Leading From the Center

Evidently, I stubbed my baby toe the other day. I say evidently and the other day because I didn’t do anything that alerted me that I’d done so. It seems to have just happened. Well, we all know those things don’t just happen. 

Now, if you’re wondering what that has to do with leading, let me provide you some context…

 

As a leader, have you ever seemingly all of a sudden noticed a pain in you team. Like a person who doesn’t work well with the rest of the team? It probably wasn’t all of a sudden that that happened. Most people don’t just change all of a sudden, nor for no reason. But you didn’t notice it. That’s what an Effective Leader does…notices. And like a toe, especially the baby toe, there’s not a quick fix. You can’t get a cast put on it to fix it. It’s going to take time to repair it, assuming that you can. And the pain will remain…for a long time. 

 

Assuming you aspire to be an Effective Leader, take notice! You’ve probably heard and/or read, maybe even prescribe to the notion that leaders lead from the front. Effective Leaders lead from the center! Yep! It’s true! As long as you’re leading from the front, you’ll have to be checking your six in order to know what your followers are doing, even that they’re, in fact, following you. When you lead from the center you almost can’t help but to take notice of what’s going on around you and act accordingly. Now, you can always choose to do nothing, but you won’t be leading for long then. 

 

My Number One Protégé, Dr José Lugo Santiago, and I produce a podcast that airs weekly, on Tuesdays, titled Leaders and Futures. He’s a Futurist. I’m a Visionary. Very similar. He’s a couple of years younger than I. We sometimes disagree on perspectives, based on our experiences, which are different, particularly when you consider our age differences. What we DO agree on is that to be an Effective Leader, especially if you’re attempting to lead your followers into a preferred future, the Leader has to be constantly aware of what’s going on with his or her followers. You have to take notice of what’s going on around you. Or else you’ll develop a pain all of a sudden. Those types of pains, as I’ve already alluded to, don’t appear all of a sudden. 

 

Chances are that if I’d known that I’d develop a pain, stubbed my toe, if I did whatever caused the pain, I wouldn’t have done it. I would have taken precautions to avoid it happening. It’s painful, I tell ya! That correlates precisely with letting one of your followers develop bad habits, a bad attitude, anything that causes him to be a pain in the team. Take notice! Lead from the center! Do what you can to mitigate the pain before you have to fix it.

 

Until next time,

 

Be GREAT! You ARE!

 

¡HEIRPOWER!

 

bob vásquez!

I Got That From YOU!

If you’re an Earth, Wind, and Fire fan, as I am, you’re familiar with their hit “September,” which is one of my most favoritest EWF tunes. There’s a more-recently-released version, a video, in fact, of the song, by Kirk Franklin. It’s a video of Kirk’s crew recording the song in the studio. I commend it to your watching, but ya gots ta turn up the sound! Anyway, near the end of the video, the late Maurice White, leader and founder of EWF, appears at the studio, surprising Kirk. Again, you’ll dig this version, I assure you. At the very end of the video, Kirk turns to Maurice and tells him (three times) “I got that from YOU!”

 

I mentioned it in my book, What I Learned From Dad Made Me A Better Man!, so I’ll say it again, We cannot teach character. We cannot teach leadership. The best we can do is show it. People will then follow. Following is most often accomplished by emulating.

 

I remember, as if it just happened, my first granddaughter’s, Nieves, expression when I asked her why she did a certain thing the way she had just done it. She touched me straight in the heart as she exclaimed, “Because YOU do, Opa!”

 

I got that from YOU! I’ve thought that many times. I’m not sure I’ve said it often enough, but I’m going to try to do so more often, now that I’ve considered it. I got a LOT of character traits from Dad. I got that from YOU, Dad! All good, thank goodness. 

 

So, I’m wondering, because this is a test of your leading, what can your followers say they got from you? There’s only one way, really, that they learned it from you, and that’s by watching, eventually emulating you. I hope that’s all good.

 

If you want your followers to be great, YOU have to be great! I got that from YOU! If you want them, including your family and other loved ones, to be loving and caring, YOU have to be loving and caring. I got that from YOU! Whatever you expect of them, you must first model for them. They’ll watch and follow. I got that from YOU!

 

As I’ve also said before, leading isn’t as difficult as we make it out to be. We just have to decide what we want our followers to be like and be that way. And it’s, most often, little stuff. How we speak, how we show respect, how we give everything our best, that makes the biggest impact.

 

And I’ll tell you, there’s not a better recognition than having one of your followers look you in the heart and tell you, “I got that from YOU!”

 

Until next time,

 

Be GREAT! You ARE!

 

¡HEIRPOWER!

 

bob vásquez!

Admitting our mistakes

One of the most difficult things a leader does is admit when he/she has made a mistake. It shouldn't be difficult, but it is.

Interestingly, we often tell our followers that we learn more from our failures than our successes. I'm not sure who ever said that, but we perpetuate that idea consistently. I think it's ridiculous. Most of us are smart enough to learn from our successes more than our mistakes, but that's another lesson. For now, I want to focus on admitting that we make mistakes. And helping our followers learn from theirs, too.

 

One of the virtues we seldom talk about in leadership seminars, at least those I've attended, is humility. In order to grow from our mistakes, we have to be humble. The problem with humility is, how do you know? How do we measure it? Who measures it? Am I so powerful that I know whether or not you're being humble? I don't think so. As Pope Francis says, "Who am I to judge?" The only person who knows how humble, if at all, we are, is us. And that measure really is the only valid measure.

 

Admitting our mistakes takes humility. Humility, really, is based on the realization that we don't know as much as we sometimes, maybe often, want others to think we know. It's okay not to know. As my friend, Simon Sinek says, "The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don't know.”

 

As our followers see that we're willing to admit that we don't know, that we, too, make mistakes, they, at least sense that we're being humble. And they appreciate it.

 

A few years ago, during a State of the Union Address, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were seated together. Almost no one noticed that the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, General Joseph Lengyel's, ribbons on his service dress were upside down. Now, if you've ever worn a uniform, you've probably put your ribbons on your uniform upside down. It happens. Later that evening, the General posted an apology on social media, making a public commitment that it would never happen again. WOW! A four-star general, a Chief of Staff, admitting that he made a mistake and apologizing for it, AND promising it won't happen again! That's leading! I've met General Lengel, and in my humble opinion, he exudes humility.

 

It's okay.... We all make mistakes. Our followers make mistakes. We're human. The key, though, is to learn from them and not make them again. We can each choose to be humble and admit that we're not perfect, none of us is. And if you choose to be a great leader, accept that your followers, too, make mistakes. Make the time to help them learn from their mistakes as well as their successes. 

 

Until next time, Be GREAT! You ARE!

 

¡HEIRPOWER!

bob vásquez