Decisive Leadership

On average, we are making thousands of decisions every day! Effective leadership involves making the right decision for the right reasons. Benefits of making the right decisions include:

• Accomplishes goals
• Leads others to accomplish goals
• Builds effective communication
• Builds trust with others
• Gives personal confidence
• Builds on making right habits
• Creates character of decisiveness.

Leaders in positions in the public spotlight are often criticized for wrongs made in the public setting. Often these "wrongs" can be traced back to making wrong decisions in the "little" moments in life. Often these decisions are a fruit of the wrong values as well. For example, if someone values punctuality, he or she will often make the decision to be on time, if not early. However, the individual who is late for an important job appointment probably has made similiar decisions before and therefore, have a habit of being late (and likewise, not putting value on punctuality).

When I was a junior in high school running at the State Track Meet, my relay members and myself came jogging out of the warm up arena onto the track. As we jogged onto midfield, still in our warm up sweats, we could hear a third and final specific call for us as a team to report to the starting line! Not only had the first, second and third calls been made for our race, all runners were lined up on the starting line and EVERYONE was waiting on us! Why were we late? A lack of leadership - my leadership as the senior anchor. While I want to blame our coach for making us participate in a last minute run to Wal-Mart to get rain gear, honesty will tell you the four of us didn't pay attention to the clock while warming up in the warm-up arena. If the stress of panicking and undressing in front of EVERYONE wasn't enough, we had the state track officials barking down our necks!

While this is a humorous example of a poor decision, many "poor" decisions can be avoided in our days if we follow three simple ingredients to wise decision making:

• Base your decisions on right facts
• Rely on wise counsel
• Base decisions based on clearly defined goals.

Give an example of a common problem teen leaders face where they feel their heads are "splitting" and then use the three ingredients to re-shape the "poor" decision into a good decision.

"Those who avoid decision making thereby decide to let circumstances and others make the decisions for them." - Dr. Bill Gothard

A Mission Statement Clarifies Purpose

Clarifying your personal mission as a developing leader will enable you to aim and hit your "target" in life! Having a personal mission statement built on personal values clarifies your purpose in living and pursuing 21st Century Leadership! How can you be an effective leader without first clarifying what it is you are trying to be and accomplish?

Here is what Coca-Cola has posted on their website for their mission:

"Our Roadmap starts with our mission, which is enduring. It declares our purpose as a company and serves as the standard against which we weigh our actions and decisions.
To refresh the world...
To inspire moments of optimism and happiness...
To create value and make a difference."

Go to the following website and fill out the questionnaire that will help you get started on developing your mission statement.

http://www.franklincovey.com/msb/

Once you have your list of answers to the questions, create your own mission statement and post it as a comment.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

Image taken from: http://lidbd.com/images/mission1.jpg

Modern Values in Today's Leadership

Examine the picture and read the following before posting comments.

Author and Speaker Stephen Covey stated, "Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and your values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them."

Integrity can be defined as the consistency of our character, especially when no one is looking over our shoulder. The Law of Core Values states that what is really important to us, our values, drives our leadership and determines our actions. What does this cartoon reveal about this man's values? How does he justify his decisions?

What principle what you share with this leader/employee to motivate him to change his values and therefore, his productivity? WHY SHOULD HE CHANGE?

Developing a Personal Plan For Growth

NOTE: This is an article by John Maxwell copied and pasted from his website.


Read the following portion of an article by John Maxwell:




Do you have a personal plan for growth?
February 8th, 2010

"Growth is does not happen by chance. If you want to be sure to grow, you need a plan—something strategic, specific, and scheduled.Motivational speaker Earl Nightingale said, “If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject.” Isn’t that incredible? It shows how far we are able to go when we have the discipline to make growth our daily practice.
So if you want to follow a plan, recommend that you start by identifying an area or two in which you desire to grow, such as leadership. Then start gathering useful resources – in print, online, on video, etc. Now your goal is to schedule learning time EVERY DAY. Here’s the rule of thumb I’ve used for years: read one book a month and digest one article/podcast per week.
As an example, this is the weekly schedule – 5 days a week, 1 hour a day – that I recommend for personal growth as a leader:

Monday: Spend one hour with a devotional to develop your spiritual life.
Tuesday: Spend one hour listening to a leadership recording.
Wednesday: Spend one hour filing* quotes and reflecting on the contents of Tuesday’s material.
Thursday: Spend one hour reading a book on leadership.
Friday: Spend half of the hour reading the book and the other half filing and reflecting.

