The five top things to look for in potential leaders. Not what you'd think!

Sometimes when we are looking for future leaders (and every true leaders is always on the hunt) we are looking for the wrong things, or not the most important things. So what should you be looking for? Dan Rockwell (Leadership Freak) share with us the top five things to look for in potential leaders. You may be surprised!

THE TOP FIVE THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN POTENTIAL LEADERS

Character and skill are essential for remarkable success, but not enough. Successful leaders develop others.

But who?

The top 5 things to look for in potential leaders:

1. Stubbornness. Headstrong people may be hard to convince, but once you convince them, they’re stubborn in a good way.

• Convince headstrong people that you’re helping them get where they want to go.
• Gain the respect of stubborn people by standing up to them. Be respectful, but not a pushover.

2. Ego. The desire for greatness is healthy when focused on service. The more you serve, the more you enhance your worth. Healthy ego wants to make a difference. Look for people who want to matter.

Aspiration is a comfortable word for ego.

How would they make the world better if given the opportunity?

3. Frustration. The desire to change things often begins with frustration. Discontent expresses itself as aggravation. I’m not suggesting that you tolerate abuse.

Look for people with some heat in their hearts.

4. Teachability.

Know-it-alls have nowhere to go.

How do they take correction?

• What are they currently learning?
• What are they reading?
• Who have they learned from in the past?
• How have they changed their thinking?
• What sparks their curiosity?
• How many questions do they ask?

5. Busyness. If they aren’t busy now, you’ll end up pushing them later.

Why develop leaders:

- Successful leaders understand the power of ‘with’. 

- Self-development is the first development. But don’t shackle yourself by leading alone. Develop the people around you.

- If you’re doing leadership alone, you aren’t doing it right.

What qualities do you want in potential leaders?

Which of the five qualities listed above seem most important? Why?

Ten things you can do to re-energize demoralized teams:

1. Complain a little and move on. 

“We’ve talked about this the last three times we met. How might we move on?”

2. Become an artist. Paint a picture of a vibrant environment.

• How might we treat each other the way we want to be treated by our leaders?
• What have your colleagues done to encourage you in the past? How might we do that for each other now?
• If we had a energizing culture, what would we be doing for each other? Do it!

3. Get amnesia! 

Forget about things you can’t control. It’s frustrating and draining when we try to control things out of your control.

4. Put on an apron and serve. 

Turn outward and go and serve someone or some project.

5.  When storms blow in, remember purpose fuels resolve. 

talk about Why you got into this work in the first place?  Why you do what you do, be honest!

6. Walk around

• Notice virtues like diligence, compassion, consistency, and drive.
• Greet people in the morning.
• Reward achievement
• Appreciate others.  Say, “Thank you,” before people go home.

Even though things might be bad, you can still care about the person sitting next to you!

7. Fuel up the people who believe in the cause 

Don't focus on critics and complainers encourage the people around you who are achieving good results and who are committed to the cause.

8. Communicate as much as you can  

Tough times are worse when information is scarce. Tell everyone everything you can. A series of brief conversations have more impact than one long talk.

9. Deal with negativity in private 

Don’t correct the whole team when the darkness centers on a few.

10. Look in the mirror 

Tell your team how you want to show up. Ask them to hold you to it.

HOW DREAMERS DRIVE DOERS TO DISTRACTION AND BEYOND

I had to re-post this great post by Dan Rockwell, it brought a smile to my face today!  It is loaded with great advice.

Organizations need more doers than dreamers.

A team of dreamers will start a thousand things and finish none. (Yes, that’s an exaggeration. Everything in this post is a bit exaggerated.)

Dreamers start things. Doers finish things.

Doers think dreamers:

1. Start too many things.
2. Get distracted by shiny objects.
3. Don’t finish what they start.
4. Don’t understand how much work it takes to finish.

Dreamers think doers:

1. Begin with, “No.”
2. Drag their feet.
3. Spend too much time planning.

It’s easy to dream if you haven’t finished anything.

Dreamers cp. Doers

• Dreamers thrive on progress.
• Doers thrive on finishing things.

• Dreamers think people will figure things out.
• Doers think no one knows what’s going on.

• Dreamers figure things out as they go.
• Doers figure things out before they go.

• Dreamers enjoy freedom and flexibility.
• Doers enjoy processes and systems.

• Dreamers start with ‘yes.’ “Let’s get going.”
• Doers start with ‘no.’ They don’t begin things they can’t finish.

