![5 Children’s Books to Add to Your Leadership Library]()
Leadership
Leadership can be complex. It’s especially true this time of the year when we’re focused on tying up annual goals and planning for a strong 2018. It’s easy to get caught up in the busy-ness of it all and forget about the people-side of leadership.
As an antidote to the complex, we recommend five classic children’s books to add to your leadership library, and remind you of enduring lessons you learned when life was a bit simpler.
1. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
Leadership Quote: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
Key Takeaway: At a fork in the path deep in woods, Alice asks the Cheshire cat which road she should take. The cat’s response reminds us to keep ourselves and our teams focused on the destination. Don’t veer off track by the daily drama.
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
Leadership Quote: “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
Key Takeaway: Willie Wonka rewarded young Charlie with his wondrous chocolate factory after Charlie decided to leave the everlasting gobbstopper at the factory instead of sharing it with Wonka’s competitor, Slugworth. Future leaders need more than skills and experience, they need to be a good culture fit and share the core values of your organization.
3. Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne
Leadership Quote: “You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem and smarter than you think.”
Key Takeaway: Part of leader’s job is to make decisions that others are not willing to make, to take risks, and step out of our comfort zones. Leadership can test our belief in ourselves. Pooh’s friend, Christopher Robin, reminds us to stay true to our inner compass and keep moving along the path that positively impacts the world.
4. Horton Hatches the Egg, by Dr. Seuss
Leadership Quote: “I meant what I said and I said what I meant . . . An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent!”
Key Takeaway: Horton the Elephant endures a number of hardships, but keeps his word to sit on the egg of Mayzie while she steals away for a permanent vacation in Palm Beach. Be a role model for staying true to your word. It’s the quickest way to earn respect and build a culture of trust.
5. Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White
Leadership Quote: “By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.”
Key Takeaway: Charlotte, the spider, reminds us that leadership is not a permanent position. It’s a season. We can use our leadership season to take from others, or to help others become better versions of themselves. The choice is ours.
Stay focused, surround yourself with people who share your core values, stay true to your inner compass, model the behavior you want to see in others, and remember that leadership is a season. The lessons we learned in the pages of some of our favorite childhood tales can continue to guide us along our leadership journey.
Question: Which of these five takeaways do you find most compelling?
Interested in getting more content like this? Subscribe to CEE News!
CEE News is designed to help you with the challenges you face every day by sharing infographics, white papers, best practices, and spotlighting businesses that are getting it right. I hope you’ll subscribe to CEE News and it becomes a resource that continually adds value to your walk as a leader. If I can be of assistance in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
![5 Children’s Books to Add to Your Leadership Library]()
Leadership
Over the past 10 years, I have been honored to explore and debate the essence of power with Dr. Tony Baron. Specifically, how power impacts leadership, how leadership impacts culture, and, ultimately, how culture impacts performance.
With a double doctorate in psychology and theology and decades of executive coaching experience with Fortune 100 companies, you can imagine the depth and breadth that Tony adds to the subject. We are currently co-authoring a book that combines Tony’s scholarship and my straight talk about the challenges faced by today’s leaders. Meanwhile, I will be sharing guest posts by Tony from time to time to give you a taste of what it’s like to have an amazing colleague and friend like Tony Baron. – Sheri Nasim
By: Dr. Tony Baron
Demonstrating modesty has been underrated. Yet, when you read some significant thinkers in the corporate world like Jim Collins or in the church world like Larry Osborne, they think it is the essential ingredient of good leadership.
In 2013, Harvard Business Review published an article on how to cultivate humility as a leader. Authors John Dame and Jeffrey Gedmin suggested that every developing leader should be taught these 6 principles of humility:
1. Know what you don’t know. The higher you climb up the proverbial corporate ladder, the greater the temptation it is to believe that you are the smartest person in the room. But deep down, you know that you don’t have all of the answers. You may not even have all of the questions. Know when to defer and delegate.
2. Resist falling for your own publicity. Part of the leadership role is to maintain a positive outlook. Your confidence boosts that of your team and your customers. While it’s important to have a positive outlook, it’s just as important to correctly assess reality. Keep your spirits high, but your judgment at an even keel.
3. Never underestimate the competition. No matter how smart you are, how many hours you are willing to put in, or how creative your team is, do not allow a residue of hubris to form around your culture. There is always competition for your customer’s attention.
4. Embrace and promote a spirit of service. The term servant leadership was coined by Dr. Robert K. Greenleaf in the late 1960s. In his book, Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, Greenleaf writes, “The great leader is seen as servant first, and that simple fact is the key to his greatness.” Use you power for the sake of others.
5. Listen, especially to the weird ideas. Dame and Gedmin write that “the most imaginative and valuable ideas tend to come from left field, from some associate who seems a little offbeat, and may not hold an exalted position in the organization.” Step outside of your inner circle to get a fresh perspective.
6. Be passionately curious. Leading during uncertainty and change requires a healthy dose of curiosity. Without curiosity, we are unable to sustain our attention, we avoid risks, and, essentially, stagnate. Embrace curiosity and promote it among your team.
Larry Osborne, in his 2013 article in Leadership Journal, believes that every leader must avoid the 3 curses of leadership failures: the curse of the spotlight, the curse of hype, and the curse of leadership ADHD. Osborne recommends keeping leadership hubris in check by leading with a low profile, underselling and over delivering, and keeping the team focused on strategic goals.
