I don’t write many strictly business posts these days, even though I spent more than 20 years in that world. This article caught my attention though:

Bonds outperform stocks

(Click on the title to read the article. Basically, bonds are now outpacing stocks on a 30-year average return.)

I can’t help but believe this isn’t great news for a capitalistic economy. In a very simplistic view, stocks are based more on the assumption of risk. Bonds are based more on the assumption of security. When a capitalistic economy stops taking risks, it’s ceasing to live up to what it was designed to do. (I realize many times investors are looking for options other than stocks, but it doesn’t negate my point about a capitalistic society.)

What difference does all this make in terms of my calling now…as a pastor?

Well, I think the same is true for me (and those with similar callings). I see too many people in positions of leadership in the church who become comfortable and resist walking by faith.

When we stop taking the risks involved in fully surrendering to God’s will…when we become complacent or satisfied…we cease to live up to what we’ve been designed to do.

Is God placing something on your heart?

God calls us to things which require personal risk. Following God requires great faith, even more so the longer we follow Him. People don’t always agree when you step into “God-following” territory. It may even appear at times we are going to fail, at least in the short run. God callings often take years to see returns from the investment. Don’t settle for what appears secure at the time. It never really is!

If God says “Go”, do so in spite of your fears!

Be honest pastor,have you been settling for what’s comfortable these days?

Also, do you have an interest in business or politics, in addition to your God-calling? (Please don’t leave me alone here.)

(Art work courtesy of me.)

One qualification to be an effective leader, especially at a senior level, is the ability to see beyond the organization’s current path.

Effective leaders appear to have a unique perception ability…

• A leader’s view goes beyond what’s expected to sense and prepare for the unexpected…
• A leader looks outside the norm to attain untapped potential and seize opportunities…
• A leader observes what needs changing to stir enthusiasm and fuel momentum…

I’m not sure whether it is by discipline or by personal wiring, but a leader has an ability to see beyond the scope of things as they currently exist. He or she appears to see things others simply can’t see or aren’t looking for. It’s a keen sense of awareness, which in my opinion, seems to exist with all effective senior leaders. It’s obviously not an ability limited to the senior leader, but it is critical with this position of leadership.

Without the ability to work from this perspective, in my opinion, the leader’s potential is limited.

Give me your thoughts. Would you agree?

I know numerous leaders with great potential…

They have all the appearance of being a good leader…

But they lack one thing…or two…

There are a few killers of good leadership…

Any one of these can squelch good leadership…

It’s like a wrecking ball of potential…

It’s not that they can’t lead, but to continue to grow as a leader…to be successful at a higher level or for the long-term…they must address these issues.

Here are 12 killers of good leadership:

Defensiveness – Good leaders don’t wear their feelings on their shoulders. They know other’s opinions matter and aren’t afraid to be challenged.

Jealousy – A good leader enjoys watching others on the team excel.

Revenge – The leader that succeeds for the long-term must be forgiving and knows that “getting even” only comes back to harm them and the organization.

Fearfulness – The good leader remains committed when no one else is and must take risks no one else will. Others will follow. That’s what leaders do.

Favoritism - Good leaders don’t have favorites on the team. They reward for results not partiality.

Ungratefulness - Good leaders value people, knowing they cannot attain success without others.

Small-mindedness – Good leaders think bigger than today. They are dreamers and idea people.

Pridefulness - Pride comes before the fall. Good leaders remain humbled by the position of authority entrusted to them.

Rigidity - There are some things to be rigid about, such as values and vision, but for most issues, the leader must be open to change. Good leaders are welcome new ideas, realizing that most everything can be improved.

Laziness – One can’t be a good leader and not be willing to work hard. In fact, the leader should be willing to be the hardest worker on the team.

Unresponsiveness – Good leaders don’t lead from behind closed doors. They are responsive to the needs and desires of those they attempt to lead. They respond to concerns and questions. They collaborate more than control. Leaders who close themselves off from those they lead will limit the places where others will follow.

Dishonesty – Since character counts highest, a good leader must be above reproach. When a leader fails, he or she must admit their mistake and work towards restoration.

A leader may struggle with one or more of these, but the goal should be to lead “killer-free”. Leader, be honest, which of these wrecking balls do you struggle with most?

What would you add to my list?

