At one time, even the greatest nautical experts believed the world was flat. The result? They alway sailed near or within sight of the shoreline which limited their capacity for exploration, discovery and success.  Likewise, there are 3 commonly held leadership myths that limit scores of brilliant, talented and well intended leaders from reaching the vision they desire for themselves, their people and the organizations they lead.   Just like the horizon of the ocean gives the appearance of a flat earth, these 3 leadership myths can give the appearance of strong and effective leadership. But as we know, things are not always as they appear.

Most of us can relate to having a “bad boss.” I have to say that I have been extremely blessed to have only been in that situation once in my career and only for a short period of time. Unfortunately, my situation is a rare exception. The reality for many is that they work for toxic leaders a large portion of their career.   Most of these bad leaders are not stupid or inept. In fact, most are smart and a few even brilliant. I also think most are well intended. While we can name historical rare exceptions, most aren’t evil, cruel bullies intentionally plotting and looking forward to how much pain and trouble they can inflict on others every day. If that’s the case, then why is it that so many leaders or “bosses” are so bad?

One reason for bad leadership, pointed out by Annie McKee and colleagues in their excellent book Becoming a Resonant Leader, is what bad leaders sincerely believe a leader should be and do. Sincere or not, when one embraces the following 3 widely held leadership myths they can destroy even the best people and cultures. Because it isn’t enough to simply point out the problem, the contrasting liberating truth for each is also pointed out:

1. Myth:  Smart is good enough.
   • Liberating Truth: Intellect and technical knowledge are baseline and do not differentiate great leaders. Emotional and social intelligence make the difference.
2. Myth: Your mood does not matter.
   • Liberating Truth: Emotions are contagious, and a leader can create resonance and a climate that supports success or can spread emotions that create a dissonant, unproductive, and unhealthy climate.
3. Myth: Great leaders thrive on constant pressure.Liberating Truth: Sacrifice and power stress are inherent in the leader’s role. The best leaders manage the pressure through adopting practices of renewal.

Without the limiting belief of a flat earth, who knows what possibilities may have been realized in the early days of nautical exploration. Likewise, who knows what potential would have been realized and pain avoided in the past if not for commonly held myths about leadership, in particular the 3 myths above.  The good news is that any leaders past, regardless of how bad, does not equal their future.

We have plenty of good, successful leaders we can learn from as well as mounting evidence to support leadership best-practices and competencies. But a general knowing isn’t enough and knowledge isn’t power; power is individual leaders making informed decisions that leads to positive change.

Whether or not people are bought into a common myth, it still affects them to some degree. Which of the three leadership myths have affected you the most?  Which liberating truth will you commit to acting on in order to serve your on best interests as well as those of the people and organizations you lead?

Please leave a comment so we can all grow in the quest for better leadership.

Have you ever gotten “faked-out”?  Confidently gone forward with something only to realize you mistook a counterfeit for the real-deal?  It happens all the time in sports: linebackers lunging at a runners zig instead of the zag, centers getting pump-faked into fouling a shooter, and batters swinging hard at curve ball they thought was coming straight over the plate.  Fake money? Yea, it happens.

Leaders also get faked-out all the time. Specifically, faked-out with regard to 4 specific leadership activities. As a leader, if you don’t learn to recognize the difference between activity and influence, your going to get faked out and the results can be unfortunate and far reaching.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taught a class, given a presentation or had a crucial conversation and thought I really “had” someone or a group. I was confident that what I had said or done had influenced their perspective, learning or behavior. Their body language was engaged, they were focused, and sometimes even enthralled (believe it or not). However, when speaking with some of them shortly afterward I realized few if any remembered what I said, much less were moved by it!

Enter Jim Rohn. I’m loving listening to Jim these days and doing a lot of it.  He had such a great ability to connect with and persuade others with his sincerity and common-sense wisdom, wit and approach. In the most recent audio cast I listened to,  he compared and contrasted two key activities that leaders easily get “faked-out” by.  After thinking further, I came up with two of my own to round out the list of 4 below. The former is the counterfeit activity, the latter is what leaders are really seeking to do, and that is influence.

• Communication vs Connection- This one is easy enough to understand, much harder to get right. As the saying goes, “they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” You have to really care if you want to connect and influence.
• Presentation vs Persuasion- A well-done dog and pony show may look good to some and feel good to you, but it doesn’t influence. What does influence are well chosen words mixed with measured emotion that can move hearts as well as heads.
• Reach vs Relationship- A mile wide and an inch deep? Who cares. While numbers are good, relationships are what influences people to respond regularly and with loyalty. Yes, relationships can be built virtually but it still has to be real.
• Action vs Accomplishment- Just because your in motion doesn’t mean you’re going anywhere or getting anything done. What gets done also has to be what matters in order to influence, otherwise your just spinning your wheels.

Don’t get me wrong, all four activities listed above are valuable leadership competencies. Leaders need to cultivate their skill and maximize their potential in each of these.  But to not get faked-out, a leader also has to remember that the activities in an of themselves don’t necessarily lead to influence.   Just because you’ve achieved or engaged in the former….perhaps even masterfully….doesn’t mean you’ve accomplished the latter; the activities are just the tools, influence is the outcome.

You simply can’t afford to get faked-out when it comes Influence; ignorance here is NOT bliss. We all get faked-out some of the time, but none of us can afford to get faked-out all the time.

So, how can you know if you are simply engaged in the activities of a leader or whether your really influencing those you’re seeking to lead? Simply being aware is a start. The other is to tune-in, get in touch with those your seeking to lead and pay attention. As John Maxwell says, if no one is following (or being influenced), then it’s probably a good sign your just taking a walk (or being active in this case).

