Subliminal Leadership
Forgive my Saturday silliness and those with mobile devices may have difficulty reading this post.
Today’s scintillating post is a selection of surprising “S” words for leaders.
Unsuccessful leaders:
- Shelter from tough truths. Sugarcoating prevents solutions.
- Solace slackers.
- Support quickly. Better to allow suffering than step in or sympathize too soon. Comfort and coddling end growth.
- Scapegoat.
- Straddle the fence. Straddling seems safe but stagnates. The issue for straddlers isn’t seeing both sides its courage.
Successful leaders:
- Simplify. The hardest path to find is the simple path. On the other hand, lazy, weak, self-satisfied leaders create complexity.
- Summarize. Effective leaders boil things down; unsuccessful get lost in the weeds. Great systems are summaries.
- Make people squirm. High standards, accountability, and the pursuit of excellence aren’t comfortable. Sticklers are irritating.
- Serve without becoming slaves or creating dependence.
- Shape culture.
Which “S” word that I listed is most important, from your viewpoint?
What “S” word for leaders can you add?
Dear Dan,
A Good post indeed. It makes us to think more than to write. I would like to add some words for successful and some for unsuccessful leaders. Unsuccessful leaders are sucker, they suck energy of their colleagues and fellow. They are sarcastic about people and try to show their style without substance. They are self centric and become sly to get benefit. In the organization, they show servile attitude to achieve what they want. Successful leaders on the other hand have substance over style. They do not believe in style. They love to serve and surge ahead in life. They surmount odd circumstances and encourage others to surpass difficulties and resistance. I believe the most successful leaders who create impact are servant leaders.
There is difference between serve and servile attitude. Successful leaders believe in service to needy and underprivileged section. Unsuccessful leaders express servile attitude to fulfill their hidden motive.
Dang, I can’t believe I didn’t include sarcastic!! Thanks Ajay
Hey Dan.. my copy has 239 words missing!! 🙂
…so I guess the S is “succinct”
My count is 157 words including the questions.
Same…
great s
Mine has missing words too! Please re-send 🙂
🙂
it’s not showing up in safari! > Mark > Mark McGoldrick > Cru Atlanta (formerly Priority Associates of Atlanta) > 770.331.4994 Cell > 678.822.8106 x 21 Direct > 875 Old Roswell Road, > Suite C-400 > Roswell, GA 30076 > mark@cruatlanta.org > http://www.crupa.org >
you have surprised us with sarcasm and sent us a slippery blog post on a Saturday! Subliminal salutations and soldiered successful!
Dan,
I also couldn’t read your words so I’ll make up some of my own.
START. Leaders start. They don’t try to know everything before they start.
SOLVE. Leaders are problem solvers. They look for SOLUTIONS or people with ideas about solutions along the way.
STOP briefly. They may stop briefly to reflect. But they don’t stop forever.
SAILS. They adjust the sails when the winds or the markets change.
START again. They start again when they fail. They don’t just stagnate.
How did I do?
Dauna
Super…
Your creative nature astounds me at times. I have to add “Start” and “Stir”. I tend to START up discussions and STIR up the creativity. Great post…
Fantastic words. Thanks!
My eyebrow shot up at first glance, Dan! I thought “Ouch! Auto-post strikes!”
I hear a lot of leaders talk about serving a company’s culture, but a leader must SHAPE the culture. Particularly like that point.
Some say shaping culture is The work of top leadership. Thx.
Yo D, not sure wha happened but can’t see any of the words beside the letters, not sure if page loaded correctly.
In any CASE, first up Cathy watched Bob Chapman’s Defining Moments video. Want to Sincerely Thank her. How TREMENDOUS IS DAT? Pretty TREMENDOUS in my book!
Guess what, opening her mind to something she had not seen before………drumroll………..did not kill her! She said she found what Bob Chapman had to say Compelling but kinda felt he lacked a dynamic manor in his delivery.
My S word is “Scotoma”….means blind spot. Hope you realize you have one, some of you, wider from here to the farthest spot the science dudes can see out into the universe!!!!!!!! Pretty pretty wide! LOL All of us have them it ain’t no big deal. Unless you are in denial about it.
That is cool though, really, watched Through The Wormhole Wednesday and it is a function of the brain to filter info cause if we tried to process it all at once we would have a meltdown.
My important S word is Sincere. For me in order to be Truly Sincere it starts with Honesty.
Here is an idea, think it over.
I meet with Outsiders, folks who have no idea about Business and Leadership. Say a group of High School Seniors. Imagine I start telling then about Mash and All in the Family! Archie, Edith, Meathead, Hawkeye…….they got NO CLUE, right?
They know all about Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, right.
So they come to looking at Leadership and Business with a completely clean slate, right? Ok l let them know Gallop does a poll and it says 70% of employees using the strategies in this area leave work feeling pretty darn crummy. Think they wanna go work for companies using these strategies?
