This is one of – if not THE best speech you’ll hear. The man was brilliant. I’m sad he’s gone.
Today’s show isn’t about simply finding what you love the most, but it’s about investing in your own growth and improvement. It’s about accepting responsibility for your own life – and career.
Ask just about any leader or boss, “Is your team or organization high performing?” and they’ll likely remark, “Yes.” Follow that up with a question, “Can you prove it?” and that’s when the conversation can get astonishingly quiet. How can we know we’re high performing individually and collectively?
When we hear so much about high-performing cultures it may be time to focus more intently on how we can grow and improve our own performance as leaders…and how we can have a bigger impact in helping others increase their performance, too.
These are just a few of the basic things we’re all interested in if we’re aiming to be our best. Nobody listening to this podcast is interested in complacency. We want to keep moving forward.
Sometimes we’re faced with situations where we wonder if it’s time for us to make a change. Many things can drive those feelings. There is no “one size fits all.” When asked to specifically address some broad-based generalization I always respond with “it depends.” The primary objective in today’s show is to give you some things to consider in your own journey to figure it out for yourself, or to help others figure it out.
Why isn’t merely a great question to suss out purpose, but it helps us better understand ourselves – and others. By taking the time to ask “WHY?” and then (more importantly) taking the time to listen to the answer, we can help each other move forward.
Everything is hard until it’s easy. Everything is slow until it’s fast.
You have dreams and ambitions. You also have pain, suffering and sorrow. Hopefully you have a few Instagram moments every now and again, but mostly your life is likely routine filled with a fair amount of tears, angst and trepidation coupled with bouts of confidence, belief and optimism. It’s the roller coaster that we’re all riding on. Together.
That whole “leave it outside the office” admonition is not just foolish, it’s impossible. Life doesn’t happen or get in the way…life is part of who we become – and who we already are – as leaders. It’s also what helps each of us build compassion toward others.
Leadership is:
Influence
A focus on others
Doing for others what they’re unable to do for themselves
All the elements of our life contribute to build stronger leadership IF we’ll leverage them properly.
Today, Lisa and I share some of our “life outside the office” and how it’s serving us to increase our resilience and determination.
Southlake, Texas is a thriving community in the northeast area of Tarrant County, with portions in Denton County. Since 2005 Southlake has enjoyed the leadership of City Manager Shana K. Yelverton. I must give a special shout-out to Shana and her leadership team, especially Alison Ortowski, Assistant City Manager and Stacey Black, Senior Human Resources Director. These were the folks who gave me my first opportunity to serve leaders in city government. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be doing this work or this podcast. I owe them an enormous debt of gratitude for introducing a guy with a CEO background, who deeply believed people make THE difference, to the world of public administration.
At our first meeting, I told Shana that I wasn’t likely the right fit to help coach some of her top-level leaders because I knew nothing about the world of city government leadership. She insisted that I was likely exactly what she needed. “We don’t operate like just any city,” she said. I quickly learned how true that was. I remember sitting down with Shana one morning in her office, after engaging with many members of her leadership team, and saying, “I could take your team and be air-dropped into any organization in DFW and I guarantee we’d quickly figure it out.” They were – and are – that good!
You’ll see that high achieving spirit and competence in James Brandon.
Here’s a video produced by the City of Southlake spotlighting James (something he hates passionately, but I’m pleased they did it). Click here (or the image below) to watch it on Facebook.