The average American adult watches close to 30 hours of television per week, with little positive return. What do you think would happen if you devoted just five of those hours to personal growth?
Why not start acting on a plan today and find out? Then let me know if it was worth it."

Discuss why planning for growth is necessary for leadership and how you plan on planning on it? :)

21st Century Values Experiencing Change

(If the video does not play, watch it on youtube by typing in, "Did you know? 2.0)

Poet and Writer George Bernard once said, "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

What's impressive about this quote is that this influential writer lived 100 years ago! How true this principle still remains for us today!

Leadership not only involves influencing and motivating people to achieve a goal for the success of the team but it also involves personal change. Change for the 21st Century involves adapting to changing environments. Learning is changing. Technology is changing. Communication is changing. Therefore, we as leaders must change as well!

As leaders we need to be able to adapt. Our information-aged society is quickly and constantly changing. Leaders need to be able to communicate effectively in the information-technology age and maintain effective influence through our character and leadership.

Consider the thought-provoking video in commenting twice on this blog:

First, discuss what truth "impacted" you the most?

Second, discuss what values do we need to develop to be successful leaders in the 21st Century?

How Truthful Is My Honesty?

What made Abraham Lincoln such an honest person, an influential leader and the reputation of "Honest Abe?"

At the age of 22, owner and manager of a country store, Abe found himself walking over two miles to repay 6 cents to Mrs. Duncan. Why the inconvenience? He was sincere in making sure Mrs. Duncan knew the 6 cents overcharge was not intended and with apology he would repay immediately.

Maybe it was a similar time when Abe in haste weighed tea bags for an elderly woman and realized he made a similar mistake and incorrectly gave her a quarter pound of tea rather than a half a pound. Like before, when closing that evening, he made haste to deliver to this woman her other quarter pound of tea.

While these may seem like such little instances and many would argue that the convenience of overlooking the matters would be better, Abe was wise in going the extra mile to make things right. He obviously understood the great life principle of making the right decisions in the little matters develops the ability to make right decisions in life's larger matters.

In 1860, the integrity of Abe's honesty was needed by a torn and divided nation. His leadership to our country abolished slavery and united millions of people towards a more patriotic and unified nation fighting for liberty for all citizens.

Discuss how honesty or the principle of making right decisions in little matters develops the ability to make right decisions in life's bigger matters are so needed in today's leadership. What areas of a teen leader could these great truths be applied?

Wise Decisions

Read this online article published by Golf.com on December 2nd, 2009:

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — With a public apology, Tiger Woods disclosed his "personal failings" and acknowledged he had "not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves."

He did not mention the allegations of an affair in Wednesday's statement, saying he would deal with "my behavior and personal failings" alone with his family.

His appeal for privacy likely won't close a shocking saga involving one of the biggest names in sport.

Rachel Uchitel, a New York nightclub hostess who has denied having an affair with Woods, had scheduled a Thursday news conference with her attorney in Los Angeles. But attorney Gloria Allred canceled that appearance Thursday morning, citing unforeseen circumstances. She earlier had planned to make a statement about Uchitel's relationship with Woods.

Last week, the National Enquirer published a story alleging the world's No. 1 golfer had been seeing Uchitel, and that they recently were together in Melbourne, where Woods won the Australian Masters.

Uchitel denied having an affair with Woods when contacted by The Associated Press.

Woods has faced intense media scrutiny after a car accident outside his home early last Friday morning and sordid allegations of affairs. In a 317-word statement on his Web site Wednesday, Woods acknowledged he had "let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart."

The statement followed an Us Weekly cover story of a Los Angeles waitress claiming she had a 31-month affair with the world's No. 1 golfer. Woods' words were posted three hours after the magazine released a voice mail - provided by the waitress, Jaimee Grubbs - that Woods left on her phone three days before he rammed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant and tree outside his Florida home.

"Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions," he said on his Web site. "I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves."

The investigation into Woods' accident ended Tuesday when the Florida Highway Patrol issued a $164 citation for careless driving. The inspection of his personal life is seemingly just beginning.

It is an odd turn for Woods, whose career as a golfer, a pitchman and perhaps the most recognized athlete in the world has been largely without blemish since he turned pro at age 20.

Read more:http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,1944650,00.html#ixzz0ZW7EvsOd

What's your reaction to the recent revealing of Tiger Woods' character? Identify 2 or 3 things he should have done to be better prepared for the temptations great leaders are exposed to.