Posts Categorized: Character

Published on November 30, 2010 by Scott Gould

What is your biggest weakness?

The Empty BoxI have a group of leaders that I mentor. Some are older than me, some are the same age, and some are younger. But as a Pastor in my church, it is I who is the leader of this group of leaders that I’m raising.

We asked some questions last week, along the lines of “How do I lead myself well? How do I not lead myself well?”, and I of course came prepared already with my answers which was a very good excercise and made me think that I’d like to get to know you all better by asking a tough question today: what is your weakness?

My Weakness

I’m a strong person with a strong sense of direction and structure and the ability to obsessively become expert in an area very quickly. The weakness, however, is that I am not consistent. I can lead others well, but I tend to go through stages where I’m great, and stages where I’m not, and this is detrimental not only to myself, but to the teams I lead across the areas of my life.

I’m strategising ways to minimise this – accountability with mentors and friends, finding simpler ways to organise myself, having more thinking time and not being as busy, etc.

But perhaps the biggest way I’m minimizing it is through the conversations I’m having with all of you. The wisdom I gain from here is exceptionally insightful. I mean comments like this one from Robin Dickinson are like years of mentoring in one boast.

Your Leading Thoughts

  • What is your weakness?
  • How can we help you minimize it?

Photo courtesy of bitzcelt

Published on November 28, 2010 by Scott Gould

Video: Leadership is Influence

I’ve been reading John Maxwell books since I was 16 – so that means for 10 years I’ve been a student of his – and this is probably the most important lesson that I’ve learnt from him: Leadership is influence. Watch the video below to hear John explain why:

In this, John quotes his favourite leadership parable – “if someone believes they are a leader but no one is following them, then they are simply taking a walk.”

I know that many people will want to disagree with this. It’s uncomfortable to boil the essence of leadership down to influence because it says that if we aren’t good leaders then we aren’t influential – but then that is essentially the point – if I lead people, it’s because I influence them. This isn’t arrogance, it is understanding that because of who I am, or the position I hold, or what I’ve done, I have earned and wield influence.

For many years I had people’s respect, but I didn’t necessarily influence them. I had to take a long hard look at myself and realise that whilst people did look up to me, they didn’t look to me for leadership. I think this is probably a common trait – we know that people respect us, but leading them is a different thing.

Your Leading Thoughts

  • How have you come to find this is true in your life? What are some of your wins and failures to help us learn lessons from your life?
  • If you disagree – then why? What are your experiences (not just logic) that say different?
Published on November 25, 2010 by Scott Gould

Your Most Valuable Leadership Quality Is…?

I spend a lot of time with different groups of people that I am either leading or also mentoring in leadership. As you know, I like participation and know that I need them to speak in order to learn, and I have a number of ways of doing that that simultaneously helps me get deeper insight into people and therefore be able to lead them or help them more effectively.

One of those ways that I learnt from Andrew Davies is asking people what their most valuable leadership quality is or another way to ask is what leadership quality they value the most. The response always tells you so much about people, and also gets people thinking in a reflective way about themselves. It also helps youThere’s a number you could pick:

  • Good communication skills
  • Hard worker
  • Good with people
  • Visionary
  • Determined
  • Flexible
  • Patient
  • Prayerful

The Friends here would like to know what yours is. But it’s only fair that I first tell you mine. To start, the most valuable quality that I desire in others in initiative. I find that if someone can think forward, take ownership, and then work with me not just for me, then I truly have got a leader. Leadership isn’t just about leading ‘down’, it’s a 360° circle where we lead ‘up’ and ‘across’ too.

Your Leading Thoughts

  • What is your most valuable leadership quality? or
  • What leadership quality to you value most in others?

Photo of myself and John Harvey at Like Minds by Benjamin Ellis

Published on November 24, 2010 by Scott Gould

Too Busy Helping People To Help People

Regular friends here know I’ve been less than regular in posting here over the last few months. The reason why is that I’ve actually had a personal break through of sorts around an issue I discussed with Robin Dickinson last week. In a comment on one of his though provoking posts (as they always are), I wrote:

I love Robin’s approach here because as of late I’ve been switching my focus. Even though everything I do is about helping people, I found I was ‘too busy for people because I’m too busy helping people’, when ‘helping’ is admin and emails rather than face to face connection and encouragement.

Isn’t this just everyone’s story – we’re too busy helping people to help people.

I am a pastor at my church, I run Like Minds, I engage with you all here, and I do a bit of speaking, all of which are about helping people. In fact, I have pretty much wound down my consultation because I want to spend more time helping people.

But here’s the kicker – I so often found that in all my work trying to help people (admin for our sunday service, preparing the Like Minds conference, thinking about what to speak about), I actually had no time left to actually sit face to face and help people! It’s the dilemma that I was putting paper before people.

This must be some form of torture, to spend all your hours trying to move a bottom line that you never actually touch or confront.

So, I’ve been spending a good amount of time directly with people as of late, and it’s been so much more fruitful. I’m putting people first, paper second.

Now, the trick is to get some balance and engage with you all here more – I’ve missed you over the last 10 days.

Your Leading Thoughts

  • Have you come up against the same wall in your life? (I expect you have)
  • How have your overcome it – OR – what help do you need from us to help you overcome it?
Published on October 23, 2010 by Scott Gould

Who Are We When No One Knows Our Name?

