Here is the first promised article on the ten soft skills of leadership. The LIFE business builds each one of these into its customers and members. Each subscription sold reaches another person with life-changing truth. It is time for a LeaderShift, and it must begin inside each of us. In any event, here is the self-awareness article. God Bless, Orrin Woodward

3 Stages of Self-Awareness

The first soft-skill principle is self-awareness. Leaders must cut through the illusions most people suffer when it comes to their own strengths and weaknesses in order to identify areas to change. Interestingly, potential leaders swing to one of two extremes when attempting to see themselves as they truly are. On one side, they delude themselves into seeing no issues to work on and quickly blame those around them for any lack of results on the scoreboard—a sure way to never grow personally. However, on the other side, are the people who see others’ strengths and only their own weaknesses; hence, they beat themselves up and never fulfill their potential. The secret is to move from the extremes into the middle point of comprehending one’s strengths while working on one’s weaknesses. This is captured in a simple quote I developed nearly a decade ago:

Find a victory in every defeat to remain hopeful and find a defeat in every victory to remain humble.

Read that quote several times. This is one of the key principles I have utilized to grow in all areas. For in this quote is the secret to the Plan, Do, Check, and Adjust process: a humble, yet hopeful attitude. Since we are humans, we will always make mistakes—this keeps us humble. However, if we work consistently, we will improve greatly and produce phenomenal results, but these will never be perfect so that should also keep us humble. Indeed, John Wooden said to strive for perfection knowing that we will never attain it. Accordingly, humble and hopeful is the proper spirit to attack the leadership obstacles preventing a person from achieving his potential. Nonetheless, the extremes of self-love or self-hatred seem to be the rule, and this is the reason most people do not achieve leadership excellence.

The assignment for today is to peek inside the mental wall created by each reader to help them survive in this world filled with more discouragement, setbacks and haters than encouragement, achievements, and lovers. Even so, a leader must be self-aware and evaluate himself as he truly is so he can move to where he truly wants to be. Here are some questions to ask:

1. What areas of my leadership, if I changed today, would create the most growth for my community?
2. How can I feed my own heart encouragement to continue the change process?
3. How can I be a better encourager for those around me to pour oxygen into their spark of excellence?

Remember the “victory and defeat” quote above to stay humble and hopeful while moving ahead in 2013. Andrew Grove once said, “Only the paranoid survive.” I interpret this quote to mean that those who are self-aware and willing to see things as they truly are will grow, change, and survive. At any rate, are the readers ready to grow? Self-awareness is the key to beginning the change process.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Jean Leslie, a senior fellow with the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), identified ten soft skills for successful business leadership. Each one of these ten skills is taught in the LIFE business. In fact, I believe the soft skills are the difference makers in a leader’s success. Performers can get themselves to do the necessary tasks, but a leader must develop the soft skills to create a culture of success in an organization. Over the next several weeks, I will be diving into these ten skills to identify how to improve in each one. I have had a front-row seat in encouraging and mentoring many top leaders today who have worked on their soft skills. LIFE is life training for everyone to grow and become the leader he or she was called to be. Here are the ten soft skills.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

1. Self-awareness: Leaders must have an accurate picture of their strengths and weaknesses.

2. Learning agility: This is an individual’s readiness, willingness, and ability to learn from experience.

3. Emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence is a constellation of abilities that help leaders deal with their emotions and the emotions of others.

4. Resiliency: Bouncing back from adversity.

5. Building relationships at all levels: Being able to show compassion, sensitivity, and a sense of humor with others—above and below in organizational structure—and being able to cultivate these relationships toward positive business performance.

6. Political savvy: The ability to influence people to obtain goals. The heart of being politically savvy, according to CCL, is networking, reading situations, and thinking before speaking. Not every leader likes politics, but it’s present in every organization.

7. Motivating and engaging others: How many leaders have been successful when they cannot motivate their teams?

8. Building and leading effective teams: This is one of the top challenges CEOs report, according to CCL. Building trust, setting strategic direction, and breaking down silos are some of the micro skills needed.

9. Creating a culture of trust and respect: This has become a big challenge since the rise of virtual communication, yet trust and respect among team members—and chiefly among leaders—is paramount.

10. Communication: Voicing goals and inspiring others is vital—but so is listening.

Home Business Radio Network’s Leadership Factory has some of the best leaders in community building sharing their trade secrets with the world! Tony Cannuli and I host the show sponsored by HBRN and its co-founder Doug Firebaugh. This week’s guest is one of the fastest growing within the LIFE business. In fact, Wayne and Raylene recently went Policy Council level in LIFE. This is one of the highest echelons attainable within the community and is due to the tireless efforts, huge dreams, and massive resolve of this couple. Claude and Lana Hamilton joined our community back in late 2007, and that is when I first met Wayne at a men’s leadership meeting. He was barely a Turbo 10 (just over 20 people at events), but now he has over 1,000 people attending events—impressive, to say the least! Enjoy the interview and please share the key nuggets that you learn.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward

Tony Cannuli and I had the special privilege to interview one of the best leaders in the community building field on Home Business Radio Network’s Leadership Factory – George Guzzardo. George has been a friend and business partner for nearly 20 years. When Doug Firebaugh, co-founder of HBRN and great friend asked me to start the Leadership Factory I gladly accepted the assignment. It’s an honor to play my part in supporting his network of radio programming to lift up the entire home business field.

George’s thoughts on the importance of long-term vision in maintaining one’s composure, despite lack of results and criticism was worth the whole show. The reason George Guzzardo has thousands of people attending events around the US and Canada through the LIFE Business is because he begins with the end in mind. In other words, even when events are not going in the direction he wants, he knows to stay focused on his longterm vision and to utilize his energy in creation, not negation. Too many quit when the going gets tough, but George gets going like the proverbial energizer bunny!

Over twenty years, I have witnessed a pattern in George and Jill’s business of personal breakthroughs leading to massive increases in business. The old saying that the speed of the group is the speed of the leader is true. Personal breakthroughs from George and Jill led to faster personal speed which led to faster group speeds. George’s resilience alone is worth a book and the good news is, with the goals George has set, we will be reading that book soon! Here is HBRN’s Leadership Factory with George Guzzardo.

Sincerely,

Orrin Woodward