Leadeship Skills – Doug Dickerson on Leadership

Do You Have a Winning Attitude?

Posted September 7, 2023
by admin

Your attitude, not your aptitude, determines your altitude. – Zig Ziglar

I read a story once by Michael Hodgin about two Kentucky racing stable owners who had developed a rivalry.

Each spring they both entered a horse in a local steeplechase. One of them thought that having a professional rider might give his horse an edge in the race, so he hired a hotshot jockey.

Well, the day of the race finally came, and as usual, their horses were leading the race right down to the last fence. But the final fence was too much for both of the horses. Both of them fell, and both riders were thrown. But that didn’t stop the professional jockey. He remounted and easily won the race.

When he got back to the stable, he found the horse owner fuming with rage. The jockey really didn’t understand the owner’s behavior, because he won the race. So the jockey asked, “What’s the matter with you? I won the race, didn’t I?”

The red-faced owner nodded, “Oh yes, you won the race. But you won it on the wrong horse!”

The determination of the jockey is admirable despite the fact that he made that critical mistake.

In leadership, you will be challenged regularly with your attitude. It comes with the territory. Sometimes the attitude challenges that we face are the result of our own poor choices. At other times, our attitude is challenged by outside forces that we have no control over.

In the book, Winning The War in Your Mind, Craig Groescel writes:

“Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. What we think shapes who we are.”

And this is precisely why our attitudes matter. Our thoughts and attitudes are moving us in a certain direction. The question is: Are you headed in the right direction?

Poor attitude choices can be a detriment to your leadership. Your attitude is basically the thermostat by which your team members adjust. Click To TweetWhen you are upbeat and positive, that tends to be the attitude that others embrace. The same holds true if it’s negative. So, as a leader, what posture should you take with your attitude? Here are a few simple approaches worth consideration.

Guard your thoughts

This first piece of advice is all about your discipline as a leader. It’s a profoundly simple piece of advice. And it’s a profoundly difficult discipline to master. But much is riding on the outcome.

I would like for you to think of guarding your thoughts not from a defensive posture, which we’ve all been accustomed to, but from a proactive posture.

When it comes to guarding our thoughts, what does a proactive posture look like? Here are a few examples:

Practice gratitude and random acts of kindness
Prayer or meditation
Volunteer/ serve others
Exercise/walks

When your thoughts and actions are others-centered and when you are intentional about what you choose to watch and listen to, then you are in a proactive way guarding your thoughts. You have less time to be self-absorbed and more time to focus on others.

Guard your company

We don’t always control what happens to us, but we do control how we will respond. This is crucial to understand.

When you are proactive about guarding your mind in the ways that I have already outlined, the next thing you need to do is guard your company. Here’s a truth you must embrace: Not everyone belongs in your circle.

As a leader, you will have many interactions with people within your organization and without. These are generally tied to your specific duties as a leader.

But when it comes to your inner circle- the people closest to you by choice- you must guard your company. To be clear, I am not advocating being a snob. I am, however, saying that in order to protect and guard your attitude, you can’t allow others with poor attitudes in your inner circle who could potentially drag you down. Your winning attitude is too valuable and must be protected.

Final Thoughts

Possessing a winning attitude takes work, discipline, and determination. It is incumbent upon you to be proactive and wise in your choices. A winning attitude is attainable but you must guard your thoughts and guard your company in order to maintain it.

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What Do Your Motives Say About Your Leadership?

Posted July 27, 2017
by dougdickerson

“Men are more accountable for their motives than anything else. – Archibald Alexander

Bob Kuechenberg, the former Miami Dolphin great, once explained what motivated him to go to college.

“My father and uncle were human cannonballs in Carnivals,” he explained. “My father told me, “go to college or be a cannonball.” Then one day my uncle came out of the cannon, missed the net and hit the Ferris wheel. I decided to go to college.” To be sure, Bob Kuechenberg was motivated to go college and relinquish his future as a human cannonball.

In various ways, as children, we were motivated to get good grades in school or to do our chores. It often had monetary motivations attached to it. As adults, we have our motivations to perform well in our places of employment. We have the opportunity to move up based upon performance and other matrix and we are rewarded with the compensation that comes with it. Simply put, we all have our motivational tipping points.

You have heard the old expression, “check your ego at the door”. It’s sound advice for anyone in leadership. An unbridled ego can create a host of problems for a leader if left unchecked.

In as much as an unchecked ego can cause many problems, so too, can unchecked motives. A leader must be honest and come clean about overt or hidden motives that drive behaviors and actions. Before proceeding with your agenda, why not run them through a filter that will help you determine if your motives are pure. Here are six questions that will help you.

Would I support my plan or idea with the same level of intensity if the idea wasn’t coming from me?

