Leadership

To paraphrase John Maxwell, if you think you're a leader but no one is following you, then you're just out taking a walk. Whether you are leading a team, an organization, or a movement, how do you avoid just taking walks? Over my years in leadership, I've discovered a several factors that are key to attracting, keeping, and developing good team members. I'll be sharing these over the next few posts. Number One - Good Communication Every good leader that I have worked with has been a good communicator. This is much more than being a good presenter. It involves listening skills and the ability to be empathetic. Poor to mediocre leaders do more talking than listening. That's usually a sign of insecurity. I once worked with a person who would start filibustering whenever he didn't want to give an honest answer. He thought he was talking his way out…

From where I sit, it seems obvious that our world needs more empathetic people. These are the people who have the ability to understand the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of others - often when we do not have the same thoughts, feelings, and experiences. In short, it's the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Instead of empathy, much of our modern discourse is filled with antipathy. Without actually saying it (most of the time!), people with antipathy towards other have this attitude: "I don't like you and I'm not even going to try to understand your position or idea or feelings." Personally, although there is a dire need for more empathy, I don't believe most people are filled with antipathy. I believe the problem is actually apathy. I don't want to be bothered with having to understand you. Why? It might laziness, self-defense, or the result of information…

In terms of financial health, the equation is fairly simple: don't take out more than you put in. Unless you're the federal government, most banks require you to have the money in your account before you can spend it. That's one reason why credit card debt is so high - it's easier to charge it now and pay later than to pay for it now. Unfortunately, what we end paying later is much greater than the original cost. When our girls entered high school, we created checking accounts for them. The bank representative strongly encouraged "overdraft" protection. Why? Because teenagers are likely to spend more than they have in their account. The maturing process involves learning to make responsible decisions. To put it another way, immature people continue to make irresponsible decisions. While this basic math makes sense financially, it also translates to other areas of our lives. Learning to…

If we've learned anything over the last fourteen months, it’s this: Not much is really stable in our world. Our health can improve or decline, with or without the coronavirus. Our savings and investments can go up or down, or go away. Even the most secure, bolted-down belief will feel a tremor every now and then. I'm often asked, “Ken, what has been your biggest test throughout these fourteen months?" It's hard to single out a specific, unique event or moment. What often appears to be a single, solitary moment rarely happens in isolation. Even in those cases that appear to be standalone events, you will often find there are things building up to it and the aftermath that follows. So, I believe the biggest test I've faced -- and I'm not alone -- is not one single test but the stacking of multiple tests over a compressed period of…

It happened to me. From the moment I came home from the hospital as a newborn baby until I left for college, I slept in the same bedroom. It was my room. Baseball cards, a few books, and other "valuables" were spread across my dresser. A Nerf hoop was clipped to the back of my door. The same two posters hung on my closet all throughout high school - John McEnroe and Peter Frampton. Then I left for college in the fall of 1987, and when I returned for Christmas break, it was different. Technically, it was still my bedroom because dad had left my bed in there. The posters were still there. But he had moved in a desk with an office chair, a filing cabinet and a phone, and a television. He had converted my bedroom into a home office. I had mixed feelings about it. While I…