You Were Built to Lead
My dad used to say “Life is a wonderful thing once you learn how to live it.”. For a long time, I thought that this aphorism was about the big things in life, like building a solid career, raising a family or having a positive impact on your community. While all of those things are certainly important, it wasn’t until I had an epiphany in my back yard that enlightened my idea on what my dad really meant. This realization was demonstrated to me while I was folding some lawn chairs for storage. For a couple of Summer seasons, I had great difficulty folding these particular chairs until one day in frustration, I slammed the chair legs on the ground only to find, much to my surprise, that the chair just collapsed and folded almost effortlessly. After successfully testing my system on the other chairs, I was elated. A great burden had been lifted from my soul. It was then that I began to see the value of how knowing the nuances about things can be very liberating. This led to me focusing on the “little” things that can really make a difference in maximizing my experiences on multiple levels.
For example, there are so many little things that if you just know how they function it would make your life easier. For years, I did not know that the hole in a soda can tab was designed to hold a straw. I also did not realize that the lid on a standard paper coffee cup was designed to be used as a coaster. These are only a few things that when you know how they work can make your life just a little bit better.
Applying this principal to understanding how things work like computers, smart phones and televisions can really make your life so much easier and richer. Now don’t get me wrong, I am no expert at any of these, but I do know that the more you know about these technologies the happier life can be.
Cars are an excellent demonstration of what I am talking about. Now when I go to rent a car it is a whole new experience. With all of the new technology that is now infused in automobiles, you never quite know what you are going to get. Not knowing the different features that a particular car has to offer; you can’t maximize the functionality. After driving the car for several days, you begin to figure out the different features.
Looking at something that is a bit more complicated, just like soda cans, cups and rental cars, children don’t come with a manual either. Parents raising children kind of have to figure it out as they go along. And, as most parents that have more than one child know, raising one child is entirely different from raising another.
Knowing how things function and knowing how to apply the different functionalities to meet specific purposes to achieve specific goals is critical to successfully accomplishing your objectives. Certain things are specifically designed for distinct functionalities. Keeping with the car themed analogies, certain vehicles work better in different situations. While race cars are perfectly suited to drive fast and handle with precision on a racetrack, they are not well suited for picking up groceries or carting the kids off to school. And, while your SUV or mini-van will do a much better job moving kids and groceries, they are not designed for speed or precision maneuvers.
Obviously, people are exponentially more complicated. Knowing how people in organizations function is fundamentally just as important as knowing the functionality of a car. As a leader, it is important to know how specific parts of your organization work and how the people work together to get things done.
Athletes develop their natural skills and talents to become the best at what they do. Whether their skill set is to dunk a basketball, score a goal or steal a base, it is the coach that needs to know how to put these talents together to formulate a winning strategy. Just like athletes that hone their skills to propel a team to victory and use their abilities to work in conjunction with other team members for the success of the team, people in organizations must do the same. Leaders should focus on developing talents and work to maximize teams using their collective strengths to attain successful outcomes. Just like knowing how to get the most out of your car or your technology; knowing how to get the most out of the people that you lead will get you the best results.
Unlike cars and technology, it is the human factor/emotional intelligence that connects us to others and enables us to lead with purpose; leading with heart matters. How you motivate, retain talent and improve morale are crucial leadership skills that require a human approach. All of us have had to make decisions, maintain relations and adapt to changes in our lives. These are the same challenges that leaders face on a daily basis.
Just as there are features on our cars and technology that we need to master, there are many elements of the people that you work with that you need to take the time and effort to learn and cultivate. You may work with people for years and not know their talents and nuances that may play a vital role in adding to your organizational operations. Learning these abilities will bolster your leadership impact. Maximizing an individual’s potential begins with knowing their talents, developing their abilities and building their work and careers around their strengths.
As with the cars you were built differently - for different purposes - but ALL of you have talents and skills that are distinctly yours. And, like the cars, can achieve a particular purpose in the leadership realm and make significant contributions to your organizations.
