Is there trust within your organization? Do you feel respect and transparency from your peers and above? If not, you are no stranger to the effects of an uncommunicative, unreliable team. So the question remains: how do you measure trust?
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The leader's responsibility doesn’t stop with selecting new team members. Instead, the selection is where our commitment begins. Activating the full value of team members requires the discovery of their latent abilities. It becomes our job to enable our people to thrive.
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These four phrases are not particularly egregious but for the servant leader, these phrases unduly complicate conversations and take away opportunities to build trust. Omit these phrases from your vocabulary and elevate your servant leadership path.
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Servant Leadership is consistently seen as a weak style of leadership… In his book The Infinite Game, however, Simon Sinek speaks to a mentality that coincides with the core tenets of servant leadership and shows that the principles of servant leadership are the ones that allow for organizations, businesses, and people to succeed in their endeavors.
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Millennials have taken over the workplace. As a young individual entering the workforce, you’re trying to not only learn the ropes in your industry, you’re also figuring out who you are as an individual. They’re branching out, finding new approaches to teamwork and leadership. For me, all signs point to servant leadership.
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Some of life’s circumstances are sour. How you react to those challenges determines whether or not those circumstances become successes. Inspirational speaker, author, and salon owner Kelly Cardenas shares how to turn life’s lemons into lemonade.
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Leaders watch for opportunities to bring hope and change things for the better. But what do we do when, in a moment, troublesome circumstances intervene?
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Recently, I was on a call with my friend Sara Thingvold and as we were discussing some future endeavors we would embark on together, we got to talking about our year (2019) and the other things we’re dealing with as we roll into the new year. Then Sara said something that has had my head on a swivel since the moment she said it. “Lyle,” she declared, “this is a year of discovery for you!” Wow...thank so much, Sara!
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In Robert Greenleaf’s book, The Servant Leader, he says, “are people better off after coming in contact with you?” is the measure of a servant leader. What a great way to explain servant leadership! It’s so simple, yet definitely causes you to reflect. You really have to be quite brave in answering this question and willing to be introspective as you examine your actions and motives in leading people.
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When I hear myself say about another person, “What is wrong with them?” or “Why can’t they stop being so judgmental?” or any number of complaints about fellow human beings, I stop to think about my tapir dialog. Do I know that person for who he is, not some made-up image of who I assume he is? Am I assuming he’s an anteater or pig, when he’s really a magnificent tapir? Am I reducing a person who has hopes, dreams and problems just like me to an object I can justify criticizing?
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When we were children, at some point we were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Do you recall what your answer was? Was it a superhero, a firefighter or policeman? Perhaps it was a lawyer, doctor or race car driver? Stay in that memory and try to analyze what part of that profession intrigued your young heart. Was it the idea of providing service? Protecting people? Was it the fact that you wanted to be what your mom or dad were? Regardless of the reasoning behind your choice, the feeling you had when you fantasized about being that profession when you grew up was so powerful. The wonder and passion for the future was great. Where did that wonder go?
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We’ve probably all experienced it — the phone call we have to make to some huge organization because we need assistance of some kind. If we’re lucky, there will be a live human being to talk to at the end of the seemingly endless recorded options. Recently, I had to call a very large insurance company. I was filled with confidence, as I’ve discovered the power of the speakerphone. The freedom was a beautiful thing as I went about my tasks hands-free and within earshot of the phone in case the voice on the other end came to life.
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So you’re a servant leader, huh? You’re going to come in and change your organization by “serving”, aren’t you? You’re just going to give us stuff and pat us on the head and we’re going to produce high results and high profits, is that what you think?
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Organizations are trying to widen their cultures to capture the attention of the millennial workforce, seeking to provide them with the most sought after flexible work environment. Could remote work be the key to the ideal work-life balance? It’s intended to produce happy and effective hard-working employees, affording them the opportunity to spend less time commuting and more time engaging in their personal hobbies.
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It’s back to school time, and whether or not you have children, you’re affected. Traffic gets more intense, stores are more crowded. If you have kids, you face schedule changes, struggling to get them up in the morning and another year of making sure they’re equipped to learn. For many people, it’s an achievement just having their kids physically prepared with clothing, shoes, backpacks and binders, notebooks, pens, and pencils. I know we don’t always think of it this way, but for the next several months, parents will be served by teachers, administrators, counselors, janitors and the “lunch lady.”
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Servant leadership is a simple concept, but it’s not easy to execute. The most challenging part of the servant style of leadership is that it’s opposite of how human beings operate. Being selfless takes work and doesn’t come naturally. There are several ways to work at being more selfless, all of which begin in your mind.
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In the world today, it seems like behavior involves the extreme in many ways. We drive faster, eat and drink to excess, and climb Mount Everest — to name just a few examples. Things seemingly need to be done in epic proportions to make any kind of impact.
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There’s nothing worse than manipulative leaders — people who will use whatever’s around them to further their own goals, dreams and aspirations. More and more, managers are finding smart ways to get other people to do what they want them to do — sometimes in ways that make them believe it was their idea!
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Leader’s momentum is not a topic we discuss at our strategic planning meetings, yet it’s something we are all striving for in our organizations. I believe that the power of momentum can transform organizations when we spend time understanding what it takes to create it. It’s not something that just happens or a feeling in the air when things align and the company starts to progress. Momentum is the power of all the little moments added together that create a big impact on the organization.
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How can something be simple and complex at the same time? We humans tend to think that for something to be worthwhile or impactful, it must be complex or monumental in scope. In reality, small things can be just as impactful, especially when they’re the catalyst for some larger outcome. If we begin by making small behavioral changes over time, we have a change in mindset.
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