Leading other people is a noble pursuit. When you can help someone develop skills and realize success, it can be gratifying. Humbling. Rewarding. Hopefully, that drives you to become a better leader.
Leading others can also be challenging. We’re dealing with humans, so there are unique behaviors, motivations, psyches and backstories that each of your employees carries with them when they walk in the door each day. Personal needs. Triggers. Blind spots.
It can get messy. Uncertainty abounds.
With that in mind, you reach out for best practices on communicating, delegating, and all the other skills that come with managing…
With applications for entrepreneurs, corporate managers and side hustlers
If you want to be successful, every day requires effort.
You have to grind.
It can be tough to maintain motivation. Day after day. Year after year.
I’ve found that daily quotations provide inspiration. Perspective.
To shape your mindset. To maintain your focus.
Some days you need to block out the noise. Some days you need to kick it into high gear.
You’re creating your own brand. It is built one interaction at a time. One day at a time.
I’ve identified 52 quotes that I use to inspire me. I hope they inspire you.
To lead. To persevere. …
So that you can stay in productive growth mode
Last year I passed 11,000 one-to-one hours as an executive coach.
I expected to feel smarter. Or taller.
Ever since I passed 10,000 hours, I’ve been waiting to receive my expert badge from some Malcolm Gladwellian Outliers emissary.
But I’m not holding my breath. I know I still have A LOT to learn.
How do you view your own level of expertise and wisdom?
Who decides who the experts are, anyway?
Social media is full of self-proclaimed experts. Some are frightening. Some are laughable.
Where are you on the expert-we-need-to-hear-from scale?
There are lots of voices offering you their opinions…
You can have a profound impact on someone else — and that’s only the beginning
A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. — Jackie Robinson
I was recently challenged — on a Zoom meeting of all places — to do one simple thing that can change someone else’s life. Forever.
Now I want to challenge you to do the same. And it won’t cost you a dime.
Most people retreat behind the wall of excuses, including, “I don’t have the resources / contacts / opportunities / time.” Fill in the blank.
I hope you won’t.
When you positively impact another life, something incredible happens. …
Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it’s often only found in moments of truth. — Alan Rudolph
We tend to consider the negative impact of distractions as it relates to our productivity.
But what about our communications? And what about our…gasp…relationships?
We tend to evaluate our productivity and effectiveness based on what we accomplished during a given time period. Projects completed for the month. Progress on our priorities this week. Items crossed off our daily task list.
But life is experienced in moments.
Our business brand is formed. Our personal brand is experienced by others.
…
“Be yourself, everyone else is taken.” Oscar Wilde
Do we really need reminders of the need to be authentic as leaders?
Apparently we do, based on the 103 million results on a Google search for “authentic leadership.”
There are bestselling books on the subject on Amazon and articles in Forbes and the Harvard Business Review.
Wikipedia provides the following definition:
Authentic leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes building the leader’s legitimacy through honest relationships with followers which value their input and are built on an ethical foundation. — Wikipedia
Be honest? Value the input of your team members…
Leading a team is one of the awesome roles in the management journey. All the oars pulling together. Each one doing their part to achieve a common goal.
Yeah, that looks good on paper.
And it has its moments.
But any time people are involved, it can get clunky. And funky. At any time. When you least expect it.
Intellectually, you understand the value of diverse skills and perspectives.
But wouldn’t it be easier if everyone was more like you?
Not really. Diversity is important. Maybe critical. But managing diversity is the leader’s role.
While skills and backgrounds may be…
Much of your success will be based on sustained effort over a long period of time.
You’re checking that box. Daily. Hourly.
Grinding.
But getting from here to there, aren’t there some accelerators?
If you think of short-cuts, it sounds like you’re trying to skip some steps. Maybe those steps are necessary.
But you’d like to speed up your development. You want to get an edge.
To avoid delays.
To make decisions faster.
To get more traction.
I’ve found a process that helps you accelerate results and also prevents you from making some colossal mistakes.
It will have a profound…
For most of us, our daily exchanges with casual acquaintances and strangers are pretty lame.
You know: “How are you?” “Fine.” “ Glad to hear it.” End of conversation.
Perfunctory. The words just come out.
Sometimes, we don’t want to be rude, but we try to avoid the conversation altogether. After all, it could be a colossal waste of your time. Or the person might be one of “those” people, who will tell total strangers about what hurts, what’s swollen, or what itches.
Most of the time, our conversations with our employees aren’t much better.
“How was your weekend?”
“OK…
Sometimes you feel like life is pulling you in opposite directions.
You understand the importance of hard work and grinding every day…but you want to be making progress and don’t want to waste time and energy.
You understand the need to prioritize every day, but do you focus on the short term or the long term?
You feel you have a sense of urgency, but it isn’t always displayed by the members of your team. At best, it is uneven. You want to ensure that the energy and urgency remain at a high level, but you can only bang on…
Karl Sprague
Executive Coach, Teacher, Trainer, Speaker and Storyteller