So, what does all of this mean? Leading in the 21st century requires a new style of leadership. I am not suggesting that everybody will be the CEO of a major corporation, or hold a high office in the political arena or marshal in a large scale cultural change – What I am saying is that we all poses talents that when cultivated contribute to organizational success.
No one person knows it all. Leaders must rely on those that they associate with to make good decisions, implement effective policies and to execute changes effectively.
We have long built our organizational objectives by molding people around our leadership goals; we now need to mold our leadership goals around the people. Change from boss mentality to coach mentality”
- Jim Clifton
Leadership is no longer judged by accomplishing big changes but by the small but significant operational contributions that move the needle and promote positive change.
Marin Luther King once said, “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”.
An example of how making independent, relatively small decisions can make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things and can make a lasting imprint; Last year, one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history occurred at an Orlando nightclub. Chief Medical Examiner Joshua Stephany had been filling in as medical examiner for the county. Dr. Stephany made the decision to separate the bodies of the 49 victims from the body of their executioner. He said, - “There was no legal reason, no protocol” for separating the gunman, “It’s just what I felt was right.”.
“True leadership is doing the right thing and making the right decision at the right time.”
“Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself. It is precisely that simple and it is also that difficult.”
- Warren Bennis
As automobiles were built to transport people and things, each with their own unique features and capabilities contribute to getting the right job done with the right capabilities, so are you. How this is done is defined by the specifications of the vehicle. How you lead is defined in your specifications. Your specifications include many factors. Talents, thinking and emotions are defined in your unique specifications. They are your leadership tools.
You are built to make decisions and take actions to resolve problems. You are specially designed to build and cultivate relationships that create synergistic teams. When things go amiss, you are built to take decisive actions. When making plans, you think strategically and when executing those plans you use your powers of persuasion to influence others to help you accomplish your goals. When leading, you are built to instill trust in others and demonstrate courage when taking risk while managing change. These are your talents - Your talents are your tools -Your talents are the keys to your success!
Contact us and let’s get your leadership style identified to help you flex your skills and improve your work and life.
You Were Built to Lead!
Written by: Larry Hammond, Sr.
What is Going to Make YOU the Next Great Leader? What Will Take YOU to the Next Level?
As the workplace dynamics and life situations are rapidly evolving, there are multiple opportunities to assume leadership roles. Circumstances whether in your job or in your community or even in your family may require you to step up and lead. For example, I have seen one of the biggest and most consequential leadership roles that I have had to undertake was addressing the needs of my aging parents. In our communities, we often see that individuals are standing up to fight for what they believe in or to seek justice. In the workplace, organizations are moving more aggressively toward team management and project-based operations. These settings have made it even more imperative that organizations invest in growing leaders that can step into management roles to execute their organizational.
So, what do the experts say makes a great leader?
Great leaders get straight “A’s” on their leadership test. They exemplify authenticity, accountability, adaptability and appreciation.
Great leaders cast a compelling vision about where they want to go and they have faith in their beliefs - they create lasting solutions to problems not just band aide fixes and they create a thriving organizational culture.
Great leaders stay positive, exhibit confidence and have a sense of humor - they are clear about their goals and decisive in their decisions - they lead with courage, passion and humility.
Great leaders handle controversial issues or crisis calmly and confidently - they embrace failures and manage setbacks while taking responsibility for their actions - they learn from their mistakes and make the hard choices when they have to.
Great leaders embrace change and lead by example - they communicate effectively and are transparent in their actions.
These are what I call the brass ring objectives. These tend to be the buzz words of leadership development. These are the things that we often shoot for to become better leaders. While these are all good intentions and yes great qualities to have as a leader, they tend to be taught as the flavor of the month but, in reality, nobody embodies all of these leadership qualities. While a finely tuned racecar looks great and will perform competitively on the racetrack it won’t be a winner when you need to bring the groceries home from the store; your SUV will do a better job at that.
So how are you going to become the next great leader? What will get you prepared to step into a leadership role, willingly or unwillingly, and have the best chance to succeed?