The first task of any leader is to assess reality correctly. You can’t do that well without humility.
Question: What specific actions are you taking to remain humble as a leader?
Dr. Tony Baron is Distinguished Scholar-In-Residence at Center for Executive Excellence and an internationally recognized speaker, writer, corporate consultant, professor and the San Diego Director of Azusa Pacific University Graduate School of Theology.
Dr. Baron is the author of six books, including The Art of Servant Leadership and a workbook manual co-written with noted author and business leader Ken Blanchard. Throughout his career, he has worked with hundreds of companies including Ford Motor Company, Coca Cola Company, Warner Brothers Studios, and Boeing, among many others.
Uncategorized
Putin issues international arrest warrant for George Soros.
Black Lives Matter thug protests President Trump with selfie . . . accidentally shoots himself in the face.
Passenger allowed onto flight after security confiscates his bomb.
All three of these headlines were widely reported last year. Two of them were fake. Can you tell which one is true?*
Fake news has become part of the world’s daily news cycle. Many people now operate in virtual gated communities or information echo chambers. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction in both the political and popular press. To combat fake news, a growing body of websites and apps give consumers the ability to stop to fact check before sharing headlines in the social media feeds.
But the echo chamber effect is not limited to our smart phones. The same theory can apply to leaders. The higher we climb up the org chart, the greater our tendency is to spend most of our time with our direct reports. By operating in our own virtual gated community at work, we can severely limit our ability to assess reality correctly.
Author and Center for Executive Excellence’s Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Tony Baron, suggests that leaders must be intentional about building community. To build an inner circle to help you assess reality correctly, Dr. Baron offers this criteria for choosing your community:
1. Choose those in your community who are with you the most, not those who see you the least.
2. Choose those in your community who can see you at your worst, not just those who see you at your best.
3. Choose those in your community with whom you are willing to eat or play, not just those you are willing to work with.
4. Choose those in your community whom you respect for their integrity, not just those you admire for their accomplishments.
5. Choose those in your community who are willing to listen to understand, not just those who want to be understood.
6. Choose those in your community who care about you as a person, not just those who care about you professionally.
7. Choose those in your community who are willing to ask the tough questions, not just those who provide the easy answers.
8. Choose those in your community who maintain confidentiality, not just those who are compelling in personality.
Every one of us needs a small number of people in our inner circle. People whom we can be honest with. People who will be honest with us. Because it’s just too easy to fall for our own fake news.
*The correct response to the opening quiz was the third headline. A teenage passenger in Edmonton, Canada, was allowed to board a flight after a pipe bomb found in his bag was confiscated by airport security. He claimed to have forgotten the device was in his bag after making it with a friend for fun some months before.
Question: What are you doing to assess reality correctly as a consumer of news and as a leader?
![5 Children’s Books to Add to Your Leadership Library]()
Uncategorized
We’ve all come across them. Those leaders who people naturally gravitate toward. Though it seems counterintuitive, the magnetic effect these leaders have on people is not because of how people feel about the leader. It’s because of how the leader makes people feel about themselves.
These leaders have mastered two basic facts about people. Fact 1: Every person matters. Fact 2: Every person wants to feel valued.
As Thanksgiving approaches, this is an excellent time to review the skills necessary to express meaningful gratitude to your team. Here are three skills that will yield the highest return:
1. Write a Note. Do not. I repeat. Do not mistake a thank you email for the real thing. Handwritten thank you notes are about relationships. Emails are about transactions. When you take a little extra time to write a personal message to team members to acknowledge your gratitude, you are also acknowledging that they are more than just a tool. They are human beings who matter and are valued. If your note writing skills are rusty, here’s a quick primer to get you started.
2. Make It a Habit. When it comes to business, we can fall into the trap of not seeing people who come in, get the job done, and don’t require constant attention. We take these employees for granted and just assume they don’t need a show of gratitude. To turn your attention to those who don’t ask for it, take a few minutes each morning to make a list of three team members you appreciate and why. Over time, you’ll begin to cultivate of habit of putting yourself in a gratitude mindset.
3. Give People Sincere Appreciation. People who don’t feel appreciated are often the first to burn out or jump ship. It only takes a minute to recognize a team member for making a positive contribution. But, doing it right requires more than the occasional “Attagirl!” Give timely and specific praise to show your team members how you value their contribution. Here’s a quick demo to show you how.
One final secret to mastering leadership gratitude – you can’t fake it. Leaders who genuinely care about their team members will invest the time to help each one feel valued. Make it a habit to sincerely recognize their efforts. Every day is an opportunity to help people see the best in themselves and feel like a valued contributor to the team.
Question: Have you had a leader who gave you a handwritten note of thanks? What did you learn from that experience?
Interested in getting more content like this? Subscribe to CEE News!
CEE News is designed to help you with the challenges you face every day by sharing infographics, white papers, best practices, and spotlighting businesses that are getting it right. I hope you’ll subscribe to CEE News and it becomes a resource that continually adds value to your walk as a leader. If I can be of assistance in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Letter from the Founder
Welcome to the twenty-seventh issue of CEE News!
When I meet with new executive coaching clients on the first day, I give them two things: a set of reflection exercises and a journal. It’s a nice, moleskin journal with our firm’s logo embossed on the front cover. I tell them that, over the course of our work together, they’re going to be given the opportunity to make some changes to help them grow personally and professionally.
(more…)
