Leadership is people oriented and purpose driven.  A leader is a trainer and coach.  They are the cheerleader for the team. Being a team builder is a key to success.  This leads to an enhanced team effort and quality results.  You must focus on the people that you are working with. They are the ones that make you successful.  You need to develop them to their fullest potential.  You need to develop a team and acknowledge that it is a team effort.  The emphasis has to be on the team.  Everyone has their role to play.  Not everyone has the same talents.  Everyone contributes to the team effort in their own way.  

While I was writing my book, Faith Guided Leadership, I was bouncing ideas off of coworkers and the subject came up about how different people approach the same situations in their careers.  The topic of where to position your staff to accomplish your goals has a major impact.  You need to figure out the individual talents of the people that you work with.  At that point you need to assign the tasks that are needed to be done to the best people for the job. 

It centers on your vision. What do I mean by your vision?  Take a look at your goals from a different perspective.  Take a bird’s eye view of what you want to accomplish.  This is what I consider to be your vision. Step back away from the team enough to see the big picture.  You need to see and understand the flow of the projects.  Where can they be improved?  What are the stumbling blocks?  It may not be that a person is wrong for the team.  They just need to be repositioned to an area where they have stronger talents.  I compare it to a chess game.  Both players have the exact same set of game pieces.  It is what they do with them that wins or loses the game.  

My brother, Mike, used to whip me in chess while we were growing up.  For some reason he always could position his pieces through out the game, short as they were, to beat me.  He did not have any special pieces but knew how they interacted and could see into the future where he needed to move them to execute his plan.  We should take that same approach as a leader.  Why are we so quick to say that we do not have good talent working for us?  “Why does the competition have such better people working for them?”  We get too quick in wanting to turn over our staff and start fresh.  We need to look at each of their individual talents and see where they can help the team succeed. In many cases, we have failed to lead them properly.  We have not utilized their potential or placed them in the right position to enhance the team’s performance.  

I have made moves with my staff that completely changed up their job description and approach to the business.  Later on, they saw where I was going with the move and realized that they were much better off than on the path that they were on before.  Take ownership in your team and do your best to enable them to reach their potential. A leader is someone who is confident enough to take a different, more creative approach. They think outside the box and are thinking more long-term in designing their team roles.

They are not thinking about just short term results.  They are in it for the long haul and approach their team this way.  Effective leaders focus on building strong relationships with others which allows them to be creative in their team building.  They maintain their positions by inspiring trust and confidence in other members of the group.  This takes time. It does not happen overnight. 

Are you getting the most out of your team?  If not, take a look at each team member's role.  You might have the right people, but they are just in the wrong role.  Everyone has potential.  The key as a leader is to get the most potential out of every member of your team.  Share your successes by commenting to this blog.

We live in a fast paced society.  It is a balancing act to keep up all of the activities and not go overboard and create stress.  The hours that we work keep creeping up.  You may still be able to keep the hours at the office to 50 hours or less, but have you really added up all of the time that your mind is on work during your “off” hours.  With the advances in the cell phone industry, we are working more than ever outside of our regular work schedule. 

The cell phone sounds its annoying tone saying you have another e-mail.  Years ago, you would not realize that an email had come in or even care.  Now we feel obligated to read it.  Once you read it, you might as well act on it, right?  Your customers should understand that you need “down time”.  Why do you feel obligated to act on requests 24 hours a day?  

You should be able to ignore the e-mails in the evenings.  Rarely is it ever anything that just has to be taken care of.  Not everyone works daytime hours, so there can be e-mails coming in during the evening.  These people are probably answering some of the e-mails that you sent during your normal shift.

I know that you have witnessed individuals that answer their phones when they are in the rest room.  Why can’t they draw the line on when to ignore the ringing of the
phone?  They are out of balance.  These are the people that live with continuing stress levels. You need to be able to “turn off” work.

I know that it would be hard to go from never ignoring the phone and the e-mails to being completely off work when out of the office.  Start with baby steps.  It may start with leaving the phone in your car when you go out to dinner with your family.  That way, there is no way that you can be tempted to sneak a peek at it under the table. If you are that addicted, you can look at it after dinner.  Enjoy the time with your family and give them your attention.  It will do wonders for your stress level and you do not get the opportunity to relive these moments with your family.  It is unfair to them to not have your full attention.

Share with me what you are planning on doing to get your life in balance.  We can all learn from one another.  Thanks again for your continued feedback.