We all take on leadership roles in very different ways. Depending on our talents and strengths as well as knowing our limitations we all approach the responsibilities of leading in very different ways. Through Gallup’s research, it was determined that the most effective leaders are always investing in strengths. Without an awareness of your strengths, it is almost impossible for you to lead effectively.
“We believe that when the right talent meets the right opportunity in a company with the right philosophy, amazing transformation can happen.” -- Reid Hoffman
In order to be an effective leader, you need to take stock of your personal characteristics and skill sets and assess your strengths and weaknesses. Further education in leadership and management coupled with continued professional development of your skills are key. In this age of digital enlightenment and rapidly evolving workplaces, the definition of effective leadership is constantly changing and to keep up, leaders need to continuously ask questions of themselves.
In the popular TV show, Game of Thrones – Peter Dinklage plays Tyrion Lannister a dwarf living in this fictional world where physical strength and the ability to engage in warfare are rewarded. When asked why he reads so many books, his answer is to improve his already strong mind. Knowing that because of his physical limitations, that he would never excel as a warrior, his best chance to lead and succeed was through his intellectual abilities. He knew his strength was his intelligence and that by enhancing his strongest asset he could not only survive in a chaotic world but he would excel as a leader.
Knowing your strongest assets are your best chance to be a successful leader. Understanding not only your strengths but those of your team and bringing those talents to bear in your leadership endeavors is your best path to being a great leader. Knowing your strengths and those of your team is like having a blueprint of why you are or why your team members are the way that they are is like having a manual on how to make yourself or your team members function at optimal efficiency.
In my previous articles, I have been talking about knowing your strengths is understanding your “YUR”. Why you tackle certain challenges the way you do; why you react the way you do; why you lead the way you do are all encompassed in how you use your strengths. For example, if one of your strengths is communication you will lead best if you use this talent to influence others. Empathizing easily with others will take you a long way in your leadership responsibilities by helping to build strong relationships. Having strong analytical skills, will help you devise effective strategies while leading a team and if you are a person possessing an acute ability to focus then you will use this strength to lead your team in successfully executing their projects.
“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is about growing others.” – Jack Welch
As a person that has “Maximizer” as my top talent theme according to the Gallup StrenghtsFinder assessment, I understand that great leaders know that people are key to your success. One of the keys to being a great leader, in my opinion, is being able to instill power within others. Lifting others up, inspiring them to grow and bringing out the best in people is the best way to create more leaders. A true leader is able to inspire their team to encourage them to go beyond excellence and accomplish far more than anyone expects them to – or they expect of themselves. Great leaders earn their team’s respect. They do this by getting to know their team by listening, providing productive feedback and they encourage cooperation over competition.
“You cannot have faith in people unless you take action to improve and develop them.” -- Sumantra Ghoshal
The other side of the leadership equation is encompassed in why followers follow. In the book written by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie, Strengths Based Leadership, Rath and Conchie outline how you can effectively lead using your unique strengths. I highly recommend reading this book and with it you will get a code that will allow you to take Gallup’s StrengthsFinder Assessment.
If you are ready to find out what shapes your ability to be an effective leader and you are ready to maximize your “YUR” by discovering your talents, declaring your strengths and developing them into dynamic tools that will make you the next great leader V1H Consulting will help you to evolve your “YUR”.
“What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths – and can call on the right at the right time.” --Tom Rath
“Why You Are…” How Your Strengths Exemplify You
At one time or another we have all been on the quest to find out “Who you are” in work, business or life. Who you are is generally determined by your beliefs, your character, and your values. These qualities are forged over time; through the influences upon our lives; our upbringing; our education and reactions to things that life has presented to us.
While knowing who you are is important, knowing why you are the way you are can provide a higher level of understanding about yourself and deserve further exploration.
Over your lifetime through experiences of trial and error, you consciously and subconsciously demonstrate your talents and subsequently when you use those talents they influence the outcomes in your life. Using your talents is a process of discovery not invention. When I was growing up, I played basketball with my friends and eventually found out that I was never really ever going to be that good at the game. On the other hand, swimming came more naturally to me and I used that talent to become a lifeguard. The same thing happens with our ability to communicate, to build relationships, to influence outcomes or to execute complex task. Just as I worked to develop my swimming talents into strengths that ultimately allowed me to pass the lifeguard test, developing talents into strengths in these other areas will promote success in other facets of your life.