This question is foundational and fundamental. An honest answer will shed light on the real motives you have. It’s not about who wins, it’s about the best idea winning. This is Leadership 101. Until you understand this, your hidden motives will always get the best of you.

Am I out to advance my own agenda and career or advance the good of the organization?

This is typically one of the driving forces behind hidden motives. When you seek the advancement of your own career and ambitions over the good of the organization then what is the real value of your service there? But when your commitment is to the good of the organization, good things will come your way. It all starts with your motives.

Am I territorial, making decisions that benefit me or my department over the good of the organization?

Leaders with wrong motives are all about making decisions that only benefit them or their department. Instead of looking at what is best for the whole team, they stake out their territory which leads to isolation and erodes trust. You will shine brightly as a leader when you are looking out for the best interest of everyone, not just a select few.

Am I guarded and reluctant to help others, or do I gladly share ideas and offer my assistance?

Your motives may be wrong if you are unwilling to help others for fear that they may outshine you, or get credit for something you shared with them. These motives are rooted in jealousy and insecurity and can openly expose your motives for not being a team player. A strong leader will gladly come alongside and help his or her teammates. It’s when you see yourself as colleagues not as competitors that you will have peak performance.

Am I manipulative, overbearing, and drive organizational politics in my favor, or am I a team player looking out for the best interest of everyone?

A leader with hidden motives can come across as overbearing or as a manipulator through office politics. They use this to further their agenda- be it career advancement or something else, they are master manipulators. A leader with nothing to hide is looking out for everyone and the good of the team. In the long run, people do not rally around a manipulator, but they will always respond to a leader who has their best interest at heart

Am I presenting myself one way in public, and another way in private?

Ultimately, this is where your hidden motives and agendas will catch up with you. It’s just a matter of time. Who you are will eventually come to light.

Here’s the rub – will all have our motives for doing what we do. Sometimes those motives are not very flattering while at other times they are good. The mark of your maturity as a leader and as a person is defined by constantly evaluating them, being honest with yourself, and only proceeding when you know they are in alignment with your core values.

What do your motives say about your leadership?

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Leadership Toolkit: When the Visionary Leader Meets the Strategic Leader

Posted July 26, 2014
by admin

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. – Warren Bennis

About 350 years ago, as the story is told, a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site. The next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness.

In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build the road westward into a wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?

Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome hardships to get there. But in a few short years were not able to see five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision.

Visionary leaders (those who see the big picture) and strategic leaders (those who create the plan) are essential for the future growth and development of any organization. But can the two co-exist? It can be a challenging relationship but not an impossible one if you follow these basic rules of engagement.

Embrace your differences

Visionary leaders tend to be your charismatic type leaders who can cast the vision with great enthusiasm and confidence. They have a clear picture in their heart and mind of where they are going and why you should too.

But visionary leaders can at times be hard to work with. In his book, Rules of Thumb, Alan M. Webber writes, “Great idea people are rare- and also frequently hard to live with. They see things the rest of us can’t see, which is their gift. They can’t see what you and I see easily, which is their burden. Still, you need them and they need a home where they can contribute.”

Strategic leaders can be a great asset to the visionary leader by breaking down the vision into doable and measurable action steps which creates the vision. The strategic leader is the one who puts the puzzle together.

Leadership key: Your differences are your strengths. Embrace them and work together. You need each other.

Build a bridge

What strategic leaders and visionary leaders need is a way to connect. The divide between ideas and implementation must be joined. There has to be a way as Webber says to “build a bridge the great ideas can walk across from those who have to those who can make them real.” For the vision to materialize this is a necessity. So what is a leader to do?

The vision needs a strategic plan. It has to be clearly communicated and thoroughly understood before the pieces of the puzzle can be created. From there roles can be assigned and teams put into place, and the execution can begin. The hard part will come later.

Leadership key: Before you build your vision build your relationships. The vision rises and falls on the strength of your communication and relationships.

Give each other space

The role of the visionary leader is not the same as the strategic leader, and vice versa. The relationship is one of isolation and interdependency. Boundaries must be set, observed, and protected while at the same time staying bridged with a unified goal and vision. It’s tricky.

The temptation of the visionary leader is to tinker, mettle, and tweak. Their greatest asset can now become their greatest liability. While they are excellent at creating the vision they can be terrible at designing the plan. As long as they keep interjecting themselves into the details of execution they will stifle the execution.

Strategic leaders thrive on creating the plan and seeing it come into existence. The visionary leader has to learn to give this person the space they need to work. It is a relationship of necessity, one of complexity, but most of all trust. The partnership will only survive if it’s built on mutual trust. The respective leaders have to know how to embrace a shared vision but then give each other the space needed to bring it to pass. When they do it can lead to overwhelming success.

Leadership key: Out of respect give each other space. Out of trust let each other work.

What do you say?

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