Terry Starbucker is a native Midwesterner now living in Portland, Oregon, spreading “realistic optimism” through a philosophy he calls “Half-Fullism“. He has been in the business world for over 28 years in various leadership positions, most recently as a senior operations executive for a service business based in the Rocky Mountain west.
In Terry’s words, “I am a constantly learning student of leadership, and am happy to share my ideas, experiences and knowledge through this blog.” That quote should show you why I like Terry and his writing so much!
We’re proud he is one of the nominees for this year’s Best of Leadership Blogs. Have you voted yet?
My 10 Favorite Leadership Lessons
by Terry Starbucker (7/05/09)
As I’ve noted on my blog many times before, I love practicing and studying the art of leadership.
In my 28 years in the business world, I’ve been fortunate enough to observe great (and not so great) leaders, read many books about leadership, and gain many years of experience as a leader myself.
Through all this I’ve walked away with a ton of lessons about what makes a great leader, and I’ve enjoyed writing about many of them on this blog.
But 10 of them are my favorites – the lessons that have “stuck” with me and are now a part of my daily practice. The ones that I believe are critical to excellence in leadership.
I present them in more detail below, and I invite you to dig a little deeper and click through to my original post on each lesson. After you do, let me know what you think, and if they resonate with you. Let’s keep learning together!
Leaders must:
- Practice “Full Spectrum” management, where high performers get the recognition they deserve, AND underperformers either get coached or let go.
- Teach instead of just tell, by using repetition, consistency, plain English, common sense, and best of all, rolling up the sleeves and showing them how it’s done.
- Be an Enabler, not a Disabler, because if we can’t entrust someone with proper responsibilities commensurate with the job description, we simply shouldn’t hire them.
- Develop a Zen-like mantra of goals that permeate the minds of all your teammates, and watch great stuff happen.
- Avoid inertia at all costs – or risk heading in the wrong direction. Provide the needed acceleration to propel a business forward, always.
- Trust the facts, for if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. As John Adams said, they are indeed “stubborn things”
- Understand that words alone don’t make the leader– proper presentation, attitude, inflection, cadence and structure are musts to inspire to action.
- Exhibit a blend of will and humility – we push hard knowing we don’t have all the answers, with a sense of decency, fairness and mindfulness.
- Know “the secret of work” for their team – the passion, the cause, and the fun that results.
- Be able to mix it up and do the unexpected, like break out in song at a staff meeting. Put in a memorable hook to go with your message.
…..
This is the first of these great posts that I included completely, because I wasn’t sure were to break it! Plus, this post gives links to ten other posts from Terry that further describe these points and showcase his writing.
These ten lessons deserve your consideratin and ongoing learning. They could clearly constitue a learning plan for you for 10 days, 10 weeks, or a lifetime as a learning leader.
I hope this post is both informational and inspirational to you.
And if you haven’t voted for Terry or any of the other ten nominees, I hope you will solve that right now – by voting of course!
0 comments