Have you ever thought about why you are in the position that you are in? Why you are in the relationships that you are in? Why you have the successes in your life? My work has led me to propose that the answer to “why you are…” (YUR…) is determined by your talents and strengths. With our talents being a natural way of thinking, feeling or behaving and our strengths being the ability to consistently provide near perfect performance, these elements are major determinants of why you are the person you are. When we identify and apply our strengths, we act within our circle of competence. We use our strengths to navigate challenges, effectively. When we act within our circle of competence, we become more efficient, productive and successful. Your “YUR” is your collective talents and strengths that denote why you do what you do, react the way you react and respond the way you respond to life’s stimuli.
The “YUR…” is the combination of the drivers that push you to take certain actions or to respond to certain situations. These drivers are your strengths. As an illustration, Superman sees a person in a burning building with his x-ray vision then crashes through the wall and saves them. Because Superman knows his strengths; he knows that he can spot the person in trouble through the wall, break it down without getting hurt and save the victim in the fire without getting burned is an example of his “YUR…”
If he didn’t know and have those strengths his choices of rescue options would be quite different, he would have to find another way to attempt the rescue. While we don’t have super human abilities like Superman, we do have human abilities that we can make super. In Simon Sinek’s book, "Start with Why", Sinek talks about the importance of understanding why individuals and organizations do what they do and that by knowing the right question will drive them to the right purpose. Understanding your strengths manifest in the understanding of why you do what you do and the choices we make. This understanding is key to mapping out success strategies, making decisions, solving problems and enjoying life. When it comes to the question of “Why?” we may ask, why am I inclined to “go with the flow” in most situations? Why do I have a tendency to take control of a situation so easily? Why am I so competitive? - Why do I have such a strong desire to learn new things? Why do I love meeting and interacting with new people so readily? These are all examples of themes that drive us to react and behave in the ways we do.
Learning what your talents are is easy. The Gallup Corporation developed the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment that measures 34 distinct talents. When you take the assessment, you are shown how the 34 strengths themes line up for you. Those of us in the StrengthsFinder community often focus on the top 5 themes which tend to be our most dominant and those that we go to most often. These are the areas where you have the greatest potential to develop strengths.
The Gallup Corporation indicates that there is a 1 in 33 million chance that someone else will have an identical top 5 theme sequence. That means that your strength themes make you definitively unique. Your “YUR…” is equivalent to your DNA. It is your thinking combined with your actions. Just as your DNA determines your physical makeup, your abilities and attributes; in other words, “who you are”. Your talents and strengths makeup the “why you are” in life. What determines this extraordinary uniqueness is how your strengths work together. It is akin to a quantum theory explanation. The quantum analogy depicts the idea that your combined strengths work independently and collectively to fulfill a purpose. As an example, imagine two sports car drivers that are preparing to race each other. One driver’s car has five gears and she is skillful at switching from one gear to another. The second driver has five different cars, each equipped with only one gear. For him, his potential outcome is limited in having to choose a car that is confined to only one gear. This illustrates how when we are not working in our strengths we are less likely to be consistently successful.
For example, my top 5 strengths are Maximizer, Arranger, Strategic, Analytical and Responsibility so whenever I go out to run errands, I analyze the situation then I strategically arrange my trips responsibly to maximize what I can accomplish. Consequently, with all 5 of my strengths working in concert, I achieve the best outcome – this is my “YUR...". For those of you trying to find out who you are, I wish you the best of luck. For those of you that would like to know why you are… we have an answer for you.
If you are ready to find out what shapes your ability to achieve and you are ready to maximize your “YUR…” by discovering your talents, declaring your strengths and developing them into dynamic tools for success then V1H Consulting will help you to evolve your “YUR…”
Sharpening Your Talents and Allowing Your Strengths to Manage Your Expectations...By Larry Hammond, Sr.