Can you think of any other killers of good leadership?

W H A T

I’ve often written this with three steps, but I’ve found something is more memorable if it has an easy to remember formula.

If you are trying to complete a difficult assignment…

When you aren’t certain all parties are as committed as they need to be…

When you are trying to rebuild your trust in a relationship…

Before you commit to a partnership…

At the beginning of an important venture…

Take the WHAT Test

Where Where do you want to go? Seriously talk through the end goal. What do you want to accomplish? Define a win! Make sure this part is very clear up front.

How – How will you get there? What’s the plan? Who is going to do what? Who’s responsible? Who’s in charge? What are the necessary steps involved?

Agreement – Are you in complete agreement with the previous two? This is critical. Don’t neglect this important step. Don’t move forward without this step. Are you sure that you are sure?

Tenacity – Are you willing to pay the price to see it through? Most great ideas fail…not because they weren’t great ideas…but because no one had the tenacity to see them through. Decide on the front in that all parties have a “whatever it takes” attitude. This will save you many headaches and heartaches down the road.

WHAT you are trying to accomplish will seem more attainable when you can pass the “What Test”.

There are dozens of applications for this simple formula, but the point is that strategically thinking through these steps will help protect and build or rebuild the relationship; plus keep all parties from being disappointed.

Does it help you to script things like this to help you remember and apply them?

Here are twenty random words associated with leadership…

• Purpose
• Integrity
• Values
• Strategy
• Principles
• Humility
• Passion
• Delegation
• Empowerment
• Sincerity
• Risk
• Confidence
• Commitment
• Wisdom
• People
• Honesty
• Compassion
• Sensitivity
• Determination
• Courage

Plus yours…

What would you add to my list?

Bonus round:

If you had to choose only 5 as being most important…

Which would you choose?

I want to come help your leadership!

If you lead a team…

I want to help you be a better leader…

It won’t be easy…

You’ll be intimidated at first…

You’ll be nervous…

I promise…

But…

It will open your eyes to some holes in your leadership…

It will help your team trust you more…

It will make your team’s communication better…

It will challenge you to improve personally…

I promise…

Want to know more?

Click HERE.

Responsiveness is extremely important in leadership and organizational health. It’s one of the non-negotiables for teams I lead. (I wrote about those non-negotiables HERE.) Being responsive shows that a leader cares for others, recognizes their value, and is disciplined enough to follow through.

There are times, however, when I believe responsiveness is not only the wise or right thing to do, critical in terms of protecting the relationship. If you are leading in a church or a business, these individuals demand a timely response if there is any hope if keeping them.

Here are 4 times when responsiveness is critical:

Busy leaders - If the President of the United States ever calls you it would be best not to say, “I’m busy right now, I’ll call you back”. Some people simply live busier lives than others. They aren’t better than others, just busier. They aren’t more important, but they often carry more responsibility. If they extend you time, they expect a timely response.

First timers - Whether a new customer or first time visitor to the church, these people don’t trust you yet. If you let them down early, you’ll never connect with them.

Injured or hurting people – Broken people are more skeptical of trusting others. They’ve received disappointment in life, usually from other people. Unresponsiveness now is received as further rejection.

People in crisis mode - In the moment of crisis, people understandably become incredibly dependent, perhaps even somewhat self-centered. Unresponsiveness is akin to uncaring for them.

Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting you can solve the person’s concerns immediately or that you have to drop everything else to respond. What I am contending is that with these type scenarios, responsiveness becomes even more important to protect the relationship. It could be as simple as a message which says, “I’ll get back with you soon”, which is not a bad practice with everyone. (Just make sure you keep your commitment!) It might be that you quickly refer them elsewhere for assistance. You could even delegate the response to someone else on your team. With these specific groups of people, the key is that some response comes in a timely fashion if the relationship is valued enough to protect.

Do you agree with my assessment?

What other groups would you add to my list?

Here is a huge leadership lid I have witnessed firsthand. In fact, it’s one that has crippled my leadership in years past. (I wrote a post about one of those times HERE).

Here’s the lid:

Your ability to respond under stress, to criticism and to failure will determine the height of leadership you can sustain or achieve.

