Lessons from football on leadership! - The Daily Voice

Dennis Edwards:

It was in my junior year at college that I was elected player coach of the TKE fraternity football team. For the TKEs inter-fraternity football was important. The TKE fraternity club was not an athletic one like the SIGs who were members of many of the sports teams on the campus. Nor like the LUKs another fraternity whose members were mostly from the famous rowing teams at Marietta College. To the TKE´s, the stigma of winning the inter-fraternity league was important at least in their eyes, for their own self esteem and dating prowess.

My first and most important decision as coach was to appoint the quarterback of the offensive team. The quarterback is the player who calls the plays and organizes the offensive. As coach, I wanted a quarterback who would listen to my advice and who was respected by the players. I needed a person who the other players would do their best for. Of course, the quarterback also needed to be able to pass the ball, run and be a general all around athlete.

Before making the decision on who would be quarterback, I was feeling the pressure from different elements of my fraternity. Some thought Levy, from Long Island should be quarterback. He was a talented athlete, very agile, fast, quick moves, a good arm and as a senior should get first pick, some thought. Then there was O´Neil, from Ohio. He was a junior and a powerful athlete. He was strong, muscular, domineering figure but also with a great throwing arm. Then there was Terry, from Pennsylvania. He was a quiet Christian, a good athlete, but not as obviously talented as Levy and O´Neil.

In the end, I chose Terry. The reason was simple. Both Levy and O´Neil had the tendency towards pride. They both had big mouths and therefore offended others. The quarterback needed to be a person who would bring unity to the team. He also needed to be a person who would work well with the coach. It was not really a difficult decision to make, but I did get flack from both of the other player´s supporters.

We had a fantastic two years while I was coach, remaining undefeated. I used Levy as halfback who often ran with the ball and O´Neil as fullback. We made plays to give both these boys a chance to use their good throwing arms. Many of the players on our team were elected Inter-fraternity League All-Stars.

Another hard decision for me was to make myself center, the first year out. The center is the player who hikes the ball back to the quarterback. It is an important position as a bad hike can jeopardize a game. The original center was not proving very reliable in the first game. I decided to take the position. It was humbling for me to promote myself, but I knew I had to do it. At the end of the year I was elected All-Star center. It seems I made the right choice.

What I learned from my experience as football coach was the showy, loud-mouthed personalities are not necessarily the best for leading a team. Even a quiet guy like Terry, yielded to his coach, could do an excellent job and promote unity and teamwork which is what a good team needs to win the game.

Originally published September 12, 2012

Read More

25 quotes from Craig Groeschel

1. People would rather follow a leader that is real than one that is always right.
2. When you delegate tasks, you create followers. When you delegate authority, you create leaders.
3. Most leaders are trying to figure out the right strategy. The best leaders are obsessed with empowering the right people.
4. As leaders, we may teach what we know, but we reproduce who we are!
5. Unity is not the same as conformity. We have strength in our diversity.
6. Your life is too valuable, your calling too great, and your God too awesome to waste your life on what doesn’t matter.
7. You can have control or you have growth, but you cannot have both.
8. Talent can get you to the top. Only character will keep you there.
9. Don’t try to copy what people do, learn how they think.
10. As followers of Jesus, we don’t just go to church, we are the Church.
11. The decisions you make today will determine the stories you tell tomorrow.
12. The strength of the organization is reflected by how deep into the organization people have the ability to say yes.
13. You may be one relationship away from changing the course of your destiny.
14. The difference between a good leader and a great leader is one who learns to anticipate rather than react.
15. Respect is earned but honor is given.
16. You are not who others say you are. You are who God says you are.
17. If your character is not strengthening, your future is weakening.
18. How bad you want something determines what you will do to get it.
19. If prayer isn’t necessary to accomplish your plans, you aren’t thinking big enough.
20. How you live reflects the reality of what you really believe.
21. Don’t let your “self-talk” talk you out of what God has called you to do.
22. When the leader lacks confidence, the team lacks commitment.
23. The path to public success is always paved with private discipline.
24. One of the greatest enemies of confidence is comparison.
25. God didn’t call me to be important, He called me to be faithful.    https://globalleadership.org

Read More

How to Speak - Patrick Winston MIT

Read More

Leading from Home!

Read More

Leading Through Crisis

Read More

How Great Leaders Embrace Change!

