Leadership

Here's a simple truth: if you're not doing what you love to do, you'll either burn out or rust. Does this mean we ALWAYS do what we love one hundred percent of the time?  Of course not.  It does mean you should be over the fifty percent point, and I would even suggest you should be tipping the two-thirds mark. Pursue your passion.

Marcus Buckingham says that the most ineffective staff people are like “sundials in the shade.”  It's not a matter of ability or talent or desire.  The real question is this: do we have them in the right role? As you lead teams of people -- be that at church, work, or home -- one of your primary tasks is to help place people in the right positions.  Whenever talent is misaligned, no one is happy.  In fact, misplaced talent will eventually erode if it's not being continually sharpened or utilized. Do you have any sundials in the shade?

If you are a visionary leader, you live to see the big picture.  While others are thinking about lunch, your mind is five years down the road.  And that's ok.  As long as you enable your team to fill in the picture.  Until the big picture gets filled in with color and details, it's not really a vision; it's a nice thought.

Just read this morning an interesting article on "Discretionary Energy."  Here's how the author defines it: What is Discretionary Energy? For our purposes, we define an employee’s discretionary energy as: Their willing application of knowledge and skills in service towards espoused strategy and goals, and Their demonstrated positive enthusiasm for their work, their team & its members, and their customers. Discretionary energy is at play when an employee goes beyond the minimum. Sometimes discretionary energy is about innovation and creativity, but more often it is about jumping in before being asked, going beyond the basics to meet a need or solve a problem. The article is about how leaders motivate employees to use their discretionary energy towards furthering the mission or vision of the organization. Source: Driving Results Through Culture.

The following article is from Michael Palin from Monty Python and it's about how to keep an interesting diary (or blog).  The article appears in Vanity Fair but lest you think I secretly stick on in the grocery cart at King Soopers, it appeared in a daily news aggregate that I get from SmartBrief. Read "A Dogged Diarist's Dos and Don'ts of Diary Writing."