You can make excuses all you want, but the one who claims to be the leader:

• Must keep standing when everyone else is “sitting the next one out”.
• Must keep dreaming when everyone else is satisfied with status quo.
• Must remain steadfast to a vision when critics want to derail the course.
• Must display strength during times of chaos.
• Must choose to move forward when everyone else is retreating.
• Must follow through when everyone else is stalling.

Where’s your leadership lid? Do you need to raise it a bit higher?

Get better so you can get bigger.

You may want to read THIS POST or THIS POST now.

There is a fairly new player in the transportation industry that I knew nothing about until recently. I love innovation and change, so I find this company encouraging in numerous ways.

It’s called Megabus.

Have you seen them?

Megabus is basically an updated Greyhound. When I was young, people didn’t fly as much as they do today. Instead, many people used the Greyhound bus system (and others) to get from city to city. I bus transportation is still popular traveling from big city to big city, but I see far less of them on the roads these days. I once rode a Greyhound bus from my home in Tennessee to visit family in Kansas. It was a long trip, but I enjoyed keeping a record of every city we in which we stopped along the way. Over the years, as airline competition made prices more reasonable, bus transportation seems to have become less popular. That may change with companies like Megabus.

Last week, while traveling to Chicago to pick up my son Nate from college, I saw several Megabuses on the road. I wasn’t familiar with them, so I asked my son. He knew all about them. Apparently, many students from his school use them to get to and from home.

What makes Megabus different from Greyhound? Well, the good looking modern fleet, double decker buses come equipped with comfortable reclining seats, courteous drivers and free Wi-Fi. Each seat is equipped with outlets to charge your phone or plug in a DVD player. Tickets must be purchased online in advance, which means most customers are often students or professionals. I passed numerous Megabuses on my trip and they were neatly painted, attractive and easy to spot. The couple Greyhound buses I passed honestly needed a paint job. Megabus is able to provide their services at a very reasonable rate, certainly cheaper than air travel and some seats starting at less than $5.00 if bought far enough in advance.

Megabus as a company is encouraging, because I see innovation working to save an industry. I’m not sure I’m up for a long bus ride anytime soon, but I see where it could be an alternative for many people. I don’t think about bus transportation often, but if you had asked me about it a few weeks ago, I would have said the bus industry was not a place where we were likely to see growth or change…almost a dying industry. Megabus reminds me that sometimes you simply have to think outside the norm and do something different and better than others are doing them. My suspicision is that the folks at Greyhound are paying special attention to Megabus and the competition will encourage positive changes that are good for all customers.

Just curious…can you think of any other industries/organizations that could use some “Megabus” innovation?

Did you ever take a Greyhound bus ride? What about a Megabus ride? Share your journey with us!

Winners of Leadership is Dead Book

We’ll do more books later…thanks for reading!

A Fresh Look at Career and Success

Its time to dust off the resume. Not because of a job search, but rather to gain a new perspective on your career and how it lines up with “success.”

If you were to take your resume and truly list the successes and failures without all the hype, how would it look? What would it look like? Try it. Take out a piece of paper and list three columns. List the job you have held in column one. Then the major initiatives you tried to accomplish in column two. Finally, list either the word success, failure or mixed in the third column.

Let me show you an example of Winston Churchill’s executive career (partial list). It might just give you new insight on your own leadership career.

 

Do you see the strings of failure in the midst of success? If you were gut honest and laid your career out like this, what would it say?

Here is what Churchill said as he looked back over his career and his many failures and his success:

“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of confidence.”

Fresh perspective is the ability to look holistically over a person’s life without getting absorbed in the minutia of a 2-3 year portion of a career. Think bigger friends. Stretch your perspective to look at the larger mural of your life as it plays out in this world. It will bring much relief to the moments of insecurity and gloom.

Guard your confidence on the road through failure.

ABOUT JEREMIE KUBICEK
Jeremie Kubicek is the author of the newly released book, Leadership is Dead: How Influence is Reviving It. He is the CEO of GiANT Impact, a leader development company whose focus is to awaken leaders by raising their capacity to lead. GiANT also owns Catalyst and produces the Chick-fil-A Leadercast You can follow him on Twitter at @JeremieKubicek or his blog at www.JeremieKubicek.com.

=> SPECIAL OFFER: Visit www.LeadershipIsDead.com to learn more about the book and access a Leadership and Influence Resource Kit (available for a limited time).

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