Read More

Problem Solving Like a Boss - Part 2

Read More

Be All You Can Be! - Part 2

Besides having faith in God’s plan for each of us, we need to rid ourselves of mindsets that limit us and keep us from becoming all God wants us to be.

Born to win

Limiting mindsets and defeatist attitudes can hold us back from reaching our full potential. Some of these mindsets are:

“I’ve tried it in the past, but it didn’t work.”

“It’s never been done before.”

“There are others who are more qualified and who can do a better job.”

“What if I make a mistake? What if I fail?”

“It’s too much work.”

As long as we think like this, we won’t be able to overcome obstacles to fulfill our calling.

Norman Vincent Peale relates this story in his book, Power of the Plus Factor:

Once, walking through the twisted streets of Hong Kong, I came upon a tattoo studio. In the window were displayed samples of the tattoos available. You could have a tattoo of an anchor or flag or mermaid or whatever. But what struck me with force were three words that could be tattooed on one’s flesh: Born to lose.

I entered the shop in astonishment and, pointing to those words, asked the Chinese tattoo artist, “Does anybody really have that terrible phrase, Born to lose, tattooed on his body?”

He replied, “Yes, sometimes.”

“But,” I said, “I just can’t believe that anyone in his right mind would do that.”

“The Chinese man simply tapped his forehead and in broken English said, “Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind.”

Once our minds are “tattooed” with negative thinking, our chances for long-term success diminish. We cannot continue to function in a manner that we do not truly believe about ourselves. Often I see people sabotage themselves because of wrong thinking.

We need to ask ourselves, “What limiting mindsets do I have about myself? Have I put myself in a box?” When you think or say, “I could never do that,” are you limiting the Lord? What if the Lord wants to stretch you and make you grow in that area? You could be stunting your own growth through mindsets that limit you and hold you back from going further than you have gone before.

“As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”1 How you see yourself, what you expect of yourself, your own self-image and self-talk have great power.

“With God, all things are possible.”2 We need faith, and then we have to fight for what we believe the Lord wants us to accomplish.

George Bernard Shaw said:“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, they make them.”

If we want to progress, we need a personal plan for growth. Here’s a word from the Lord on this point:

To get anywhere you need a map, a plan, and a vision or a goal of the kind of person you know I want you to become, and then work toward gaining the virtues and removing the vices that will help you to get there. Seek Me about what I want you to do with your life. Think of someone you admire, or a career in service to others that you would like to have. Ask Me what it takes to be that kind of person, to excel in that career, to abide in that calling, and I’ll lead you. Then you’ll have something to strive toward.

Being all you can be means becoming what I know you can be. You have special talents, and beyond that, a special purpose for being on this earth. But to find it, you don’t sit and wait for Me or others to put you in front of the door and say, “Here, walk in,” but rather you do all you can to develop your potential and prepare for the plan and purpose I have for you.

I challenge you to grow. I challenge you to make the difficult choices of forsaking certain things, and adding other things to your life, even if it’s difficult.—Jesus, speaking in prophecy

Here’s more on developing a plan for personal growth. This is from the book Developing the Leaders Around You. Author John Maxwell says:

People think personal growth is a natural result of being alive. Well, it’s not. Growth is not automatic; it does not necessarily come with experience, nor simply as a result of gathering information. Personal growth must be deliberate, planned, and consistent… I want to emphasize that personal growth requires a plan. You have to create a plan and follow it. 

Practical steps for personal growth

Set aside time daily for growth. There are two important concepts in this step. First, time for growth must be planned. Getting sidetracked is one of the easiest things in the world to do. Growth time that is not strategically planned into the day soon disappears because our lives are busy. People must find a time that works for them and schedule it into their calendar. Then they must guard that time as they would any other appointment. Second, the time set aside must be set aside daily—for no fewer than five days a week. Educators report that people learn more effectively in shorter regular sessions than long, infrequent blocks of time.

Besides having a daily plan, I also recommend going through materials during times that other people normally consider wasted time. For instance, whenever I travel I take along books that may not be as meaty as my daily reading but that have good material.

Apply quickly what you learn

Simply knowing a thing will not make it part of you. To do that, you must apply it. Each time you learn something new, it’s good to ask yourself, “Where, when, and how can I use this?”

Grow with someone

I have a number of people around me who share things with me and whom I deliberately share things with. When you share what you are learning with others, it increases your insight, builds your relationship with them, gives you a common vision, and holds you accountable. It also creates worthwhile conversation.

