.  People are independent beings, each bringing their set of ideas, values, perspective and solutions to the table.  When you fill a room and a team with highly skilled people, many times, they disagree.  What do you do in those moments?  How do you resolve a problem if tempers rise?  As a leader, what is your reaction when others challenge you, when your idea is called into question?  Or even worse, what happens when you are slandered and wrongly occussed of something you didn't do or didn't say?

If these types of situation have happened to you, then you know the types of emotions and tendencies that can be brought out of you.  If you haven't experienced this yet, trust me, you will.

Some great advice that I was given by a successful businessman turned leadership trainer, Jim Therrian, was this: put time between stimulus and response.  There it is, it is that simple...well to say.

Let's unpack that.  If you are challenged by someone in your team, an upset client, a family member, and they are heated in tone and words, do the following:

• Stop
• Listen
• Breathe (really, think about your breathing)
• And then wait, how long, well until you are ready

Not ready to attack, ready to talk.  You need to be in an emotional state of calm, and then when you approach them, you will be approachable.   If there tone and emotions are at a 10, and they bring you up from a 1 to a 7, you need to wait until you are back down to 2 or 3.  Then, approach them, I guarantee that there 10 has not only dropped down, yet when you have a 2, they drop further.

Two people at level 2 or 3 are passionate, yet poised.  Two people at level 9 or 10 are a disaster.

It's Your Choice

I am sure you have heard the well known phrase "attitude is everything".  Well, as a leader, and as one that pursues the interests of others to help build them up for a goal, let's expand on this concept of how your attitude really does become everything.

Attitude is really about one thing, choice.  And choices, well we make them all day, every day.  Some choices may seem simple and unimportant, like what to wear, or which sandwich to pack for lunch.  Others have much greater impact on our lives, the lives of others and ultimately the outcomes of the group, team, organization or family you are leading.

A common business element that occurs in manufacturing is late deliveries.  They happen all the time, for various reasons.  Common reasons are lack of planning, over booking of the schedule, errors requiring rework, employees not showing up, machine breakdown and much more.  As a leader, do you share the truth with the client or instruct those communicating to the client to tell the truth?  Or, do you choose to make up a story so the company doesn't look bad?

How about when someone is upset, you cannot control their emotion, yet you can choose to control yours.  If your attitude is a response to fight, you will get that.  If you choose to remain calm, the chances are you will eventually calm them down too.  It is really hard to fight someone that doesn't fight back.  Think about it, who are they yelling at?

The choice is yours, and the reality is, whichever way you choose, you will be correct, and get what you chose.

Letting go

Sometimes being a leader and ensuring something gets done means letting go.  A common mistake is that the leader is always in control, that nothing happens without their final approval, that they are paid the big bucks to tell others what to do.  Certainly, this ties into what we have discussed thus far in regards to delegation, so let's dive a bit deeper.

To grow your business, and to grow people, you need to let go.  I remember back when I was a teenager and my mom would try to dictate my schedule, what I could and couldn't do. Now, I am not talking here about inappropriate things, I am speaking to multiple school activities, church band, school trips and so forth.  I wanted (and did) do it all.  It was (is) a part of who I am, and in a word, driven.  I want to be involved in everything. 

My mom, who God blessed me with a wonderful, sweet, caring women, is not like that at all.  She sits back, relaxes, doesn't jump into too many things, just takes it slow.  I am not saying either is correct, because each IS correct for each of us.  Back to my point...she was trying to control my schedule and life to fit her desires, interests and likes.  She didn't want me to be her, yet she certainly wanted me to slow down because that isn't how she would do it.

Now there is nothing wrong with taking breaks, we need time to regenerate.  I am simply saying that what worked for her didn't necessarily translate to work for me.  So, in the world of leading, sometimes letting go and giving the other person a chance to run their own way can yield tremendous results.  In the end, you should be concerned with the destination not so much the path taking to get there.

If by holding on you get what you want, you most likely took a piece of imagination and opportunity for growth away from the person you delegated to.  If you want to expand, grow and develop people, you need to give them room to take risks, to expand methodologies and yes, even to fail.

