Breaking Rules and Opening Doors …

I usually provide several solid learning-related reasons to buy any of the books which I recommend.  That’s only appropriate to maintain a sense of personal credibility and to show you why you should invest your hard-earned money.

In the cases of Leaders Open Doors,  I am breaking my own rule …

Good business reasons do exist to buy and read Bill Treasurer’s book.  He uses his personal leadership experiences to craft a vision of open-door leadership that I believe most of us would happily engage in as leaders and which we would respond to in others.   Bill describes this vision with stories, with observations, and with passion.

You can read more about my thoughts on Bill’s book here.

That alone is enough for me to say “Buy the book and absorb its lessons” …

However, that’s not why I am recommending you buy this book today.   100% of the earnings from this book will go to help children with special needs.   Now you can learn and grow as a leader AND engage in altruism toward a very deserving population at the same time.

This is a no-brainer, folks …

No need to thank me … just click HERE to see and buy Bill’s book.

Feeling real good about this one in the Heartland …

John

Leadership and the Two Faces of Respect

I am delighted and honored to present this guest post by Bill Treasurer, a very articulate leadership developer and a genuinely good guy.  

Bill is the Chief Encouragement Officer at Giant Leap Consulting.  The proceeds of his new book, Leaders Open Doors, are being donated to charities that serve children with special needs.   Read Bill’s thoughts on leadership and respect below.  

Read Leaders Open Doors and you’ll know why I respect him:

Respect. Everyone wants it, and when we don’t get it – or worse, when we get its opposite – we can get pretty feisty.

Effective leadership requires respect. When people respect you, they’ll follow your directives and make your goals their own. In short, they’ll be committed to you. Without respect, at best you’ll get passive compliance, and at worst you’ll get committed mutiny.

“If you ever talk to us like that again, I’ll walk. What’s your goal in yelling at us like that? To make us afraid of you? At what cost? I have enough self-respect to not allow myself to be berated like that by anyone.” Steve, one of my first employees, said these very words while staring me in the face.

Who the hell was he, I thought, to be so disrespectful to me? “Hey, I’ll speak to you however I please. I’m your boss, got it? You work for me, not the other way around. Get back to work.”

I walked away from my conversation with Steve angry. That night, while nursing a beer, I kept playing the conversation over and over in my head. The more I thought about it, the more I knew Steve was right. I had pulled rank on Steve because I was embarrassed. The truth was, I had no idea who I was as a leader. Instead I had resorted to adopting the leadership style of my predecessors. My behavior was an echo of theirs, all linking back to my original leadership role model: my dad.

Some people subscribe to the idea that you have to “command” respect. From this vantage point, respect is best evidenced when the people you’re leading submit themselves. And submission happens very quickly if you can make them afraid of you. It’s an effective model, by the way. Throughout history whole armies have marched to the dominance/submission model of respect.

Commanding respect easily slips into fear-stoking behavior on the part of the leader, and outside of the military it doesn’t work very well. Sure, some workers will submit themselves to the behavioral dominance of their leader. But even those who do will stew with resentment, gathering strength like a coiled spring, ready to leave when the timing is right.

Steve’s raw and courageous feedback made me reconsider the leader I was becoming. The truth was, I didn’t even care for some of the leaders I had worked under. And my dad’s temper could be scary. I didn’t want to be that leader. I wanted to be respected, but not out of fear. I wanted to be respected by being respectful.

Turns out there’s another way to garner people’s respect. You earn it. You do that by taking an interest in their career goals and aspirations. You look for opportunities to help them grow and develop. You give them candid, helpful, and supportive feedback so they can improve. “Earn it” respect takes time, effort, and attention. But gaining “earn it” respect is worth it because it comes with the one thing that “command respect” doesn’t in the average workforce: loyalty.

If you earn people’s respect, you’ll never have to resort to commanding it again.

Bill Treasurer is the Chief Encouragement Officer of Giant Leap Consulting. His latest book is Leaders Open Doors (www.leadersopendoors.com). Bill is also the author of the bestselling book Courage Goes to Work along with the training kit Courageous Leadership: A Program for Using Courage to Transform the Workplace. Bill has led courage-building workshops for such organizations as NASA, Accenture, CNN, PNC Bank, SPANX, Hugo Boss, Saks Fifth Avenue, and the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Contact Bill at btreasurer@giantleapconsulting.com, or on Twitter at @btreasurer (#leadsimple).

Religious Thoughts …

 

“When Religious Beliefs Becomes Evil:  4 Signs”

This recent post by John Blake on Belief.net caught my eye.   It identifies four elements that, especially when combined, should provide a warning to anyone who thinks about their religious experience.  I have listed the four elements below, along with a few comments of my own.  To read the complete article,which is quite good, click the link above.

1.  I know the truth, and you don’t …

We all want to be in possession of the truth of a thing.   This is a very human desire and forms the basis of the learning function.  Human beings will always seek knowledge and many devote their lives to discerning the truth of a thing, especially in the area of religion.

It’s that phrase at the end that causes the problem …

Most people I know are knowledge-seekers, but are also willing to admit that they do not have the complete truth of a thing.   Being open to and accepting of other interpretations is a mark of mature thinking.

Needing the certainty of absolute truth is folly.   Any leader, religious, political, or social, who claims to have the only truth is lying to you, and probably to himself.

 

2.  Beware the charismatic leader …

The picture accompanying this post is of David Koresh, who led a small sect of religious folks to a fiery end in a standoff with state and federal authorities in Waco, Texas in 1993.

Charisma is usually thought of a good thing, because we tend to assume that we find someone charismatic because they engage in good or positive behavior … and this is often the case.

However, charisma can exist for other reasons, not always positive ones.

We sometimes find those charismatic who:

1) Are so downright approachable that we do not always hear what they are saying.

2) Have such strong beliefs about a thing that we are attracted to that strength, rather than the substance.

3) Are master manipulators of human emotion and behavior.

A good way to determine the quality of a leader is to observe who follows him or her. 

 

3.  The end is near …

Well, the end is always near … for someone.  Life is finite for each of us on a personal level.

People die every day.  Disasters of epic proportions occur with regularity.   Things change from what they were to something that may not be recognizable to us.

Does this mean that the end is near … maybe.   The point can be made that our spiritual lives might better be focused on the here and now, than the possible sometime else.

It’s easy to think that the end of things might be nearing when so much change is happening, especially when much of it is not positive change or even when we just do not know how “things will work out”.

The proliferation of zombie, vampire, and other biological apocalypses merchandising is not helping here … 

 

4.  The end justifies the means.

More evil has been done in the name of this position than can be recounted …

Do we have to sometimes do things which are difficult or hurtful … yes.  

Should we build a lifestyle around the idea that whatever gets us what we think we want is okay, simply by virtual of doing so?   I think not …

The strongest and most enduring religious beliefs are based on not doing this, but on doing things that benefit others, sometimes at your own expense.

The twisted leader will take what I just said and turn it into a plea for me to turn over my life savings.

 

Read the entire post for a thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion of what to look for in your religious leaders.  Add to the discussion with your own thoughts on how we should judge religion so it is a positive force in our lives.  Our leaders should lead, but as followers, we are responsible for doing so intelligently.

 

Getting ready for church in the Heartland ….

John