We all experience stress at some point in time in our lives.  To some it occurs more often than others.  How we each deal with it varies to an extreme.

Why is it hard for some people to share their struggles over stress with others?  I have friends that wear their emotions on their sleeves.  It is easy to see when they are stressed. They will share their frustrations with close friends and peers to be able to get the support needed.  It helps them get through the tough stressful situations in their lives.


Others, however, do not share with anyone.  Do you know how you react to stress?  Are you consistent with your response to stressful situations?  Psychologist Connie Lillas uses a driving analogy to describe the three most common ways peopl respond when they’re overwhelmed by stress:

Foot on the gas – An angry or agitated stress response. You’re heated, keyed up, overly emotional, and unable to sit still. 

Foot on the brake – A withdrawn or depressed stress response. You shut down, space out, and show very little energy or emotion. 

Foot on both – A tense and frozen stress response. You “freeze”under pressure and can’t do anything. You look paralyzed, but under the surface you’re extremely agitated. 

In this blog, I want to look at the “Foot on the brake” personality.  I know this
personality because it is where I find myself.  You do not want to share your stress
with anyone. This could be for a variety of reasons. I think pride plays a big part in it. You feel that someone that is strong would not need support from anyone. 
They can handle all situations on their own.  You put on this false front to the world that everything is alright even though on the inside you are stressed.  Without seeking help, the stress continues to build.  In some cases, I have felt guilty for letting myself get into stressful situations.


You are surrounded by friends and family that would love to help, if you would just open up.  Admit that you are weak and share what is on your mind.  Looking back at stressful times in our lives, we can see that none of them are as bad as we pictured them when going through them.  If you know someone that has these tendencies and you can tell that they are having more than usual stress in their lives, be there for them.  Take them to lunch or dinner to get a conversation going.  The biggest thing that we all need to realize is that we do not get through all stressful situations alone.  It takes support from those closest to us to handle the tough situations.

It is for these reasons, that I believe that you need to be active in your church and surround yourself with others that will provide that Christian support as needed.  Maybe it is just a few more people besides yourself to lift up a prayer in your name.  You need to have friends that you can have those conversations with.  They are the friends that you can share everything with.  They will not judge you, but just listen.  And lastly, nothing beats the bond of a close family.  So I ask the question again, “Who do you lean on?”

There are times to keep a secret, like preparing a surprise birthday party.  Goal setting should not be kept a secret.  Too often, though, we do not share our goals with those around us.

I know that there are things that you really want to accomplish that you have not shared with anyone.  We all have those types of goals.  Think of one of them right now.  How long have you had this goal?  Are you getting any closer to it each year?  How important is this goal to you?

Too often we have these goals and never accomplish them.  The reason is that no one will help you reach them or hold you accountable for not reaching them.  If you are trying to quit smoking, but have not told your friends, you will continue to be placed in situations where they expect you to smoke.  You almost feel obligated to continue even though you want to quit.  I have a co-worker that told all of us about her goal to quit.  We gave her daily encouragement.  We were there for her to release her frustrations about her feelings as the days went by.  She did not have to tackle this alone.  She has now been smoke free for a few months.

I went for years with the goal of writing a book on leadership.  I never told anyone and therefore did not make any real progress on reaching the goal.  A few years ago, I started to tell friends about this goal of mine.  They gave me the courage to tackle this dream.  When I would bring up reasons why I could not do it, they would give reasons why I was wrong.  I started pursuing it more.  I finally told some of my family when I was about 1/4 of the way in writing it. 

It was at that time, that I felt committed to the goal.  We do not really commit to something that we keep a secret to ourselves.  It is too easy to back down and give up or just keep putting it off.  After telling my family of my writing goal, I told them that I would have the book written by a certain date.  I became obsessed with working on the book.  Faith Guided Leadership was published by my goal date.

Share your personal goals with your family, friends and co-workers.  They will help you in so many ways to achieve them.  Share your business goals with your team.  They can give you great insight on how to achieve them.  It is easier for them to attain a target if they know what they are aiming for.

I have had a personal goal of running a half marathon for at least 5 years and never told anyone.  I kept telling myself that "next year" I will train for it and do it.  This year, I told a few family members and now I have started the training and have registered to run the Country Music half marathon in April 2013.  I am sharing my progress along the way so that you can hold me accountable. 

What goal are you going to make public today?  Leave a comment below for others to read.  Do not keep it a secret anymore.