What do you need to do in your specific setting and circumstance to see to make sure you’re actually influencing those you lead?  Please leave a comment and share what you’ve learned here or what you need to know.

When it comes to leadership, there are two basic flavors:  excellent and terrible. There are a lot of variations in-between those two extremes, but who wants to be in the messy middle and be “known” as a mediocre leader?

Quick, who best mediocre leader you know?  See what I mean? The reality is no one starts out with the goal of being mediocre, but that’s where most people end up.  And make no mistake, just as we’re all followers, we’re also all leaders at some level; even if the only person we lead is ourselves.

So what can you do to make sure that you, as a leader, are more than just a warm body filling a gap? How can you rise above the 68% of leaders in the messy middle? After all, by definition that’s where most are.

What about the exceptions?  Every time I take our EPPM students through a Best and Worst leaders exercise, one thing becomes clear very, very quickly: the leaders who had the greatest positive impact on students were first and foremost great people.  In nearly every case, it was the great person that opened the heart of the student, who then permitted that person to do the work of a great leader in their life.

Quick, who is the greatest leader that has positively impacted you?  My guess is that they were first a great person in your life.  I know that’s been the case with the great leaders in my life and I’ve been blessed with many over the years, including my dad.  In addition to the excellence I saw those leaders add to our cause and organization, they also demonstrated a personal excellence which was attractive and that made me want to imitate them.

So how can you maximize your leadership excellence for positive, meaningful impact in the lives of the people and organizations you lead?  The short answer: work just as hard on yourself as you do your job.  Great leadership requires both being and doing.  The following 10 leadership best practices and principles can help you do just that:

1. Leadership requires you to work as hard on yourself as you do your job.
2. Leadership is nature and nurture- the exact combination can be debated, but without nurture it goes nowhere OR is likely to go poorly.
3. Leadership is Relationship- there must be more than just you if you are to lead and influence.
4. Leadership is sharing your Vision with others and having them adopt it as their own.
5. Leadership is leveraging yourself through people and resources for maximum positive effect while seeking the greater good.
6. Leadership style and role vary.
7. Leadership must be focused-  you can’t be everywhere with everybody for everything.
8. Leadership must be selective- focus on who and what will give the greatest return, make the greatest impact and give the greatest reward.
9. Positive servant Leadership is getting work done through others in a God honoring way.
10. Positive servant Leadership ultimately results in benefit both for the leader and those being led.

Some fundamentals never change. You have to first lead yourself well in order to do the same for others. You want to take your leadership to the next level of excellence?  Then set your mind to “be more” so you can “do more.”  Who do you need to become more of in order to lead yourself and others well? What do you have to do next to have the leadership impact you desire?

If you’ve found some things that have really helped you move the needle in this area then please leave a comment and share the wealth.

We have entered the season where America’s most popular sport has kicked-off. On fields everywhere across the nation, football coaches and players are drilling on fundamentals. Even the professionals (especially the professionals).

Mastery of the “fundamentals” is rightfully thought of by most as an ongoing pursuit versus something to be attained. Those who think otherwise and rest on their laurels will find themselves rudely aroused from a blissful ignorance to feeling the full weight of ineffectiveness, failure or worse. Like professional players who have been reviewing and practicing fundamentals since the day they started playing the game, so should accomplished leaders.

Leaders who don’t continually pursue the fundamentals of leadership are at best less effective and at worst can lead themselves and their followers to failure. Unlike a game however, the stakes involved here are much higher and the consequences of failure more grave. On the other hand, continual pursuit of leadership fundamentals can maximize effectiveness and the potential for positive outcomes. With that in mind, you can’t afford to ignore the following four pairs of fundamental leadership considerations:

1. Listening and Learning- You can’t learn unless you listen to your people.
   • Deep listening involves not only hearing what your people are saying, but what isn’t being said as well. To do so requires practice as well as higher levels of Social and Emotional Intelligence (SEI). What is your EQ or SEI? If you don’t know then finding out  is a start as is learning more about how to build your own SEI muscle.
2. Noble or Nefarious-  There are excellent and terrible leaders.
   • The list of both is long. Since leaders are rarely at the extremes on this scale, the best question is to ask where along the continuum do your followers rate you?  For sure, a Leadership 360 or similar tool can provide you with insight to this question. However, as Marshall Goldsmith Points points out, simply asking your followers “What can I do better?” can provide provide invaluable insight.
3. Serving or Siphoning- Its all about your motive.
   • Are you more of a giver than taker? It’s all too clear that even the greatest leaders are not immune from temptation or even succumbing to greed.  Again, extremes are the exception so where do you…or more importantly your followers…rank you in this area along a continuum? In addition to making the ask, self-reflection here is critical.
4. Leading and Following- To be a leader you must have followers.
   • While that seems obvious, the reality is that leaders often mistakenly think their most important priority is to be the most skilled or recognized at whatever it is they do. Not so. The best leaders prioritize getting as many of their people to follow them as whole-heartedly as possible, in particular those whose skill and leadership capabilities exceed their own. These are Leaders of leaders and represent John Maxwell’s “Level 5” Leadership.  Leadership is not about you, its about those that who follow you.

Leadership, like America’s favorite game, is a contact sport. What would others say about your leadership fundamentals? What are the next steps you need to take in order to have your leadership capacity rise to the next level?

I’d love for the leaders among you share any leadership fundamental you think have been most important for your success….please leave a comment and share your wealth!