Leadership Gold Part 2 of 10: Leading Yourself
February 17, 2009 by dr. lam · 8 Comments
Most oftentimes a leader is focused on leading other people without truly realizing that the most important person to lead and also the most difficult is himself or herself. The reason that I write these blogs is as an exercise to get myself better as a leader. They are life lessons for me first. If I cannot lead myself, I will have no followers following me.
Most oftentimes, we do not work at self-improvement but look at everyone around us as needing work. Maxwell says that when we criticize someone else, that is called constructive criticism. However, when someone criticizes us we call that destructive criticism. I am certainly not perfect at taking criticism, but I am a lot better today than I was even last year and last year I was better than the year prior. Remember from the 4 agreements, “never to take anything personally”. That is very important in this case. Too often when we judge others, we judge them by THEIR actions, whereas when we judge ourselves we judge ourselves by our intentions. This two-tier system of criticism leads us to failure because we never meant anything by what we did or so we rationalize, but that person certainly should have known better. We must strive to create a harmonious congruity by how we perceive ourselves and others.
Maxwell, a former preacher, still says that he ultimately does not trust himself to lead himself. That is why he has established external accountability for his actions. That is why I wrote about accountability a couple of weeks ago and why I emphasized how I am accountable to other business leaders/owners in my EO forum group. How have you made yourself accountable? To whom? What interval?
We as leaders (and that means all of you too!) must hold ourselves to a higher level of accountability. Linda, who is my spa director, asked me last year why I have apologized to my staff for seemingly small infractions, and I explained that as a leader I hold myself to a higher level of accountability of who I am and who I should aim to be. There is no other person that can truly hold you to that level of accountability than yourself.
When we first lead ourselves, we can then have a chance at leading others around us. I have learned a lot about real-life leadership this past year and have worked even more diligently at becoming a more centered leader. By virtue of that, my patients and my staff and everyone around me has benefited. I must start with myself. You must start with yourself. We must start with ourselves. I look at my readership as part of my extended team at LFP because I would love for all of us to grow as humans in our common fraternity.
Leadership Gold Part 1 of 10: Relational not Positional Leadership
February 16, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
I simply love John Maxwell. I have read many of his books but his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, has been a cornerstone to the way that I think and practice my leadership. He wrote Leadership Gold at the age of 60, which he turned 2 years ago, summarizing many of his leadership principles. I would highly encourage anyone out there interested in leadership to read both books or many of his books on the subject. There is so much “gold” in this book that I have decided to mine the gold over the next 2 weeks so that I can treat this important subject with more depth that it rightfully deserves.
Now many of you out there may be thinking, “I’m not a leader.” I have no interest in reading these blogs, but YOU ARE! Everyone has the potential of being a leader. If you are a parent, you are a leader. If you have friends, you can lead them by being who you are. I like what Maxwell’s objective of what a leader is for, to help others (more about that on another day). I want to encourage, exhort, and inspire all of you to be daily leaders to all of those within your proximity and perhaps even for those who are only within a more remote reach. More importantly, you need to lead yourself first. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. That is tomorrow’s blog.
His opening thoughts were that leaders should not be lonely at the top. They are if they do not have any relationship with those who work on their team. When leaders separate themselves from their team, they no longer have a team at all. That is why I encourage the idea of “Team LFP” rather than subordinates. I know every spouse, child, and animal name for everyone in my organization. I take personal interest in their personal lives. Not prying but asking and being open to receive anything that I can help them with in their personal lives if they need it. I encourage them to call me at home and on weekends if they need me for any reason. It is the same offer that I extend to my patients on whom I have worked. (I in return do not call them during their personal hours and spend very little time on the phone if I must absolutely call them at home.) My team works with me and not for me. They are my lifeblood and they are as vital a part of Team LFP as I am. I like what Maxwell said, “A team does not care about how much a leader knows, until it knows how much he cares.”
I like what John Maxwell said about a “self-made man” who came to him and said, “I did everything myself, and I made it myself.” Maxwell wanted to respond, “I’m sorry. You must have not accomplished much then.” There is no such thing as a self-made individual. Anything worth achieving is achieved as a team not in isolation. Don’t kid yourself please in thinking that you made it on your own. If you think that, please don’t bother talking to me. I don’t think you have the clarity of vision of what a leader really is or does.
I am still learning myself in becoming a leader. Last year, my staff despite being very happy with LFP was not happy enough. I did not project the right leadership mindset and was not as approachable. I am working on that, and I am now fortunately more approachable. It was not that I was aloof. My staff simply did not perceive me as being as part of the team as much as I should have been. In 2009, I have made the promise to my staff and to myself to be a more vigilant and present CEO of this company and of all the businesses that I own. I am working on that mission every day, and I have encouraged my staff to tell me when I fail in that mission. I would encourage whatever position you have in life (personal or professional) to look and see whether you inspire followership. I let go a staff member last year that had many good leadership skills but also very poor ones. Simply put, that individual had no followers. If you have no followers, you are not leading. To lead, you need 2 things: direction and followers. I hope we all can assume a level of personal leadership for those around us. This world is truly crying out for good leadership. I hope you can be the one to provide it.