• Dreamers get in over their heads.
• Doers save the day when lack of planning creates a crisis. 

Doers fix the train wreck dreamers create. 

7 tips for leaders:

1. Convince a doer they can succeed and they’ll go through hell to finish.
2. Listen to a doers ‘no.’ Answering their reluctance is creating a workable plan.
3. Dreamers are flashier than doers.
4. Honor hard work more than big talk.
5. Ask doers, “What do we need to do?”
6. Ask dreamers, “Where do we need to go?”
7. Beware of resentment between dreamers and doers. They rub each other the wrong way.

Everyone is both a dreamer and a doer. But all of us are more one than the other. The more of one you are, the more frustrating the other becomes.

Skillful leaders notice and navigate tensions between doers and dreamers.

7 Signs What’s Driving You Is Beginning To Destroy You

An Excellent post!

There are a thousand fine lines in leadership. Perhaps the most subtle and dangerous line is the fine line between what drives you and what destroys you.

Being driven is not an inherently bad thing. In fact, leveraged well, it’s a huge leadership asset. You get things done, mobilize people around great causes and make things happen.

Driven leaders are often the ones who create something out of nothing, who make things better and who move the mission forward.

So what drives driven leaders?  Well, hang out with driven leaders long enough and you’ll discover this common thread: discontent with the status quo.  Discontent is actually a good thing. It makes you a change agent in a world where most people avoid change. But the discontent that drives leaders is a double edged sword.

No one I know of has talked about the good side of discontent better than Bill Hybels did in his Holy Discontent talk (which is also a book). That talk is one of the most memorable leadership talks I’ve ever heard.  Holy discontent is from God.

It drives you to: 

Push on relentlessly toward progress Work tirelessly for a better day

Trust beyond yourself

Resist injustice

Demand better

Lead people to a preferred vision of a better future

Not quit

And if you’re like me, you’ve alway got some level of discontent burning under the surface.  It’s hard to sit still. Even when you’re off, your brain is still on. 

But discontent has a shadow side.It can move from a good force that’s driving you to place where it starts to destroy you, and if you’re not careful, the others around you.There’s one thing every driven leader has to watch, and it’s this: don’t let the discontent that drives you become the discontent that destroys you.

So what are the signs that’s what driving you is beginning to destroy you? Well, here are 7. Discontent become destructive when it:

1. Stops you from celebrating

Any driven leader knows how hard it is to celebrate. When you cross the line from and your drive begins to destroy you, it feels like this: you think it was amazing, but you can’t stop wondering what would have made it more amazing.

You can’t mark the progress you’ve made because you only see the progress you haven’t made.

And that kills your team.

To make it worse, you even stop celebrating God’s faithfulness and instead substitute the celebration of your progress.

Don’t miss the progress you’ve made because you can only see the progress you haven’t made.

2. Kills your gratitude

You begin to only think about what could be better. Gratitude decreases as discontent increases.

Not only will ingratitude make you miserable; it’s ultimately demotivating to the people around you.

If you want to defeat your team, be ungrateful.

3. Invades too many aspects of your life

I can try to improve everything and everyone, including my wife and other people I meet

This is not good for anyone. (Enough said.)

If discontent takes over your life, you won’t have much of a life.

4. Makes you the negative voice at the table

I have to catch myself during evaluation sessions (we do weekly evaluations on our services) because I will find the 1.2 things that went wrong and miss the 98.8 things that went right.

You shouldn’t miss the 1.2 things. But you shouldn’t dwell on them either.

When you only see what’s wrong and rarely see what’s right, you deflate the people around you.

5. Gets you off a project you should still be on

When discontent becomes too pervasive, it can stop you from finishing projects you started because you become discontent with…well even the solution you should still be working on.

Serial discontent will make you start things you never finish. And that’s a problem for everyone.

6. Makes you arrogant

If I let discontent get too much real estate in my life, it shows up as arrogance.

Nothing’s ever good enough.

I’m always right.

We need to do more….now.

Arrogance is only attractive to the arrogant.

7. Disables hope

We leaders are dealers in hope. Hope is such a rare commodity.

When discontent becomes toxic, your future becomes about what’s wrong, not about what’s right. Unhealthy discontent disables hope, and hope is the greatest motivator your team has.

What Do You See?

When any of these things starts to happen, I consider it a warning sign that my discontent is moving from a place where it drives me to a place where it might harm me or others.

What other warning signs do you see that the discontent that drives you is starting to destroy you?

How have you seen discontent hurt you or people you care about?