It is helpful to think about how you can change things in your life to bring greater fulfillment, fruitfulness in your work and service to the Lord, and progress for God’s glory!

Roadmap was a video series created by tfi for young adults. Originally published in 2010. Adapted and republished on Anchor January 2020

---

1 Proverbs 23:7.

2 Matthew 19:26.

Read More

How to Grow a Healthy Organization!

Read More

Building a Strong Culture: Q & A with Jerry Hurley

Read More

The Power of Forgiveness - Immaculée Ilibagiza

Read More

When Less Is More - Andy Stanly

Read More

Leader, full of grace

Chip Bell, Lead Change, January 18, 2018

Fireside chats can generally yield surprising depth and insights. When the chat leader is a CEO and the audience include high-potential leaders at an executive training retreat, it can be doubly poignant and powerful. Fireside chats afford a crucible for candor and a forum for authenticity.

Ten years ago, I was a trainer at the retreat and a guest at the after-dinner fireside chat.

“What are the most crucial qualities of a great leader?” was the question from an armchair participant, shot point-blank at her charismatic CEO. The CEO catalogued the typical top-10 leader features you might expect would accompany such an answer. Then, after a long pause, he added, “and, grace.”

It provoked silence. Everyone in the room waited on the edge of their armchairs to learn more about this unexpected addition.

“Grace is about acceptance, the opposite of judgment. It is the building block of a culture that nurtures innovation and invention. It is ironically the same word we use for elegance with a sense of purity,” he explained.

No one in the conference center living room expected this tough, results-oriented leader to suddenly turn philosophical. But he did. And they were clearly moved.

He briefly highlighted a tragic story many in the room had heard on the news. I later Googled the story for the facts, and this is what I learned.

The milk delivery man in Georgetown, Pa., had lost his infant daughter. He never got over it. Nine years later, that delivery man–Charles Roberts, who was married and the father of three children–burst into a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pa., with a handgun, 12-gauge shotgun, rifle, cans of black powder, stun gun, two knives, a toolbox and restraint devices. He told the boys and teacher to leave the room. He lined up the girls and shot them. Five died and several more were severely wounded. He later shot himself.

But what followed the tragedy was the centerpiece of the CEO’s point about the power of grace. The Amish community visited the widow of the murderer to offer their heartfelt condolences. The day of the funeral, the same week after burying five of their children, the Amish community attended the funeral of the murderer. There were nearly as many Amish at the funeral as non-Amish. On the one-year anniversary of the massacre, the Amish community quietly made a cash donation to the widow of the man who had slain five of their children.

I never forgot the example and the way he tied it to leadership.

We live in an era when disruptors thrive, and marketplace followers struggle just to keep up. Incremental improvement, once the standard for progressive leadership, has been replaced with, “If it ain’t broke, break it.” Warp speed to market has become a table stake. And those in constant pursuit of innovation are the only ones likely to end the race in the winner’s circle. It means leaders must foster inventiveness as well as its “fail fast, learn fast” corollary as their keystones of success.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said in a Business Insider interview: “I’ve made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon. None of those things are fun. But they also don’t matter. What really matters is, companies that don’t continue to experiment, companies that don’t embrace failure, they eventually get in a desperate position where the only thing they can do is a ‘Hail Mary’ bet at the very end of their corporate existence.”

Leaders with grace lead with deep confidence. They exhibit no need to resort to creating fear or relying on authority as the mantle for their influence. They imbed the spirit of encouragement in their pronouncements meant to challenge. They know that humility is more powerful than vanity, concern is more influential than command.

And the leader with grace can release the finest from employees ensuring the perseverance of their brand.

Read More

Leadership Lessons From A Dealer Who Ran a Billion Dollar Cocaine Business

By Xiao Xu, Bit of News, May 17, 2015

By the time he was sentenced to life in prison in 1996, “Freeway” Rick Ross had sold over $1 billion worth of cocaine in the Los Angeles area.

Ross began selling drugs after failing to get a tennis scholarship, and soon amassed an empire with thousands of employees spanning into Pennsylvania, New York, and elsewhere in the United States.

Huffington Post called his success deeply contradictory:

“He was very successful at business, something that most Americans admire, but illegally distributed an addictive drug to millions of people at a huge cost in terms of public health, violence and lives destroyed.”

