Setting Up Leadership For Life

I’ve been having shameful thoughts! I hear myself blaming society for the leadership we're not experiencing. I feel that everywhere I turn, Leadership is referenced, yet there are no apparent demonstration or modelling of the behaviours we associate with the many styles of leadership which we write and talk about.

Am I alone having these thoughts?

My kids drop the ‘L’ word in their playground as frequently as you hear: “you’re it” and “where is my hat?” At the end of each year, their school hold leadership elections; their peers listen to the many speeches and then vote them in and out! I think ‘they get’ leadership especially when my son highlights the incongruent behaviours of his peers in leadership roles– swearing with their mates in the playground!

I have a greater confidence in the educational system especially when I read ‘Ten leadership lessons you must teach your teenager’ by the controversial Dr Tim Hawkes – who has over 35 years’ experience working with our teens here in Australia and England. His book has the best take on leadership I’ve read for some time. When I grew up, this ‘handful of wisdom’ would have been a nice follow-up to the books on ‘sex education’ slipped to me when I turned 12!

Tim Hawkes pours his knowledge, experience and foresight of the changing world into this informative and interesting book. Whilst it’s aimed at parents/adults, I suspect that any mature teen would enjoy the multiple stories and history lessons which are shrink wrapped into bit sized pieces.

If anything, reading this book would help any parent converse with their teens studying Politics and in particular American and European history. (My appreciation for the many ‘names’ in history has increased exponentially.)

The Ten Lessons are a thoughtful choice which will put many young people in good stead for life. Whilst there are no surprises, the information is prepared for you to have conversations with your teen: questions to explore, stories which build context for each lesson and helpful models to recall the information from each lesson. VUCA, SWOT, Strategic Thinking, Styles of Leadership, Dealing with Difficult People, Writing Resumes are among the useful subjects incorporated into the ten lessons to help young adults make decisions and choices about what they say and do.

The lessons include:

The Choice you make – an attempt to determine why people choose to lead and follow others

A Discipline to learn – identifies what’s required to develop extraordinary skills in life to create whom you will become

An Example to follow – defining the different styles of leadership, when these styles work best and an emphasis on the importance of adults demonstrating these different styles at home

A Calling to hear – how to arrive at an understanding of why you are on earth and how you will help society

An Ending to have – addressing the need for resilience courage and persistence to finish what we start out to do and to accept that failure in life is just as important as winning

No matter what is happening in your home, and what role you play, we all wish to see a change in the behaviour of young people who cause anxiousness, concern and frighten the public. To create a change, we need to help all teens learn about leadership which is essentially making sound decisions. It appears that too many teens and young adults are creating havoc and destruction in our society. If our young can learn from this book, we no doubt will see the change being sought.

This book is very different to the many I have purchased in the airport bookstore. It’s uniquely practical and I rate it in my top five reads. The key to making this book work for you, as a parent or as an interested adult, is to model its content. I believe you’ll learn as much as your teen will learn – about yourself, each other and of course, about Leadership.

I’m endeavouring to read 52 Business/Professional/Personal Development books in 52 weeks. Yep, that’s one a week. As I read each book, I’ll share my thoughts, learning and recommendations. If there is a book that you’ve been meaning to read, let me know and I’ll read it for us!

Have you written your 2017 Goals?

MY SHINING YEAR

Have you written your 2017 goals? It's the 1st of February and if you haven't, I have a book for you which may ease the pain of goal setting.

This isn’t exactly a book … it’s a workbook. Better still I believe … as too many books are read and no action is taken. My Shining Year by the colourful and creative Leonie Dawson provides a platform to Stop, Think, Feel, Write, Do and Discover.

I received my copy of the 2017 My Shining Year from the gorgeous @cynthiamahoney for Christmas and given I was heading on the plane the following day on receiving it, I only found time on Monday (30/1) to read through the workbook and complete most of the activities. There are 160 pages and you could spend an eternity working through it – however, I found myself being able work through it, answering questions, writing ideas ... all very quickly.

It will appear rather quirky even female-focused to some, however, I think this is a super tool to use yourself or in particular, to give to others who would benefit from some support and guidance if they need a boost in their businesses or considering venturing into doing happier things in life.

The workbook does what I believe is very important and that is REVIEW. Reviewing the previous year is the first section - allowing you to leverage off the information recorded in the workbook as you answer the questions. A closing ceremony is a fun way to view this activity. Be reminded of what you did which worked well and the things which didn’t work in your ‘2016’.

Once you’ve closed the door with your 2016 lessons, you can immerse yourself in the guided tour of achieving and creating new goals for 2017. Starting with income (how much do you want to earn!) followed by the resources, support, systems, habits, education, customers and marketing which are evaluated and identified to make things happen.

Plenty of reading is recommended to learn how to make these things happen, (I’ve taken note of a few reads especially in the systems area) and the love or loath activity of ‘dreamboarding’ is highly recommended. Make your dream be achieved by the Law of Attraction. I’m yet to complete my 'dreamboard' – but I have promised myself to spend a weekend afternoon playing with cardboard, glue and magazines.

