Maximizing Your Leadership

March 2011

Today we’ll be talking about leadership again. I hope that is a topic that you don’t mind learning more about. If you are interested in other topics as well… at the end of this newsletter is a link to a SHORT survey that will help me serve you better with upcoming newsletters. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to complete it.

Now, let’s get back to leadership…

Leaders (real leaders) have been studied for hundreds of years. Researchers have studied attributes, characteristics, attitudes, behaviors, personalities, intelligence, and values. What have we learned? That every leader is unique and that the truly great leaders aren’t afraid of being unique.  We’ve also learned that while personality traits, attitudes, behavior and intelligence patterns have been identified; the key to great leadership can’t be defined by these things only.

The key to great leadership is in your thinking, your mindset, your valuing habits and most importantly – how you apply these things.

Great leaders are maximizers and multipliers. Their thinking and valuing habits reflect their perspective – not only on the job but how they live their lives.

“Managers”, while trying to maximize and multiply, often have mindsets that may actually result in diminishing or minimizing.  This doesn’t happen intentionally but is usually a learned behavior or habit.

NOTE:  When I say “manager”, my intention is whose focus is on the tasks and getting the work done.  This isn’t your title but rather your role.  This isn’t who you are, but rather what you do. When I talk about a “leader”, this person is focused on leading the people who are doing the work.  My hope is that you have both manager and leader characteristics, but that you learn to focus more on the leadership side.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean here.

1. 1. Maximizers do more asking.
      Minimizers do more telling. 

      Great leaders believe in the people they are working with. Maximizers see intelligence as continually growing and developing within their team. They assume people are smart and can and will figure things out. They see their organization as full of talented people who are capable of contributing at much higher levels. Diminishers see intelligence as something basic about a person that can’t change much. When this is the case, the Diminisher believes that they have to tell their team what to do and how to do it. Do you find yourself doing more asking or telling in your leadership roles?

      

1. 1. Maximizers focus on transformation.
      Minimizers focus on transactions.
      The main focus of Minimizers is on the task or timeline. They mainly focus on the doing, the what and the how. Maximizers focus on the human being. They focus on the who and the why. They don’t do more with less; they do more with MORE. They get more by using more – more of their team members’ intelligence, capacity, and capability. By focusing on growing their people (transforming them), Maximizers are always increasing the productivity of their team.

1. 1. When Minimizers start a meeting, they focus on the finances and metrics.
      When Maximizers start a meeting, they focus on purpose and vision.
      While finances and metrics are important, Maximizers know that people become engaged and focused around a vision first. Once you have their attention, the numbers and measures naturally flow. Think about the times when your meetings have started out around the measurements and metrics. Did you want to fall asleep? Did you start daydreaming?  Did you have an uncontrollable urge to reach for your smartphone? Focusing on the numbers first can demotivate and disengage the team. Try focusing on the people… that’s what Maximizers do.
      

1. 1. Maximizers are relationship-focused.
      Minimizers are results-focused.
      Now, I’m not saying results aren’t important. That’s not it at all! But more and more research is showing that leaders who are focused on the people and building relationships are 40% to 100% more effective. Think about who you have enjoyed working for, who you’ve given your greatest effort to… Was it the task master or the person who believed in you and your abilities? Was it the person who used their positional power to ‘motivate’ or was it the person who was real, genuine and authentic and cared about YOU?
      

1. Minimizers focus on changing others.
   Maximizers focus on changing themselves.
   Minimizers believe that their success will come from their ability to manage, manipulate and motivate others. Minimizers believe that because they are the boss of others that they are able to ‘control’ others. Maximizers know that they are the boss of only one person. Maximizers know that their success will come when they are better able to manage and motivate themselves. Maximizers learn to get out of their own way and become a great leader.

Some of you may think that Maximizers are ‘soft’. This is not true.  I am reminded of my recent trip to the Bahamas where I ate lunch next to a couple from Texas. Both of them were in the military and had served over in Iraq and Afghanistan. I asked them about the comparison between General McChrystal and General Petraeus.  They said that they didn’t like or have much respect for McChrystal. He didn’t visit the troops much and seemed to want to be the ‘star’ of the show.

They had both met General Petraeus multiple times. They would do anything for him. He had come to where they were,  shook their hands, asked questions about their lives, and stood alongside them in the battlefields. By focusing on the people as well as the mission, he has become the most effective and successful US military leader of this generation. Yet, as my new friends pointed out, when he started, he was viewed as unconventional by military standards. Oh, and he’s not considered ‘soft’… he’s a General!

You see, Maximizers are hard-edged managers of tasks and leaders of PEOPLE. There is nothing “soft” about these leaders. They expect great things from their people and drive them to achieve extraordinary results.  People not only get smarter and more capable around Maximizers, but they are also more willing to go that ‘extra mile’. Team members don’t just feel smarter; they actually become smarter. They can solve harder problems, adapt more quickly, and take more intelligent action, because the leader focused on growing the people and allowing the people to produce the results.

So which type of leader are you today?

What kind of leader would you like to be tomorrow?

Consider these thoughts as you answer those questions:

• What are you doing to change YOU?
• Are you focused on changing your circumstances and manipulating people and things around you?
• Are you focused on changing your thinking and valuing habits?

Adopting a mindset and then applying it is a choice.
You choose, every single day, whether you are cultivating the mindset of a Maximizer or a Minimizer. 

Mindsets are hard to change, but change is possible.

Following the principles of neuro-axiology can make the process much easier and faster. If you are ready to take the next step and learn how to leverage the natural abilities you already possess to move forward, give me a call or respond to this newsletter. You can take a free assessment and learn more about how to focus on your strengths to become a Maximizer – both at work

Quotes

“Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.”

– Lou Holtz

“The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.”

– Henry Kissinger

“People are more easily led than driven.”

– David Harold Fink

“Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.”

– Marian Anderson

“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”

– John Quincy Adams

” A leader’s role is to raise people’s aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there.”

– David Gergen

” If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe