Leading with Honor: Finding Your True North?

LEAD WITH HONOR

“Our culture desperately needs courageous servant leaders men and women who have clear vision and strong character, who instill confidence and inspire excellence, who don t fold under pressure, compromise on principle, or practice deception. In short, we need leaders who are committed to leading with honor.”  That quote was the first paragraph of the introduction to a new book written by a friend, colleague, and mentor:  Lee Ellis.  His book is titled “Leading with Honor.”  

This book speaks to our time and culture in a way no other book has.  It directly confronts our culture on the issue of character and principles.  We see it everyday, and experience it almost every hour if not more frequently.  Today, it is somehow ok to tell “white lies” and to misdirect others as long as the outcome is justified.  In addition, and sadly so, we have lost our Moral Compass so we no longer seem to know where the True North is any longer.  

If you are feeling this and sensing the need to once again find your moral compass and travel towards True North again, I encourage you to read this book.  Lee writes in a very personal and practical way and will coach you in subtle, but tremendously strong principled ways to learn your True North and be a character driven person again....leading with honor!

http://http://freedomstarmedia.com/

Introductory Video with Lee:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTTUjkyxuy4

Is Character and Integrity Important When Outsourcing IT Services?

People hear me talk about Character all the time, but how does it get measured? Here is one article that talks about how important character is to the workplace when customers are outsourcing, and a measurement of its impact on business.

Remember Character is a lot of things like integrity, but specifically, it is easy to remember when you think about it encompassing the 6 Pillars of Character from www.charactercounts.org: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, and Citizenship.

Clearly, some employers and customers are starting to realize that outsourcing people is important, but hiring the right company and/or person with Character (Fairness and Loyalty in this case) is KEY!

Stay focused on your True North and you will do well for yourself, your family, your company, and your customers.

Character and Honesty go a long way. Make it a Great Day!

Aligning People, Passions, and Positions for Maximum Performance

In Lee Ellis’ book called “Leading Talents, Leading Teams," Lee explores Specific Talents as strengths and struggles. It is interesting that Lee uses the word “struggles” for weaknesses. I think that alone speaks volumes about the fact that a weakness is not dynamic and presupposes we are not doing anything or can’t do anything about it. The word struggles has a meaning that reflects a dynamic change and wrestling match if you will, that is going on in a constant way. That is what life is about don’t you think? It is a constant growing experience. We are all in different struggles in this life. Noone is perfect and we are all still growing.

Lee’s Chapter 2 title is called: “STRUGGLES: The Dark Side of Talents.”
Besides our strengths the dark side of talents deals with the struggles we all have with our weaknesses. So, Lee points out that each of our talents is a two-sided coin. Lee even makes it clear that for each strength we have there is likely a corresponding struggle as well. Examples he uses are:

Strengths/Struggles
-Meticulous, thorough/May be too picky
-Prepare carefully/May lack spontaneity
-Persistent/Tend to be inflexible

Lee then goes on to use a real life example and historical character in Winston Churchill. He quotes a biography of Winston Churchill’s when he became the First Lord of the Admiralty. You see Winston Churchill had a great many leadership qualities that prepared him for his inevitable rise to be one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. However, what we don’t hear all the time is that Churchill’s struggles were just his strengths in exaggerated form as Lee points out: Dash became rashness. Assuredness became cocksureness, etc.

So, we learn that we all have strengths and struggles, but to grow as a leader and a good follower, it takes constant study and work to improve on both accounts. How are you doing in growing your leadership skills? More importantly, do you recognize your struggles and work to overcome and/or improve them? Are you focused on growing yourself to be a better person of character?

I hope this blog moment helps you to step back and really evaluate who you are, who is following you, who are your co-workers, where you are going, and who might be following you. Many struggles are associated with character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. So, remember to always work on “Leading with Character First.”