A component of the workbook provides space to ‘make your goals happen’. With the metaphor of the magical mountain, you need to climb, step by step. This was a fun exercise, involving brainstorming 2017 goals (with myself) and prioritising what’s required to be acted on first – even with dates to commit myself. There's an emphasis on having a ‘mastermind’ or ‘circle of friends’ who can hold you accountable to your plans. (Such an important piece of advice for those on their own.)

I also have a ‘My Shining Day’ planner – which you can use every day to prioritise the activities, remind me to drink water and four important reminders including my favourite – MONOFOCUS. Do one thing at a time!

I’m still completing an activity: 100 things to do in 2017. It’s challenging. I have to dream up 100 glorious goals for me to do in my business this year. Help, I’m only at #11. I need to seriously monofocus on this activity.

So, it’s the 1st of February and already one month of my potential shining year has disappeared (on a gorgeous overseas holiday) so I need to do what I’ve written in this workbook and potentially, we might work together (if you’re reading this now!)

If you’re interested in looking at this workbook – jump over to www.leoniedawson.com – she’s offering 50% off her ‘my shining’ products. I also noted that she supports not-for-profits and gives away these products. This gives you an idea of the type of person behind this workbook – I like it even more that I’ve discovered this generosity.

As usual, if there is a book you’d like me to read for us, let me know. Or, I’d love to hear from you and your thoughts about my previous  24 books which I’ve read and blogged about to help you decide what to read or learn from my learnings. (These are all on my website - under the section of Leadership Thoughts.)

I'm currently reading a great book to help you with your teenagers and I've just downloaded a book which has been on the list for a while: Conversational Intelligence. I'll be reading it this Sunday & Monday as we're driving to/from Canberra. 

I’m endeavouring to read 52 Business/Professional/Personal Development books in 52 weeks. Yep, that’s one a week. As I read each book, I’ll share my thoughts, learning and recommendations. If there is a book that you’ve been meaning to read, let me know and I’ll read it for us!

Successful Morning Practices

Book Review: What the most successful people do before breakfast

Do books need to be two, three, four or five hundred pages long? Is there a prerequisite?

I know that the ‘thud factor’ gives credibility – lots of pages equates to lots of knowledge printed on lots of pages. However, I fear that a big book scares off potential readers. As I near my halfway mark of reading 52 books in 52 weeks, I’ve identified how to read quickly and how to create the time and space to read.

So, I was totally surprised to find that my choice of reading this week was completed in one night. A quick purchase on my Kindle based on the title was only 50 swipes. Complete with a few key lessons – enough to reflect on for the week.

Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People do before Breakfast presents her findings of what others do to make the most of their day.

My daughter Jennifer was perplexed with the cover of the book, a cup of coffee. She doesn’t like the smell of coffee and concerned that she’ll be unable to be successful! So, let's get beyond the cover and I’ll share what I learnt … very quickly!

Depending on what time you rise, and the time you have breakfast, there is a space to fill with activities which some say enables them to be successful.

We all have our own routines, rituals, quirky habits and a mindful of thoughts in the morning, so here’s your opportunity to TICK off if you’re aiding or hindering your successfulness:

·        Wake at 5am – or at a time which gives you an extra 60 to 90 minutes to use wisely

·        Reflect and or Pray on a daily basis

·        Prioritise items to tackle for the day

·        Avoid social media and especially email until you’ve completed a ‘chunk’ of real work

·        Journal your thoughts

·        Exercise - Run, walk, yoga or gym work

How many ticks do you have?

We all have 168 hours in our week and ‘successful’ people use a proportion of these hours a day to nurture their career, relationships and their self.

New research (prior to 2012) identified that self-discipline is in abundance after a good night’s sleep and depletes during the day. I think we’ve already worked that out – I know I can kick off with a healthy breakfast and then arrive at the evening snacking on potato chips while I cook dinner …. 12 hours later! We lapse as the day progresses and whilst some can squeeze in exercise after work or during their lunch break … the research tells us that morning is best; we are fresh and our internal motivation is in abundance to tackle tasks which the outside world isn’t demanding.

The best morning rituals are activities that don’t have to happen and certainly don’t have to happen at a specific hour. These are activities that require internal motivation. These are generally activities which have long term benefits.

So, if you had minimal ticks a few suggestions were offered to change:

·        Tracking your time – identify what you’re doing with your 168 hours a week

·        Picture your perfect morning – visualise what it would look like to be effective in the morning

·        Think through the logistics – what can you change around you to make it work

·        Build the habit – it’s like a muscle … keep practising

·        Tune up as necessary – keep correcting and get your early morning working

This is a seriously short book, however, it’s straight to the point and very implementable. I’ve already adopted the practice of ‘no social media’ in the morning until I’m having a coffee at 10.30am. (Let me tell you, when I do it, it's magic, however, it’s very difficult to change your habits!)

I’m endeavouring to read 52 Business/Professional/Personal Development books in 52 weeks. Yep, that’s one a week. As I read each book, I’ll share my thoughts, learning and recommendations. If there is a book that you’ve been meaning to read, let me know and I’ll read it for us!