“Make no little plans.  They have no magic to stir men’s blood.”   Daniel H. Burnham

“Sorrow happens, hardship happens, the hell with it, who never knew the price of happiness, will not be happy.” Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Can we relinquish our insistence to have power over our experiences and see that life is richer as we choose power through our experiences no matter what they may be?

PORTIA  Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare)

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. 

Leading is a constant for all of us. The opportunity for leadership is ubiquitous not sporadic. Every time you behave or think, you are having influence or impact on yourself and those around you. We would like to think that leadership is something that happens occasionally, but it truly is a 24/7 event.  To accept the idea that we cannot NOT have influence means we are always responsible for our actions regardless of whether we are conscious of our affect, purposeful with our actions, or self-aware of our influence.  For most people, leadership is thought more of as an organizational matter not so much as personal.  The idea is that leaders are those people who have positional authority, are “up front,” and have information to distinguish themselves or bring unique value to the situation.  An additional matter and one far more insidiously embedded into the psyche of most individuals centers around the matter that most people are driven to avoid pain and difficulty than to do what is right, needed or best concerning the sitautional need.  It isn’t an easy task to face and accept the reality that being responsible is important and that response-ability is important all the time.  As leaders who are always leading, the challenge is for us to bring a quality of presence and attention to the moment; collaborate with others to hear what is essential; and then to co-create value in response to the critical need of people and organizations.

I’m sitting outside at a lovely eatery, enjoying the beautiful summer morning, eagerly anticipating the breakfast that I have ordered, when I look over at a nearby bush and notice a representation of nature that is sooo cool!

An abandoned skin of a cicada remains, still clinging to the branch. I am captured by the visual, get up from the table, and carefully break off the branch.  My mind begins whirling with the whole idea of the necessity of the shedding process within nature.  Although humans shed skin continually (we shed 1.5 million skin cells every hour with a new skin surface every 28 days or so) we don’t go through the physical process of emerging from our entire “structural” skin.  Now I’m not advocating that it would be a cool process as a human to live underground as the cicadas do, at depths as far as 8 ½ ft, feeding on root juice.  I wouldn’t call that “bon a petit” and it is too close of an image to the nightmare of being buried alive!!  Neither would I adopt their workout of digging out an exit tunnel to the surface just to emerge as a tasty dinner to some bird!  Yet, I have to admit that there have been times that I have wished to either climb out of my skin, shed pounds of my skin, or at least be able to reduce it to the point of having the ability to fold it up and neatly tuck it into my jeans!

You ask, “How does this relate to leadership”?  Well, leadership at its core is a transformational endeavor.  Leaders don’t just manage what is, they attempt to produce what should be.  Leaders don’t just guard and steward what they are given, but genuinely create amazing results of lasting “what’s best” impact on the lives of people they lead.  Leaders don’t just crawl out from somewhere and emerge, complete in leadership excellence.  A molt, a skin shedding process, a spiritual journey of continual learning and developing is a necessary ongoing aspect of truth within faithful leadership.

Now shedding can be painless, or it can have its challenges.  Environmental conditions, physical health, and psychological stress are all possible contributors to behavioral changes that produce cranky, hissy, or snappy reactions to being touched.  And I’m not just referring to snakes and reptiles here!!     Yet the reality is that most human beings naturally seek safety and comfort and try to avoid risk and challenge as much as they can.  However, challenge is often the way to real accomplishment and a deep sense of personal fulfillment.  The easy way is very seldom successful.  Successful leadership led from the heart confronts conflict between integrity and inertia.  Integrity is about doing what’s right; inertia is about doing what’s easy.  It takes a lot of energy and conviction to ask the right questions, uphold high standards, and show how much you care about those you lead.

There is an overall picture here that constructs a pathway of reflection, a pathway of truth-seeking, a pathway of integrity, and a pathway of what leaders should exemplify as they shed and emerge from the up and out process.  We are never going to accomplish faithful leadership if we can’t embrace the concept of “shedding” and the nature of continual growth.

You know…we really do need to shed some myths of leadership; especially when it comes to being more concerned with creating the right impression than with producing the right reality.  Why do we expend energy protecting the status quo and guarding our own reputations when what we really need is to be aware that although status and role can coincide, they never trump the relational task of a faithful leader! We need to shed some of the old misconceptions that leadership can’t be developed. Leadership is a relational, interpersonal role…it’s a function that any one of us can perform!

Although the whole process of emergence may be painful, it may be uncomfortable, it may even eliminate things that we think of as “good”, we have to commit to shedding some of our old skin, to allow the new skin to feel the sun, to encourage and motivate others to “dig through the dirt”, and to join us on the up and out journey toward faithful leadership.

