A story is told about a soldier who was finally coming home after having fought in Vietnam. He called his parents from San Francisco.
“Mom and Dad, I’m coming home, but I’ve a favour to ask. I have a friend I’d like to bring home with me.”
“Sure,” they replied, “we’d love to meet him.”
“There’s something you should know the son continued, “he was hurt pretty badly in the fighting. He stepped on a land mind and lost an arm and a leg. He has nowhere else to go, and I want him to come live with us.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, son. Maybe we can help him find somewhere to live.”
“No, Mom and Dad, I want him to live with us.”
“Son,” said the father, “you don’t know what you’re asking. Someone with such a handicap would be a terrible burden on us. We have our own lives to live, and we can’t let something like this interfere with our lives. I think you should just come home and forget about this guy.
He’ll find a way to live on his own.”
At that point, the son hung up the phone. The parents heard nothing more from him. A few days later, however, they received a call from the San Francisco police. Their son had died after falling from a building, they were told. The police believed it was suicide. The grief-stricken parents flew to San Francisco and were taken to the city morgue to identify the body of their son. They recognized him, but to their horror they also discovered something they didn’t know, their son had only one arm and one leg. The parents were shattered & devastated.
John C. Maxwell is one of my favourite leadership coach. His writings are usually easy to read, short, succinct, and often insightful.
The right to lead are simple truths in leadership, but takes a life time to master. Two things stood out for me.
First, the right to lead is always earned, never demanded, The same goes for respect.
Second, we cannot lead well if we have never learnt to serve. Serving requires the donning of humility and teachability. These two qualities require us to put others first, and that's what leading is about... putting others before self. This requires a very high level of self mastery.
To become a servant leader, we must always start from the inside out. We need to learn how to master and lead ourselves first! Hope you will enjoy this leadership moments sharing by John C. Maxwell.
Jim
Published in May-2010
Leadership is something you learn and earn the right to do. Renowned business writer, motivational speaker, and NY Times bestselling author, John C. Maxwell, shares insight on what it takes to be a leader. The Right to Lead is a character study of outstanding men and women throughout history, focusing on the qualities that are consistent in the lives of these great leaders. Perfect for gift-giving for a graduation, Father's Day, or year-round for business and church leaders.
What Gives a Man or Woman the Right to Lead?It certainly isn't gained by election or appointment. Having position, title, rank or degrees doesn't qualify anyone to lead other people. And the ability doesn't come automatically from age or experience, either. No, it would be accurate to say that no one can be given the right to lead. The right to lead can only be earned. And that takes time.
The Kind of Leader Others Want to FollowThe key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow. You must become someone others can trust to take them where they want to go. As you prepare yourself to become a better leader, use the following guidelines to help you grow:
1. Let go of your ego The truly great leaders are not in leadership for personal gain. They lead in order to serve other people. Perhaps that is why Lawrence D. Bell remarked, "Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things."
2. Become a good follower first Rare is the effective leader who didn't learn to become a good follower first. That is why a leadership institution such as the United States Military Academy teaches its officers to become effective followers first—and why West Point has produced more leaders than the Harvard Business School.
3. Build positive relationships Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. That means it is by nature relational. Today's generation of leaders seem particularly aware of this because title and position mean so little to them. They know intuitively that people go along with people they get along with.
4. Work with excellence
No one respects and follows mediocrity. Leaders who earn the right to lead give their all to what they do. They bring into play not only their skills and talents, but also great passion and hard work. They perform on the highest level of which they are capable.
5. Rely on discipline, not emotion Leadership is often easy during the good times. It's when everything seems to be against you—when you're out of energy, and you don't want to lead—that you earn your place as a leader. During every season of life, leaders face crucial moments when they must choose between gearing up or giving up. To make it through those times, rely on the rock of discipline, not the shifting sand of emotion.
6. Make added value your goal When you look at the leaders whose names are revered long after they have finished leading, you find that they were men and women who helped people to live better lives and reach their potential. That is the highest calling of leadership—and its highest value.
7. Give your power away One of the ironies of leadership is that you become a better leader by sharing whatever power you have, not by saving it all for yourself. You're meant to be a river, not a reservoir. If you use your power to empower others, your leadership will extend far beyond your grasp.
Dedicated half of my day and personal time on 28 March 2013 to share with a group of Action Learning (AL) practitioners from all over Asia on my take on leading CHANGE with the power of questions.
photo credit: Ng Choon Seng
My talents, skills and experiences have uniquely qualified me to do something in this world. Whatever that something is, I know I need to pass it on. I may do it with a single person, a small group or with thousands of people. The number is not within my control. What is within my control is whether I do it. My intention was to share my personal stories as a leader on how to lead and manage change using questions. I hope that through my stories, AL practitioners and leaders will see leadership and change management from a different perspective. I hope to inspire. As a certified AL practitioner myself, this is my small way of giving back to the AL community.
Summary of my sharing
On Leadership As a leader,
• Always work on the relationships and trust first!