Next time you look to lead someone down a path, let go, give them room to work.  Your absence could actually turn out to be the best strategy. 

When you have your health..cont...

Signs of a healthy organization, family, business, small group, team and of course marriages all have one thing in common, they are healthy because they work at.  There are no shortcuts, no quick rich methods, no cliff notes, this is hard work.  This is where those that just buy the running shoes are separated from those that cross the finish line of the race. The best ideas and intent is great, yet in reality the daily practice of remaining healthy and "fit" for your purposes and objectives is the real work.

As a leader, and again I remind you that everyone is a leader, it is your responsible to ensure all 5 of the below are accomplished from your perspective and from those you work/live with.  Do not rely on others to set the example and tone, do it yourself.  If you take hold of each step and put it into your daily habits, others will follow you.  Let's look at them again.

1. Communicate
2. Delegate
3. Trust Others
4. Remain strategic
5. Review and Adjust as required

Communication is the key to every relationship.  I have held this to be true since I was a young adult in my teens, and I know it to be true as a middle aged man with kids now in their teens.  You cannot expect others to know what you are thinking or expecting through some magical osmosis, you need to communicate to them.  Do so with respect, yet do so.  Make sure that what is on your mind, your dreams, your expectations, your objectives are shared.  Then be open and honest and how to get there, together.

Next, you need to delegate some of the work, some of the responsibility and ownership for meeting the objectives.  No one can carry the load alone, and actually, those you lead have different gifts, talents and desires from you, so ensure you use them.  Communicate what needs to be done and accept the help, and offer opportunities for others to contribute.

Most people don't delegate the full task, they just assign things and then hover.  You need to delegate fully, trusting those around you.  You need to be honest and trustworthy first of course, yet you need to trust that they are capable.  Too many leaders fail to let go, and what holds back growth is the inability to scale.  The bandwidth of one is just that, yet a trusted resource equates to 1+1=3.  Take my word, trust me...you will get more done when you fully trust others to do what they do best.

How often do you put your feet up on the desk?  Take a break and do nothing but dream?  How often are you willing for a task to not get done just so you can look out onto the horizon?  I challenge you to do this at least weekly, if not daily.  We need time to think.  We need to realize what could be next and plan for it.  An organization that move ahead does so because of the vision cast and communicated to the team.  As we have discussed, having the client in mind and working toward those goals is forward thinking.  Now go beyond that, go further, stretch yourself to imagine what is next.  Keep the vision lofty, and don't consume yourself with tactical plans, just for a moment.  Tasks will get done, they need to, that is why delegation and trust is so important, your plate if now open to be strategic.  To see the competition, the changing market place, the wind that is changing and you have time and energy to grasp the next great strategic move for your team.  Do it today!

As you look at the world, do you notice anything?  Movement, creation, new ideas, innovation....change.  Things do not stay the same, nor can you.  You must be willing to alter your direction, your own plans and start the process again.  When clients grow and change, so must your plans.  When your kids grow, you must adapt how you lead them and parent them.  As you accomplish your goals, set new ones, adapt, change as needed and communicate the message to those you delegate, trust and strategically lead.

When you have your health...

...you have it all.

This was another great saying from Poor Fred, and when you stop and think about it, how true it is.  When someone is healthy, anything is possible.  They can dream big, accomplish much, travel, create, and flourish.  Yet, no matter how strong someone might be, or wealthy, powerful, smart, athletic, strategic...you name it, when someone is not healthy, they are basically incapable.  They struggle to breathe, for basic things in life, for smiling, for relief from pain, even for something to look forward to.  They need one thing, to feel better.  If the health situation is more serious, their world literally stops.  Everything else is not important, seems trivial and rather meaningless compared to their healing.

Organizations, businesses, teams, families and groups accomplishing a common vision (like taking care of clients) are really no different than a human being having the need for health.  The health of an organization is vital to the success of the organization.  So, in turn, the health (and I am not referring to physical) of the leader is in direct correlation to the health of the group.

To be considered in good health as a leader, one must do 5 key things:

1. Communicate
2. Delegate
3. Trust Others
4. Remain strategic
5. Review and Adjust as required

In the next post, we will take a look at each of these 5 in action.