But building a business–albeit illegal–empire of that size doesn’t come easy. It requires an unbelievable amount of organization and leadership, something Ross isn’t bad at. In an interview with blogger Ashton Altucher, the drug king offered some surprisingly good leadership lessons on how to inspire people to want to work for you:

1. Make the people working for you even more successful than you are. The biggest motivation you can give someone is helping them become more successful. They might not always make it, but it will show everyone else that you care about everyone getting a big cut of the success.

According to an Esquire article, whenever Ross would recruit a new dealer, Ross took the time to teach him how to “cook” and become just as successful as he is.

“I wanted the same for them and for them to even surpass me.”

2. Don’t be a show off. Not many people like working for a show off. Hollywood likes to portray drug dealers as flashy gang bangers wearing tons of jewelry and talking in obnoxious slangs, but the most successful ones are very low key. This is how Rick Ross operated. It kept other dealers from becoming jealous of him and being a potential threat.

In his autobiography, Freeway Rick Ross: The Untold Autobiography, Ross said that this low-key lifestyle kept him safe:

“My best protection, however, was that nobody had a clue I was making money… A few of the homies who sold PCP were starting to suspect that I was doing well in the game, although no body knew for sure, because I handled business transactions as privately as I could.”

3. Re-invest into the game for long-term success. “Instead of buying cars and fancy stuff, I took my money and I went and bought more and more dope.”

By re-investing his money into his business, Ross set his empire up for compound success over the long term.

Besides saving money, the low-key lifestyle also made it almost impossible for the police to track him. For a long time, the L.A. Police Department had no idea what he looked like because he never flaunted his face.

4. Be honest with people. It sounds strange that honesty is mentioned in a business that thrives on lawlessness. But in a trafficking deal without the protection of lawyers and police, there’s only one thing that people look for: your words.

If you go back on your word, or are dishonest about what you’re selling, people won’t come back.

“If there was any funny business, I’d rather not deal with them anymore, or be very careful with them in the future.”

5. Keep it simple, stupid. Once the business started flourishing, Ross stayed out of the way and let his people do the work. He let them handle transactions, create new deals, and traffic the goods, and only stepped in during emergencies.

“Everyone knew what they had to do.” And if they didn’t, they’re no longer part of the business.

Ross later got his life sentence reduced to 20 years. After he got out, Ross used the reading skills he had learned in prison to create a non-profit foundation to help underprivileged youth. He has also written a book and is now an inspirational speaker.

Read More

When you’re the boss, questions are better than orders

By Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman, LinkedIn, April 30, 2015

I love being a movie producer, I love having great colleagues, and I love having a production company, which I run with Ron Howard.

As part of all that, I’m a boss. What I don’t love, in fact, is being a boss, because I don’t love bossing people, I don’t really want to tell people what to do.

So I often manage people with curiosity–by asking questions instead of giving orders. As I told Harvard Business Review, I think questions are the most under-used management tool we’ve got.

Questions are an especially great management tool when I think someone isn’t doing what I would hope they would, or when I think something isn’t going in the direction I want it to go.

People often imagine that if there’s going to be conflict, they need to start with a firm hand, they need to remind people of the chain of command.

I’m never worried about who is in charge.

I’m worried about making sure we get the best possible decision, the best possible casting, script, movie trailer, financing deal–the best possible movie.

I’m worried about making sure everyone on a high-risk project has the same goal.

Asking questions at work elicits information, of course.

Asking questions creates a space for people to raise issues they are worried about, or to give the boss information he or she might not know, and might not be expecting.

Most important, asking questions gives people the chance to make the case for the way they want a decision to go. And vice-versa.

Back in 1991, we shot the movie Far and Away, starring Tom Cruise. Tom was at the top of his career. He was only twenty-nine years old, but he had already made Top Gun, The Color of Money, Rain Man, and Born on the Fourth of July.

Tom isn’t difficult to work with. But Far and Away was a challenging movie to make. It was an old-fashioned epic, a story of two immigrants leaving Ireland for America at the turn of the last century. We shot in Ireland and the western United States. It got expensive, but the movie wasn’t overtly commercial. When we figured out what it was going to cost, the studio told me to find ways of cutting the budget.

I flew to Ireland, and I went to Tom on the set. “Look, you’re not the producer of this movie,” I said. “But we all want to make it, we all have this vision of a movie we’re doing as artists, a story we care about. It’s going to be expensive, but we can’t spend as much money as it looks like we’re going to. We need to hold the line.”