A pumice stone followed by a mud bath may be wonderful physical attempts to slough off some skin today as I muse about what to do with this “shedding process”.  However, the real challenge is to put thought to what may need to be sloughed off within my life as I lead; what does it look like, what are the realities of where it will take me, and how will I sustain the emergence of what’s new as life allows other circumstances to try and ‘best me’.  And the final consideration…what will my leadership look like… sacrifice and struggle to do what’s right or rationalization of consciousness when choosing the easy way out? What kind of leader do you want to emulate…callused, dry and hardened…or fresh, energized and renewed? As always, it’s a choice we each make.

Oh…if only life was one big spa.

Relationship management is always a relevant topic, always evolving, and always an area of growth because of its impact. Human relations and communication competency are two primary areas for coaching and leadership development. And the hardest part, the real challenge, is to put other people first. In doing so, you show in your actions loyalty, commitment, and a desire to put people before profit; and that can mean personal profit as well as corporate profit!

I’m tired of reading or hearing about the boss, who looked out only for themselves, covered their own butt, bailed out and headed for early retirement in the Bahamas while leaving the company in a mess. Anyone can go into a company and drive up profits by relentlessly driving down his or her people. Soon though, the people will get tired and the equipment will break because neither has been cared for properly. (This same story can be related in a personal manner too.)

It takes a huge amount of commitment to time and the expenditure of energy when dealing with relationships. You can’t be like the sprinter in a marathon where you go for broke the first mile or two, and in doing so, have nothing left for the rest of the race. It takes conditioning, practice, and grace for the “missed it” times. You have to be disciplined and focused on the method…not just on the goal.

Listening well to spouses, children, extended family, friends and co-workers is one of the first building blocks of a strong relationship. When we talk, when we share, when we extend a part of ourselves in vulnerability, we want the listener to just be quiet, to suspend judgments, and to hold all opinions or words of advice. We just want to be heard, accepted, and unconditionally supported even if we don’t have understanding and support for what we are saying. In going the extra mile and listening well in our relationships, we show that we are giving our best efforts, we are building trust, and we are committing ourselves to the process. If you deeply listen to people, you can capture their hearts…and you can capture their trust. Listening well is the deepest compliment you can give someone, especially if you are listening to understand and not just interject your own ideas, opinions, or bit of wisdom.

What are some relationship, trust, and listening items that need to be on our leadership checklist that sound simple but seem to be so difficult to do?

Listen with your mouth closed until it is appropriate to speak; and don’t “shut down” after hearing the first couple of sentences from the communicator. Show respect for their thoughts and ideas.

Establish and keep eye contact; focus on them individually not generically. It might be a conversation you have heard hundreds of times before, but each person has a different perspective that is unique. Listening to others’ ideas can produce creativity not previously possible but for their shared insights.

Ask open-ended questions to elicit understanding and clarification; not validation for your own viewpoint. You will invoke increased motivation and desire from those you influence and lead if they feel like you care.

Don’t let your mind drift; we have the ability to listen to 500 words a minute, yet we speak at a much lower rate of 100 to 125 words per minute. Allow time for them to think through as they talk out their words. The best communicators are not the ones who speak the most…they speak less and listen more!

Show them you can be trusted and keep promises; don’t just say words. If I tell someone that I am available to meet with them, yet, when someone actually has a problem or something they wish to discuss with me, I avoid it by finding a convenient way to get out of the meeting…well, that’s breaking a promise and undermining my leadership impact. Every promise you break, no matter how small or inconsequential, will steadily chip away at your character. Each time you don’t honor a commitment you erode the bonds between you and the people you lead. Every time you avoid doing what’s right, you fuel the habit of doing wrong.

Summarize, paraphrase, and give examples when explaining ideas and concepts. Fear paralyzes when we aren’t sure of the risk or the level of courage we need to enact what is being asked of us.

Don’t hoard; share ideas, share feelings, and share power. Don’t demand, you may not always be right, and people get tired of dealing with those who can’t “give” back.

When you witness acts of courage, cheer and extend the hand of humanity. It’s better than retrieving the machete from the closet. 

Finally, today I have learned of a leader who is leaving a corporation and moving on to other opportunities; but with integrity, honor, and great execution of leadership. They have led with such character and commitment to what is right that they have the support of those employees that would do almost anything not to let that person down. They have modeled discipline, work ethic, trust, motivation, and loyalty so that it will be an ongoing expectation affecting the culture of that company. Faithful leadership executed relentlessly; in the midst of pain, the allure of pleasure, the encouragement to do acts that would make them belong, balancing the conditions that constitute fairness, and the most courageous execution; that of “doing what’s right”; not just the easy or the popular.