Monday, February 22, 2010

Soft Leadership Vs Hard Leadership

Please don't tell me that being kind, learning to listen, taking action on your
goal(s) and things like working on your character are soft. No way! They are hard. And that's why so few of us do them.

Anyone can act tough. What takes genuine power is to be open. To care about others. To learn from those around us. To be good human beings.

It’s the same for things like listening and vision and character-building. Getting good at those things takes time and courage. Why? Because we need to develop humility and be willing to admit we are far from perfect. And that we need to change. That change is scary. Because it causes us to leave the comfort zone we have always known, and sail out into the blue oceans of life.
The new model of leadership really is all about mastering the skills people in the past judged as soft. Those leaders that cling to the old ways of being will get left behind, by the leaders willing to do what's hard.

So the soft stuff is really the hard stuff.

* Great leaders all have these things in common that we can model:
Everyone already has the privilege to be a leader, which means treating people well, developing a great culture to work in and always doing your best.

*They always have a goal, but always a bigger one than just themselves. Leaders are always readers, they read constantly.

*Leaders develop people. They are kind when they teach what they know and they constantly remind themselves and others that there are no mistakes, only lessons to be learned from every outcome.

· Discipline… of course they eat properly and get up early, but what they really know is the price of discipline is always less than the price of regret.

Perseverance…you know never, never give up not just on your goals but your integrity and moral character say to yourself, I walk my talk, I live my truth.

Never do anything that you would not want to see on the front page of your local newspaper.

It can take thirty years to build your reputation and only thirty seconds to ruin it.


Respectfully,

Master Dan