Orrin Woodward on LIFE & Leadership

Here is a fantastic article by leadership guru Warren Bennis.  Many leaders on the Team display these qualities and characteristics.  In order to have a learning organization, the top leaders must model: dedication to the cause, magnanimity in success and failure, humility to admit you do not have all the answers, openness to hear different opinions, and creativity to develop new techniques without losing the core principles.  I would have to give the Team leaders high marks on these leadership qualities.  My goal has never been to just talk about leadership, but to lead.  I can write books all day long, but I have the most enjoyment helping someone else develop the abilities to lead and the belief in themselves that they can lead.  The two greatest commandments from God can be summed up as – Love God with all my heart and soul and Love others as yourself.  When we get our own heart right with God then the next most important thing is to serve others and teach everything we have learned.  I love my life because I spend it learning, growing and sharing.   I can mentor people when they have a specific business they are attempting to build and we can confront reality and change what needs to be changed.  I cannot mentor someone who is not pursuing a specific goal with a hunger to achieve it.  Are you leading a team or merely talking about leadership?  There is a MAJOR difference!  Here is the article and please share how you are doing on developing these qualities.  God Bless, Orrin Woodward

 

Integrity means alignment of words and actions with inner values. It means sticking to these values even when an alternative path may be easier or more advantageous.

 

A leader with integrity can be trusted and will be admired for sticking to strong values. They also act as a powerful model for people to copy, thus building an entire organization with powerful and effective cultural values.

 

Dedication

 

Dedication means spending whatever time and energy on a task is required to get the job done, rather than giving it whatever time you have available.

 

The work of most leadership positions is not something to do ‘if time’. It means giving your whole self to the task, dedicating yourself to success and to leading others with you.

 

Magnanimity

 

A magnanimous person gives credit where it is due. It also means being gracious in defeat and allowing others who are defeated to retain their dignity.

 

Magnanimity in leadership includes crediting the people with success and accepting personal responsibility for failures.

 

Humility

 

Humility is the opposite of arrogance and narcissism. It means recognizing that you are not inherently superior to others and consequently that they are not inferior to you. It does not mean diminishing yourself, nor does it mean exalting yourself.

 

Humble leaders do not debase themselves, neither falsely nor due to low self-esteem. They simply recognize all people as equal in value and know that their position does not make them a god.

 

Openness

 

Openness means being able to listen to ideas that are outside one’s current mental models, being able to suspend judgement until after one has heard someone else’s ideas.

 

An open leader listens to their people without trying to shut them down early, which at least demonstrates care and builds trust. Openness also treats other ideas as potentially better than one’s own ideas. In the uncertain world of new territory, being able to openly consider alternatives is an important skill.

 

Creativity

 

Creativity means thinking differently, being able to get outside the box and take a new and different viewpoint on things.

 

For a leader to be able to see a new future towards which they will lead their followers, creativity provides the ability to think differently and see things that others have not seen, and thus giving reason for followers to follow.