Then there is another company using a new strategy and 72% of the people who work there love their jobs.
These kids have no “Scotoma” to keep them from seeing something so obvious. No Brainer if you have no Scotoma messing your Vision of the OBVIOUS. Right? Or Wrong?
Ok so you show them US employees steal 997 Billion Bucks a year from their employers!
Then show them this company has this Program the employees can VOLUNTARILY contribute to to HELP fellow Teammates if they get in a position they need some help. The program is called From Our Hearts to Your Hands.
So then you ask these kids not hindered by a Scotoma what Leadership Model they want to be taught and use in their lives. Ask these kids when they get out of school where they wanna work, a Traditional Leadership model (fails 7 out of every 10), or this other thing?
Seriously, you really think the answer to that is that tough? Looking at that with no Scotoma is just plain obvious, ISN”T IT?
Dan hope you can clearly understand the power you posses as THE LEADER here. I feel you do. Suggest a book here, an article there, a concept, whatever, most people will AT LEAST consider it. I do! I have followed your recommendations and have been thankful, especially Dan Pink and Mark Miller, GREAT STUFF!
So is your Leadership style a two way street? I HIGHLY recommend Bob Chapman’s video Defining Moments and check out his website Truly Human Leadership and his Companies website…Barry Wehmiller.com.
And you know what is next…..Simon Sinek….book Start With Why….video Understanding People and Business.
Ok so if you really have no frame of reference cause you have not watched and read, I am asking you to. Will yas?
Till then what kind of an opinion can be shared with nothing to base it on but thin air? Ouchie, maybe?
Now is this fair? I am just some irritating lunkhead who writes WAY TOO MUCH and who am I to ask the Leader here to do what he asks of me? Boy that really takes a set, don’t it?
Kinda , sorta , think your response displays what you believe about Leadership, is it a two way street or not? Won’t it? I got to admit, I am more open when I ASK and find it much harder when I am asked. You? Hard to admit that for me.
I know I encourage ANY and ALL of the folks I work with, around, for or by title work for me…..ANYTHING and everything you feel is important to you, PLEASE feel open and free to share it with me cause maybe you have something that can make us better.
I do all I can to make sure everyone knows that! WHY?
They might just be right and help me blow my Scotoma right out of the water! THAT IS NOTHING BUT A GREAT THING. Dan think it could be that way for you? I know you already do this when you hear stuff from your mentors, but what about that when you hear stuff from other sources, what then?
Anyway, THANK YOU CATHY, hope you look further! Hope the hour and nine minutes you took to open your mind that ended in a COMPELLING results spurs you to further investigation. Hope you share a little more with everyone here what you experienced watching that video.
For me the more I expose myself to Starting With Why and Bob Chapman and Truly Human Leadership and Barry Wehmiller the more amazing what they are saying and doing is.
Think others if they find a reason WHY to obliterate their Scotoma and LOOK, READ, LISTEN and THEN DETERMINE VALUE are likely to find the same as me and Cathy.
Again Cathy you will never know how much I appreciate and HONOR your willingness to take your valuable time to look into something you knew nothing about. How unselfish an act was DAT? Very.
I wait on nothing with more eagerness than hearing more from YOU about what more you discover if you continue your pursuit to know more about Truly Human Leadership.
Also hope everyone else who reads this blog see nothing of a calamatis nature happened to you cause you investigated something you knew nothing about.
SP OUT and Dan mean absolutely no disrespect cause I ask direct questions. I have found sometimes in my past experience people see it that way when they are not comfy with the answers they got to give.
Simon Sinek’s “Start With Why” resides on my Kindle, where I regularly reference it after having read it about 18 months ago. Am I up for sainthood yet? 🙂 jk It is truly a game changer.
Would you please send this again? Only part of it came through. THaNkYoU
Sent from my iPhone
A leadership model needs to be centred around the concept that the leader has to make things happen,be it in sales, revenues, profits, growth, employee satisfaction, credit rating, shareholder value and so on if he has to be of value in a corporate world.
The leader to make things happen must firstly be sincere…
Secondly he must be sure
Thirdly he must be secure and ensure security
and so on…more in my next
Love this post… subliminal is as subliminal does. It is only when you try to copy (in this case click and move the cursor over as if trying to ‘copy/paste’ to reveal the white text against the white background) that those special qualities of a good leader become narrowed into the constraints of vocabulary. Sometimes leadership qualities are like waves on a sandy beach – they come and then they go, but you can’t capture them. An individual quality may be found in a good leader or a poor leader. It is the synergy from a collection of qualities that is the fingerprint of a good leader.
…not supposed to give away the secret…..
Make people squirm, definitely. I’ve learned and grown the most from that over the years, and I had a very strong core upbringing to be able to think, reason and use imagination and critical thinking to find my way. I find most younger people/junior staff didn’t have that, at least not so in depth, and really need to go through basic squirming to find their abilities even before moving to more advanced squirming. hehehe