Everything you do as a leader, you need to work through people. You need the head, hearts and hands of the team you lead in order to achieve your organisation's objectives. When the relationships are strong, the quality of your team's thinking and conversations becomes better! Team members are more comfortable and open to share their thoughts and they are also more open to other ideas or perspectives. The quality of your team's actions will be affected when the quality of the thinking is high. As a consequence, the quality of the results produced will be much better. When the key results are good, it will further enhance the quality of the relationships because the team morale will go up.
• Give people meaning and direction
As a leader, you need to pay attention to the experiences you are creating for your team. In today's context, to define work purely from the performance perspective is very limiting. How your team members are feeling is also a result of work. As leaders, we need to give our team clear direction and create meaning in what we do.
• Be mindful of the experiences you are creating as a leader
Besides meaning, the environment, the enjoyment at work, daily interactions of team members, etc. are important factors for a leader to consider. You have great influence over the experiences you can create.
• Build the capacity of your people
While working, you can grow; develop know-how and skills and so on. Like performance and experience, learning is a universal and fundamentally human result of work. The effectiveness of your team can be determined by their capacity to learn and improve over time. As a leader, you need to pay attention to your team’s capacity and capabilities. Come on, how can you expect your team to perform if their capabilities and capacities are not developed. Common sense but not common practice.
• Performance, Experiences and Learning are all interdependent!
How are these fundamental results of work—performance, experience, and learning—related? They are unquestionably interdependent. If individuals aren't learning, their performance will decline over time; if their predominant experience of work is boredom or stress, both learning and performance will suffer. From my personal experience, as a leader, if you work on the experiences and learning of your team well, the performance part will almost happen on its own!
For more details of my leadership thinking, read about my 4 C leadership model by clicking on the links below.
On Change Management Due to time constraints, I was not able to share more on Change Management with the group. Here are the 5 keys points I wanted to make about leading change.
1.Is your change worthwhile and possible?
Before doing anything, ask yourself two questions: Is this change worth making? Every change you make requires you to pay a price. Are you willing to pay the price? As a leader, you need to assess the change you are about to make carefully. Change will not happen in a vacuum. Factors to consider - Context, Situation, Team capabilities and potential, political power, type of bosses you have and their priorities, culture of your organisation, current systems and structures, etc. The questions you ask yourself before any change initiative are key. Frame your questions carefully and ask empowering questions.
2. Get your leadership team to buy in.
Change won’t be positive unless your leadership team believes in the new vision. If you need to make changes, go through the right process. Shortcuts will never lead to anyplace worth going. Do not rush. Change involves people. When it comes to people, fast is slow and slow is fast. Engage your leadership team right from the start. Ask powerful questions to engage them.
3. Change should feel uncomfortable.
If change doesn’t feel a little weird, it’s not really change. Anticipate the discomforts your team will feel and guide them through those difficulties. Paint the picture for them ahead of time. I always tell them, "let's begin with the end in mind" —let them know what’s coming and what they might expect. Then remind them that stress, uncertainty and upheaval are normal and temporary. Offering comfort and reassurance is a key part of your job. In my unit, I am always the Chief Combat Engineer - I clear the path for my team to do their best work!
4. Evolution or Revolution.
One of the key question you need to ask yourself as the leader is "Are you going to make an “evolutionary” change or a “revolutionary” one?" Make sure you understand the difference because if you’re making the latter, you’d better prepare your people for significant upheaval. Be clear. For some change efforts, you really need to "rock the boat" aggressively but for some, incremental improvements will be suffice. You need to be very clear what you need to do.
5. Change yourself first.
Finally, as a leader, you can’t be a change agent for your organisation if you’re stagnant on the inside. You need to commit to your own personal growth if you are going to lead your organisation through changes and improvements. You can’t give what you don’t have. You need to keep learning and growing. You need to lead change by example. My personal leadership philosophy is - I will not ask my team to do anything I am not prepared to do myself. I expect a lot from my team but in exchange, I will help them grow, engage and meet their personal career goals. If I expect the best from my team, I expect nothing less (often more) from myself.
I hope the AL practitional from all over Asia will find my sharing useful. All the best my AL friends :)
Once upon a time there was a painter who had just completed his course under disciple hood of a great painter. This young artist decided to assess his skills of skills so he decided to give his best strokes on the canvass. He took 3 days and painted beautiful scenery. Suddenly an idea flashed in his mind and he decided to display it on a busy street-square of that small town he was resident of. He wanted people's opinion about his caliber and painting skills..
He put his creation at a busy street-crossing. And just down below a board which read–
"Gentlemen, I have painted this piece. Since I'm new to this profession I might have committed some mistakes in my strokes etc. Please put a cross wherever you see a mistake."
While he came back in the evening to collect his painting he was completely shattered to see that whole canvass was filled with Xs (crosses) and some people had even written their comments on the painting.
Disheartened and broken completely he ran to his masters place and burst into tears. Sobbing and crying inconsolably he told his master about what happened and showed the pathetic state of his creation which was filled with marks everywhere. Such was the state that colors were not visible, only things one could see were crosses and correction remarks. This young artist was breathing heavily and master heard him saying "I'm useless and if this is what I have learnt to paint I'm not worth becoming a painter. People have rejected me completely.. I feel like dying"
Master smiled and suggested "My Son, I will prove that you are a great artist and have learnt a flawless painting."