Our expectations are our beliefs that something is likely to happen. Expectations are formed because we anticipate certain outcomes as we go about our life’s activities. We all have formulated particular expectations from the simple and mundane to the complex and serious aspects of our lives. When we turn on a light switch, we expect the light to come on; when we go to start the car, we expect the engine to turn over. When we travel by airplane, we expect the crew and equipment to work cohesively to get us to our destinations safely. We depend on reliable expectations to make decisions and to manage the activities that we undertake in our lives each day. While we would like all of our expectations to transpire as we predicted, that is certainly not always the case. This is especially true when it comes to expectations derived from the actions related to other people; our family, friends and colleagues. How we process these types of interactions becomes much more complicated. For example, how often have you expected your children to do one thing and they do the complete opposite? How many times have you had an encounter with a friend or associate where their actions have totally taken you by surprise; sometimes even shocked you? And, can you count the number of times that you have engaged a co-worker or colleague and gotten something entirely different then what you expected to get from that person either in action or work product?
We develop our expectations based on our experiences and our encounters. From a young age, we begin to learn what to expect when we do certain things; the reactions that we get from our parents and others when we act or perform in a particular manner. We learn to modify our expectations as we gain new information and knowledge. For example, if you touch a hot stove you may expect that all stoves are always hot. As we grow and discover new information, we modify our expectations accordingly and we can make better decisions as we make more informed assessments of our expectations.
In the case of a finely tuned basketball team, such as the 2017 Champion Golden State Warriors, you would imagine that they refine their respective talents to win games and team members rely on their team mates to exert their strengths to ensure they achieve victories and championships. For example, the Warriors turn to Steph Currie to make 3 point shots and there is a strong expectation that he will make them. Knowing your team’s strengths gives you a clear-cut advantage in implementing strategies and achieving success.
When a manager and other team members are confident that a team member will perform the necessary and comprehensive research to move a project forward; when the team is assured that a co-worker will take on a responsibility, take on complex tasks and move through those tasks with skill and grace; and when a team can rely on their cohort’s abilities and talents then you have a team that can EXPECT success! Conversely, expecting something from someone that they are unable to deliver can be frustrating and less productive.
Leaders who know how to manage expectations are able to more seamlessly navigate the choppy waters within their organizations. Why? Because they know how to communicate, organize and direct conversations around their team’s talents and strengths, thereby being more likely to successfully predict positive outcomes that ultimately achieve success for the team.
What if you could be more confident in your ability to predict expectations?
Building a Strengths based team is key to having the ability to predict expectations. Teams that know and intentionally use their unique talents and strengths have a significant advantage in managing and predicting expectations. Teams built around this philosophy learn to appreciate each other’s strengths and develop a level of trust in their team members’ abilities to deliver. They also know how to combine their strengths with other team members to directly enhance positive results.
The main components in a team environment that will influence the decision-making process and collaboration are the following:
Communication – Having teams grounded in their strengths allows for the team to express ideas in a common language that enables them to build complex connections between members. These connections increase the ability to predict expectations as team members are well grounded in what is being communicated to the team and among stakeholders. This promotes clarity.
Clarity – Using strengths as a basis for fostering effective communication among the team is the first step to solidifying clarity. When goals and objectives are clear and well defined, there is a much greater probability of achieving success. Teams that are fully operating in their strengths are much more likely to perpetuate understanding of intentions and purpose which boost assurance in the team’s capabilities, thus building confidence.
Confidence – Strength-based teams are confident in their abilities, their team members and in achieving the desired outcomes. Having high levels of confidence on a team is an essential predictor of expectations as to how the team will perform.
These elements are enhanced dramatically by discovering, declaring and developing Strengths.
“The expectations of life depend on diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools” -- Confucius
Your talents are your tools - Sharpen them and let your strengths help you manage your expectations.
Larry Hammond, Sr. – Certified StrengthsFinder Coach and Principal with V1H Consulting.
Find out more about strengths based workshops and training at wwwv1hconsulting.com