I said to Tom, “Can you be the team leader here with the cast and crew? Can you be the guy that sets an example?”

He looked at me. “I’m one hundred percent that guy!” he said. “When I have to go to the bathroom, I’m going to run to the trailer and run back to the set. I’m going to set the pace for excellence, and respect, and tightening up.”

And that’s exactly what he did. He led. He was motivated. He motivated other people. We did make a really good movie, and we kept the budget under control.

I didn’t walk in and tell Tom what to do. I didn’t order everybody to work harder, to make do with less. I explained where we were. And I went to the key player, the person other people would respect, and I asked that a question: “Can you be the leader here?”

That’s something that asking questions does that is so vital:

It helps create a team, especially under trying circumstances. Curiosity–asking questions–helps create trust.

I think asking for people’s help–rather than directing it–is almost always the smart way of doing things, regardless of the stakes. It creates engagement rather than resistance.

And, as I explained in a story for Fast Company magazine this month, asking questions creates a completely different kind of culture at work.

Asking questions confers responsibility. Asking questions implies that the person you’re talking to has both the authority to come up with the ideas, the answers, the solutions–and some of the responsibility to do so as well.

Curiosity as a boss, curiosity at work, isn’t a matter of style. It’s much more important than that. If you’re a boss, and you manage by asking questions, you’re laying a foundation for the culture of your company or your group.

You’re letting people know the boss is willing to listen–even to information that’s unpleasant or unexpected.

You’re letting people know you value a diversity of perspectives–and that you appreciate that in the modern world of high-speed commerce, there may be more than one “right” answer to a work problem or a product problem, and that a diversity of views is the way to find those answers

Questions at work–delivered not like a prosecutor on a cross-exam, of course, but with a genuine spirit of humility and a desire to learn–are an apparently simple tool that changes the whole dynamic with the people you work with, and the results you get.

But you do have to listen to the answers.

Read More

How to Become the Most Valuable Player on Your Team -

By Michael Hyatt
http://michaelhyatt.com/most-valuable-player.html#more-27369
All the major sports leagues celebrate their best players. But what if there were a Most Valuable Player award for your team? Would you take home the prize?



When I was CEO of Thomas Nelson we established different awards for individuals, service groups, and profit centers. The winners received public recognition, banners, trophies, and prizes.

I loved giving these awards. Without the contributions of these valuable team members, our company would have made measurably less progress in achieving our mission. Instead, we achieved more as a directly result of their efforts.

I don’t know the criteria for Major League Baseball’s MVP award. But after decades of leading teams, I do know what works for companies, nonprofits, small organizations, ministries, and creative collectives looking to make a difference.

Let’s be clear about one thing up front: It’s not about being a hotshot. We have all been around people with tons of talent who were a liability to the group. Talent, as John Maxwell says, is never enough.

Here are seven tips for becoming the most valuable player on your team—even if you don’t think you’re the most talented member:

Play till the whistle blows. Don’t walk off the field in the game. Even if you’re behind—especially if you’re behind—you can make a winning contribution. But you’ll never do it if you quit early.

Practice good communication. For me that all comes down to clarity, responsiveness, and frequency. Be clear, don’t bottleneck information, and keep everyone who needs to know in the know as often as they need to know it.

Work hard. More accurately, work harder than you think you need to. Doing the minimum will win no points with people who are putting in extra effort. If you have more to give, do it.

Share your best. If you want to serve your team members, don’t hold back. Creativity, talent, learning, insight—they can make all the difference in the final outcome, so share your best stuff.

Own your mistakes. Responsibility is the mark of a strong team player. If there’s a problem and it’s yours, own it. Accountability frees people to work on the problem, not fester about the one who created it.

Affirm others. Team spirit is critical for victory, and everyone on the team is responsible to improve the mood if possible. Catch others doing good work and call them out.

Be positive. By its very nature, cynicism kills teamwork. Unlike constructive criticism, it’s defensive and self-indulgent. It’s designed to protect the cynic at the expense of everyone else. A positive attitude about problems is the best way to help the team get past them.

To achieve its goals, a team needs members who give their all, give their best, and play to win.Michael Hyatt

Michael Jordan said talent might win games, but it takes teamwork to win championships. You may not have any control over the level of your talent, but you have a lot of control over your character and how you interact with your team.

To achieve its goals, a team needs members who give their all, give their best, and play to win.

Read More