Black Belt Productivity

What we will talk about today is something that we all know, but sometimes forget when the pressure is on. John C. Maxwell in his book The 360° Leader tells us that we must model the behavior that we desire in our organizations.

Consistency is key to establishing the culture you desire in your organization.

Here are several things to think about when establishing a culture in your organization.

- Your behavior determines your culture
- Your attitude determines the atmosphere
- Your values determine the decisions
- Your investment determines the return
- Your character determines the trust
- Your work ethic determines the productivity
- Your growth determines the potential

Today we turn the page to a different perspective. In John C. Maxwell’s 360° Leader, we begin to talk about leading down. If you have employees who look to you for leadership, this is for you.

The first lead-down principle is to walk slowly through the halls. To understand what John is speaking of here, you must first understand that leadership is a business…of people. Leadership is not always about the bottom line. It is often about the people and motivating them to make your business a success. Building sound relationships with those whom you lead makes all of the difference in tough times.

It is very difficult, when you are a leader who is honestly trying to advance, to see yourself in a meeting that you had thoroughly prepared for, only find your idea gets trumped by the idea of another. The discussion goes in a completely different direction than you anticipated. Your idea gets discarded, and with it, your hopes of some great exposure.

According to John C. Maxwell in his book The 360° Leader, it is better to let that idea win, than to fight for your idea when it is not the best one. Good ideas are the lifeblood of an organization. Without them, an organization cannot survive.

Lead up principle #5 in John C. Maxwell’s book The 360° Leader is to expand your circle of acquaintances. the word “expand” for many of us is naturally an uncomfortable word. When something expends, it stretches. Stretching something typically requires at least some discomfort. However, expanding our circle of acquaintances, though sometimes uncomfortable, can be very rewarding.

Doing this can have a couple of benefits. First, an expansion of our comfort zone can expose us to knowledge and experience that we would otherwise have not experienced. It opens out mind to new ideas and helps us think about things from another perspective.

As we continue in John C. Maxwell’s book The 360° Leader, we are talking about leading across. Lead-Across Principle #4 is to avoid politics in the office.

Anyone who works in an office with more than two levels of management, and more than 10 people knows about office politics. We have all been sickened by it. And in spite of that fact, some of us have participated in it..sometimes unknowingly.

In John C. Maxwell’s book The 360° Leader, lead-across principle #3 is Be a Friend.  This is an interesting principle.  Work can be a very competitive environment.  However, in recent weeks, we have discussed how teamwork and working together with other leaders is vital to an organizations health.

One of the key elements of leadership is relationship building.  For may of us, work is not necessarily the place that we spend a lot of time building relationships.   Most of us just want people to leave us alone and allow us to do what we are paid to do.  If you want to develop influence, you must be willing to build relationships.  People will not follow unless they can trust you and they know you have their best interest in mind.

In John C. Maxwell’s book, The 360° Leader , lead across principle number 2 is to put competing fellow leaders ahead of competing with them.

Healthy competition in the workplace can greatly benefit the organization. However, there is a fine line between healthy competition and a cut-throat culture. The line has been crossed when the competition damages organizational motivation and morale. Are you taking the actions you are taking for the purpose of getting ahead, or pushing the organization to its goal?

Maxwell contrasts by using the terms “Competing vs. Completing”.

Since Jason is en route back to Alabama today, I will try to take a stab at the Leadership post for the week. Now he has read (and posted) farther ahead than I am in Maxwell’s The 360° Leader. So I will drop back a bit to a section that I thought a lot about since I read it.

In the past, as we have talked about John Maxwell’s 360° Leader, we have talked about leading up. The principles we talked about in the segment on leading up involved our relationships with our leaders.

However, we cannot stop there. It is obvious that we can lead those who are natural followers. But it is important that we understand how to lead other leaders. How do we relate to our peers?

One thing that makes leading across so difficult is that, in many cases, those whom we are trying to lead will see us as adversaries. If someone attempting to lead across is seen as politically motivated or a brown noser, then their ability to solicit cooperation will be compromised.

Lead up principle #9 in John C. Maxwell’s book The 360° Leader is to be sure you are better tomorrow than you are today.

Growth is one of the things the insures that you will be able to lead from the middle. Many people have goals to become something or reach a specific level. And at that point, they are satisfied. However, that can be deadly to a career where someone wants to lead. As leaders, we never want to “arrive” in our profession. If we ever get satisfied with our place in life, we are finished in terms of growth.