How Important are You?

LeadToday

Are you an important person? Are you perhaps even a Very Important Person? Are you more important than someone else?

If the answer to those first two questions was a resounding yes then good for you. Understanding that you have value in this world and to those around you is healthy and in fact necessary for success.

If however, your answer to that third question was also a yes, even a hesitant yes, well then not so good for you.

It’s great to know that no one in this world is more important than you. It’s only useful to know it if you also know that you’re no more important than anyone else. As you’re sitting on the bus in traffic looking at the person in the back seat of a limousine you may be tempted to think that person must be pretty important. They are – just NOT MORE…

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Why YOU Matter!

LeadToday

There are few things in life that you absolutely must know. I suppose even those few things could be debated. The few things we must know vary by person as well. Your occupation or profession will also partially determine what you need to know too. Where you live might make a difference along with how long you live.

What you need to know is at least a little different than what I need to know or what the person who lives down the street needs to know. But there is one thing that every single living human being needs to know.

They matter!

YOU matter!

There is absolutely no way you could ever stop mattering. Even if you allow someone to convince you that you are somehow inferior to other people YOU still matter. YOU matter whether you believe it or not, so believe it!

Because YOU matter, never let…

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Are you a VIP?

LeadToday

Are you an important person? Are you perhaps even a Very Important Person? Are you so important that you’re more important than someone else?

If the answer to those first two questions was a resounding yes then good for you. Understanding that you have value in this world and to those around you is healthy and in fact necessary for success.

If however, your answer to that third question was also a yes, even a hesitant yes, well then not so good for you.

It?s great to know that no one in this world is more important than you. But?. it?s only useful to know if you also know that you?re no more important than anyone else. As you’re sitting in the back seat of a limousine watching someone board the city bus for their commute to work you may start feeling pretty good about your station in life. That’s…

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What Makes a Leader

LeadToday

Calling yourself a leader does not make you a leader. Holding a position of leadership in your organization does not make you a leader. Having an important sounding title does not make you a leader. Having someone else describe you as a leader does not make you a leader.

Your promotion to a leadership position does not make you a leader, in fact the managerial skills that likely earned you the promotion are very likely holding you back as a leader.

If you’re trying to manage your people then you will always have people problems. Human beings do not respond to being managed. Actually leading your people will permanently eliminate most of the “people problems” managers face everyday.

So, here are a handful of traits that contribute to being a leader:

Risking your success being hidden inside the success of someone else makes you a leader.

Caring as much about…

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Uncommon Leadership

LeadToday

I’ve had the opportunity to spend several days recently with a person recently promoted to a leadership position. He was very good at what he did and earned his promotion. His promotion came with a new title and higher income, unfortunately what it didn’t come with was any hint of how to actually lead. So he doesn’t lead, he just tries to get by managing his new team.

I’ve seen the same scenario play out literally hundreds of times through the years. A person is good at what they do so they are promoted into a leadership role even through they have little, or more commonly, no leadership experience or skills at all.

I call them common leaders. I don’t mean to be disparaging here but it is what it is… common leadership really isn’t leadership at all. At its best it’s just managing and and at it’s worst it’s…

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Are You a Born Leader?

LeadToday

The question of whether leaders are made or born is about as old as leadership itself. I am firmly on the “made” side.

While some people do seem to be born with certain traits of leadership; extraversion, self-confidence, and courage are but a few that come to mind, there are many people who have those traits and yet never lead. So traits alone do not make a leader.

There are also readily identifiable qualities and characteristics of leadership but merely possessing those characteristics does not make a person a leader. For instance, I believe that to lead people you must care about them, truly truly care. So caring is a prime leadership characteristic for me. But I know many many caring people who do not seek leadership opportunities.

It is ultimately the actions of an individual that makes them a leader. It’s what they do with the qualities and characteristics…

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Compliance is not Commitment

LeadToday

No one has every done anything that they didn’t want to do!

Almost everyone would disagree with that statement and everyone who disagrees would be wrong. Almost everyone would say they have been made to do something they didn’t want to do. It could have been by their parents, their boss, maybe a spouse (I hope not a spouse) maybe a friend or co-worker. But the fact is they didn’t really make you do something that you didn’t want to do.

They found a way to make you want to do it.

They provided you with a choice. Either do this or something bad will happen to you. They made the “something bad” worse than the thing you would have preferred not to do. You considered your options and decided to do the thing you would have preferred not to instead of receiving the “something bad” as an alternative.

You…

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