Your Hands

I read a great line in a post by Carra Hughes Greer on “Virtual Values“. In it, Carra discusses the virtual reality of things like ethics, morality and values, citing bullying and therefore cyber bulling as one of her main examples that the online world is by no means an ethical utopia, but requires the same kind of social awareness that we have offline.

She finishes with this excellent line:

I think about the adage, “Character is who you are when no one is watching.” It seems the adage must be slightly updated to fit our context, “Character is who you present yourself to be and the things you say when no one knows your real-world name.”

I really resonate with this. I wrote in this article at the beginning of the year that as a community, we must stop giving value to those who are unaccountable. It seems everyone can have their two cents today, without being accountable for the words they speak because they hide their real-world name.

What Carra says won’t resonate with everyone though. I got a lot of criticism earlier this year and most of it from people without real-world names on Twitter or the comments on this blog. For many people, character and accountability don’t matter. But for those of us for whom it does, this is a call to up our game.

I know many times I’ve behaved in a way online – even with my name visible – that I wouldn’t offline. So thank you, Carra, for calling me on it.

Your Leading Thoughts

  • Who are you when no one knows your real-world name? (Or when no one knows your real-world face?)

Photo by Toni Blay

Published on October 20, 2010 by Scott Gould

Truth is life’s most priceless commodity

My friend Ian Ballinger tweeted this out this morning: Truth is life’s most priceless commodity.

Your Leading Thoughts

I was talking to someone last night about how people think they are right a l0t of the time.

  • This is somewhat of the stubbornness that you need to succeed today though, right?
  • I have “mirrors” in my life – close friends to reflect the truth to me when I don’t see it myself. How do you ensure truth shines into your life?
Published on October 17, 2010 by Scott Gould

Video: From No Limbs To No Limits (Must Watch)

Watch this and you’ll never clammer for the victim seat again.

I love this guy already. I want to get him to our church and to Like Minds without a shadow of a doubt.

What resonates with me the most? “I may not be able to hold my wife’s hand, but I can hold her heart.”

Your Leading Thoughts

  • What resonates with you most about this video.
Published on July 24, 2010 by Scott Gould

Get In The Arena

Most churches have passive banners from the 1980′s of Jesus on their walls. We have this quote by Roosevelt on a giant 4 x 3 metre banner I designed:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Here’s the challenge:

1. Take this weekend to firstly rest and refreshen. Enjoy your loved ones, meet new people, go for a drive – whatever it is. Be sure you something that helps you get a bit of perspective. Mine is a drive in the country.

2. Then get out paper and pen, and write down the deepest things in your heart that you aren’t moving towards like you know you should do.

3. Pick one and write down the very next action, with a due date.

4. Surround yourself with comrades that are also in the arena, for accountability and encouragement. You’ll need them both.

5. Do it. And don’t listen to a single word from any detractors. (If you need to get over failure, read this from Olivier Blanchard.)

Your Leading Thoughts

  • What is it?
Published on July 23, 2010 by Scott Gould

Robin’s Thoughts on Maintenance

balanceIn our discussion recently on “it’s easier to obtain than maintain“, we looked at how we deal with the everyday ‘boring’ work, considering most of us are type A, driven, motivation fuelled people.

One comment really stuck at as having a lot of gold in, from my dear friend Robin Dickinson. (It’s not the first time. He’s been doing this for a year now…)

Before I quote the comment and share my thoughts on what he said, it’s important to point out in the spirit of curation that Robin’s blog is the best self-focus and business development blog that I engage with, and also a model community for many to follow on what Robin and I call the ‘comment driven blog’.

Robin has innovated a few things on his blog. First of all, the comment driven blog post as mentioned above, 2 minute ‘Black Chair‘ videos, and more recently, the start of the Sharewords community through a blog post that has had over 1,000 comments. This blog post is in my opinion an internet phenomena, and a shining example of a value-based approach towards social media (and one that I follow.) I thoroughly recommend that you subscribe in your RSS and get acquainted with Robin on Twitter.

How A Master Maintains

The point is that Robin is someone who continually obtains – but is also the best I know at maintaining. So when he left this comment, and with such focus, I listened. Here it is (original link):

“what practical skills and tips have you learnt to keep things maintained?”

Quick list, in no particular order:

* Have a long-term plan (3-5 year horizon);
* Know what really pays the bills and stick to it;
* Have a life outside of work;
* Pace yourself;
* Know when and what to automate and delegate;
* Max-min key processes: design for maximum result for minimum effort;
* Measure and track key business indicators;
* Take full control of and responsibility for the numbers – the finances;
* Understand WHY you are doing what you do – have a solid rationale;
* Understand how to achieve and stay diamond focused on what really works.

My takeaways: there is balance here. Practically, I can see that Robin splits his days between obtaining new and maintaining the old, and I can see that when it comes to maintenance, he maintains the fun stuff and he maintains the essential and sometimes boring stuff too. The real winner is that he harnesses the power of a habit that has a strong focus.

Your Leading Thoughts

I’ll be honest with you – my daily routine has become a bit unbalanced as of late. When I’m in balance, I find I am far more productive, but out of balance I work harder but find I punching a lot of air and tend to be unfocussed and less productive even though I am working more.

  • How balanced are you? How so you balance obtaining with maintaining?
  • And how can we help each other to become more balanced?

Photo courtesy of han s’

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