It's Not That Hard!
Walking through the airport, I see dozens of literature on leading teams, organization, and so on. Everyone has the ingredients, ways, principles, rules, and steps to effectively lead others. After 25 years of leading in manufacturing, technology, and entertainment organizations, I believe I can break the solution down to three important C's - Courage, Connection, and Collaboration.
To effectively lead, the other C's can't exist if Courage doesn't show up. If Courage does show up, it's sporadic at best, often inconsistent. I have had the opportunity over the last three plus years to listen to my wife define courage as taking 100% ownership for everything in your life - the decisions we make, the results of those decisions, and consequences. This seems easy, but Dr. Hawkins, author of Power vs. Force states that 85% of people living today, will not ever reach the level of Courage. Imagine that. For you left brain thinkers - like me, that means if we had 100 leaders in a room, 85 of those leaders are operating at a level below Courage. What?!! This would explain why over 49% of employees are disengaged and 18% actively disengaged according to Gallup's research. Because when people operate below the level of Courage, they are spending most of their time blaming, complaining, quitting, and making the lives of those they share space with miserable.
So how do we get Courage?
Jack Canfield states that in order to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life. This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings — everything!
We have to stop blaming, complaining, and playing the victim.
We always have a choice, what will yours be today?