Young disciple couldn't believe it and said "I have lost faith in me and I don't think I am good enough.. don't make false hopes.."
"Do as I say without questioning it.. It WILL work." Master interrupted him.
"Just paint exactly similar painting once again for me and give it to me. Will you do that for your master?.." Master instructed.
Young artist reluctantly agreed and two days later early morning he presented a replica of his earlier painting to his master. Master took that gracefully and smiled.
"Come with me." master said.
They reached the same street-square early morning and displayed the same painting exactly at the same place. Now master took out another board which read –
"Gentlemen, I have painted this piece. Since I'm new to this profession I might have committed some mistakes in my strokes etc. I have put a box with colors and brushes just below. Please do a favor. If you see a mistake, kindly pick up the brush and correct it."
Master and disciple walked back home.
They both visited the place same evening. Young painter was surprised to see that actually there was not a single correction done so far. But master wasn't satisfied as yet and he told his disciple "May be one day was too little a time for people to come up with ideas and take out time out of their busy schedules to correct it so let us keep it here for one more day. Tomorrow is Sunday, so we can expect some corrections coming in."
Next day again they visited and found painting remained untouched..
They say the painting was kept there for a month for no correction came in!
Moral of the Story:
It is easier to criticize, but difficult to improve
It was approximately 8.30 a.m. on a busy morning when an elderly gentleman in his eighties arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9.00 a.m.
I took his vital signs and had him take a seat. I knew it would take more than an hour before someone would to able to attend to him. I saw him check his watch anxiously for the time and decided to evaluate his wound since I was not busy with another patient.
On examination, the wound was well healed. Hence, I talked to one of the doctors to get the supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.
We began to engage in a conversation while I was taking care of his wound. I asked him if he had another doctor's appointment later as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no and said that he needed to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife.
I inquired about her health. He told me that she had been in the nursing home for a while as she was a victim of Alzheimer's disease. I probed further and asked if she would be upset if he was slightly late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was and she had not been able to recognize him since five years ago.
I asked him in surprise, "And you still go every morning, even though she doesn't know who you are?" He smiled as he patted my hand and said, "She doesn't know me, but I still know who she is."
I had to hold back my tears as he left. I had goose bumps on my arm, and I thought, "That is the kind of love I want in my life."
True love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.
Jon Armstrong has performed for some of the most prestigious audiences in over 30 countries worldwide as a magician. Growing up in Orlando, Florida, Jon became fascinated by the magic he saw in the theme parks around him and dreamed of having his own magic show. This dream came true when disney asked him to bring his act to Epcot and he became the resident magician at Walt Disney World. He was only 20 yrs old.
After spending 5 years doing his show at Disney World, Vegas called and Jon answered, becoming a recurring headliner at Caesar's Magical Empire. It was between these runs in Vegas that Jon started doing his tours all over the world as both a performer and lecturer, teaching others how to add humour and entertainment to their magic. IBM was privileged to have Jon coming over to share with us his thinking and philosophy about magic.
Jon now loves in Los Angeles and is a frequent performer at the world famous Magic Castle.
Some of Jon's magic achievements:
In April 2007, Jon was named Close up Magician of the Year by The Academy of Magical Arts. He has been nominated five times in total as of 2010. In 2010, he was nominated for the Lecturer of the Year by the AMA. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of The Academy of Magical Arts the youngest person ever to be elected to this important group in magic.
Jon's Bio Source: Jon's Lecture Tour Notes,
The Magical Adventure of Jon Armstrong, pg.67.
I enjoyed the lecture a lot because Jon is a very humourous performer. Very American thou but still love his humour and magic style. Like most Americans will say, it was Awesome!
Jon has many talents, besides being a wonderful close up magician, he is also a very talented comic artist! Together with writer Mike Costa, Jon Created a Comic Book Series on Magic titled 'Smoke and Mirrors'.
Upon discovering their mutual love for comic books and magic, the two kept in touch and talked about creating a comic book that would combine both arts. Along with artist Ryan Browne, Costa and Armstrong launched Smoke and Mirrors, a five-part series that follows a sleight-of-hand magician named Terry Ward, who finds himself in a world where magic is real, tries to fit in as best he can, and ends up mentoring Ethan, a young boy who discovers his secret.
During the break, magicians took the opportunity to catch up with each other. Met up with some of my magical khakis and chat about what is the latest in the community. Some decided to practice some rubber band magic Jon shared earlier during his lecture. And yes, big men do play with rubber bands!
See. This is a big man and he has rubber bands! LOL
I did not have my Kate Spade bag with me for this pose. So I decided to use Derek instead! Ha Ha...
Another wonderful evening spent with my magic community. Taking care of myself spiritually (need not be religion) by doing things I enjoy keeps me sane. Until my next magic adventure. Keep the magic going!
Some of Jon's wonderful routines on YouTube.
Enjoy the magical moments.
The plunger routine above was everyone's favourite during the lecture. It's funny, visual and amazing. I'll practice and perform the routine very soon. :)
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future. Think how really precious is the time you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family.
Earl Nightingale quotes (US motivational writer and author, 1921-1989)
