Every August for the past 9 years, I’ve been virtually attending a two-day leadership conference. I’ve listened to talks from all sorts of performance experts, team builders, authorities on communication, generational specialists, and leaders from the commercial, government, and religious sectors. The conference’s whole mindset is that anyone who possesses influence is a leader. That includes most people on the planet. Building on that theme, the conference also embraces the notion “everyone wins when leaders get better.”
Going back through my notes from those past years, here are some of the main “bumper sticker” points I came away with. Not all of these are easy to remember, but I hope you can apply at least a few of them in your own situations, whether they’re professional or personal contexts. It’s also helpful to review this list from time to time. I’ll add a little note here that this is an annual conference sponsored by a religious organization; while I recognize not everyone reading this is religious, you can still walk away with a lot of good stuff here. Feel free to comment on any items here that really hit home for you.
You get more of what you tolerate. The things you accept are what you’ll get more of.
Leaders add value to people.
Courage is the 20-second sprint. Tenacity is the 4-hour marathon.
Success isn’t about talent; it’s about drive.
Your life moves in the direction of your strongest thoughts. “What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.” -Muhammad Ali
Busy leaders don’t change the world; focused leaders do. Don’t be afraid to say “no” to things that distract you from your mission. (Build your own “To Don’t” list: “I won’t do X until I complete Y.”)
Conformity is the quickest path to mediocrity. Greatness is born in the extremes.
Appreciate people more than you think you should, then double that amount (and then round up). Good leaders make you think they are important. Great leaders make you believe YOU are important.
When God gives a challenge to you and nobody else, don’t be surprised when nobody else understands it.
Apathy makes excuses. Obsession finds a way. “Good” requires motivation. “Great” requires obsession.
This is only the middle of the story. Whether good or bad, look ahead to what’s still coming.
Great leaders don’t cast blame, they take responsibility.
The pathway to your greatest potential often goes through your greatest fear. The difference between where you are and where you could be is the painful decision you’re unwilling to make.
The amount of busy work always expands to fill the amount of time you allot for it.
“Multiply your time” by giving yourself permission to spend time on things today that will give you more time tomorrow. Automation is to your time what compound interest is to your money. Institute the “30 times” rule – Be willing to spend up to 30 times the amount of time it takes to perform a task on actually training someone else to perform it for you. For a 5-minute task, be willing to spend up to 150 minutes to fully train them on it. It will pay you back in the long run.
If you don’t answer God’s call, He’ll call someone else. You already have everything you need to start doing what you’ve been called to do.
“Priming” people has a way of generating the outcome you want. Keep telling students they’re smart and they’ll perform better on tests. Keep telling people they’re polite and they’ll interrupt less.
When doing great things, anticipate hardship. Everything worthwhile is uphill. If you’re holding the football, you’re going to get tackled.
People can handle change; it’s the uncertainty they have a hard time with. Tell them what to expect. People will follow you if you paint a vivid picture of what’s coming.
There are six qualities needed to lead well through a crisis: Intelligence, Curiosity, Humility, Resilience, Empathy, and Integrity
Holding grudges is a form of arrested development. Learn from the past, but don’t let it control you.
Everyone draws criticism; decide what trait/characteristic you’re most willing to be criticized for, and lean into it.
Just because someone’s wrong in your eyes doesn’t mean they’re worthless.
When things are uncertain, what’s most important to you becomes clear.
Comfort and safety are enemies of success.
A desire to fit in can harm your authenticity. Own what makes you authentic. Contrast, rather than compare, yourself to others.
Bad behavior is an unskilled expression of an unmet need.
Discipline is choosing what you want most over choosing what you want now.
When disagreement surfaces, progress with humility.
Don’t take your gifts to Heaven; Heaven doesn’t need them.
It’s not the leader’s job to innovate; their job is to create the conditions that allow great innovations to happen.
People are impressed with your strengths, but they connect with your weaknesses. Be transparent.
It’s not what you do occasionally that matters, the things you do consistently matter.
“Good enough” is the enemy of game-changers, but know when “good” is “good enough to move on.” Pursuit of excellence will motivate you, but pursuit of perfection will limit you.
You may be disappointed if you trust too much, but you’ll limit your leadership if you don’t trust enough.
Poor performance is especially contagious. The best predictor of a team’s success is not the best performer or the average performer, but the bottom performer.
Loss of trust happens fast. Gossip destroys trust, and people take notice if you, as a leader, are engaging in it.
Condoleeza Rice on life in DC: “Everything’s always nuclear war. In reality, sometimes it’s just paper clips.”
Foster an open, no-blame culture. This environment creates openness and a willingness to own mistakes.
Battle complacency. Pick your counterpart on a rival team and do your job better than they do theirs.
Dominate via the aggregation of marginal gains. Make multiple 1% improvements to the enterprise. No aspect of the process is too small to improve on. You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.
When building new habits from scratch, use the 2-minute rule. Habits must be established before they can be improved upon. When starting from nothing, don’t do anything for longer than 2 minutes. “Showing up” gets habitual, and from there you can improve the quality of the habit.
Rejection is sometimes God’s protection. God: “You’re not rejected; I just hid your value from them because they have no part in the destiny I’m assigning you.”
Look for these things in the people you’re going to trust, and be them for the people you’re asking to trust you:
- Empathy: We trust someone when we feel they understand us. We need to feel understood before we give trust.
- Motive: You sense people’s motives and feel suspicious when you think their motive isn’t in your own interest.
- Ability: Do they have it within themselves to execute the thing I’m trusting them to do?
- Character/Composition: Not all character strengths are appropriate all the time. You don’t call a SEAL when your aunt gets cancer, and you don’t need a book club friend when it’s time to reach down deep for a big personal challenge. Displaying the right strength at the right time is important.
- Track record: What’s their history look like? Forgiveness is free, but trust is earned.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care…about them.
Just because I’m right doesn’t mean you’re wrong (and vice versa).
You can’t use your long-past experience as a 25-year-old to relate to today’s 25-year-olds. Times are vastly different.
Remember the power of “yet.” Consider “I’m not good at this” vs. “I’m not good at this…yet.”
Communicate enough that everyone on the team understands the vision and can contribute their own version of excellence. The goal is bounded autonomy.
You are more than the worst thing that ever happened to you. So are your teammates.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is assuming all your thoughts are correct. Have the humility to challenge your own assumptions.
There’s a level of psychological safety necessary for high-performance teams. On those teams, you can ask questions, suggest new ideas, and admit when you’re wrong without the team treating you unkindly.
You only get to fix mistakes you take ownership of.
Self-awareness leads to “others awareness.”
Solid Emotional Intelligence comes from mastery of these four progressive skills:
- Self-awareness – Recognizing your emotions and being prepared to react to them
- Self-management – Using this awareness to produce the outcome you want
- Social awareness – Recognizing and understanding the emotions and perspectives of others
- Relationship management – Using awareness of yours plus others’ emotions to manage interactions
There will always be more good ideas than there will be capacity to execute. Learn how to say “no” to the things that don’t contribute to the team’s goals.
People who have enjoyed working for a given leader have usually felt valued, inspired, and empowered. Seek to provide those things to the people under or around you.
When you delegate tasks, you create followers. When you delegate authority, you create leaders.
You have your own recipe for success, so stop trying to steal someone else’s. Don’t become someone else at the expense of who you are. Be you and don’t be sorry about it.
Impressing someone is not the same as connecting with them.
It’s not your job to feed the 5000; it’s your job to provide the loaves and fish.
Which of these stuck out to you? Did any of them hit a little too close to home?