19 May Leadership G.P.S.
How do you define leadership?
What we’re looking at today is one of the definitions of leadership is how do we help people get what they want when they want it? How do we take them to where they want to go when they want to get there? And so I’d like to just give you a quick analogy, seeing as though it’s the springtime and people have been traveling and going on spring break. Think about it for a minute that if you were going to take your family or yourself and go on spring break and you were going to do so via a road trip, and maybe you’re going South or Northwest, East, whatever, it doesn’t matter; and you’re going to a place you’ve never been before, what do you think you’re going to do? You’re going to figure out how to get there right, and you’re going to determine how much time it’s going to take. But the whole point of how to get there is you need some tools, and so what are you going to do? You’re going to go take out your handy dandy map, you’re going to open it up and you’re going to flip to the page where it shows you where you’re trying to go and you’re going to start plotting the course right?
No you’re not, you’re probably saying “Chris that was like 20 years ago,” you’re like “Chris I’m going to go into my phone… into my GPS…” or “I’m going to go into my vehicle, into my GPS and I’m going to plug in some basic coordinates, where I’m at and where I’m trying to go and all I’m going to do is just listen to the little voice, male or female, tell me “In two point eight miles get off Exit 41.”
So in reality what it is is you have a tool that’s going to help navigate you from where you’re at and where you’re trying to go, and in the meantime it’s going to give you all the directives, it’s going to tell you all the steps along the way, the amount of time it’s going to take, the whole nine yards, so that you can do what? You can focus on the action that you need to take which for the road trip it’s driving, paying attention to your peripherals, obstacles, and making sure you’re at where you’re trying to go.
And so as far as leadership we do the same thing for our people, we become a GPS in sorts for them. And this acronym focuses, or the element and understanding of GPS is an acronym where we focus on a goal, what are the priorities… we did a previous video on understanding your priorities where the very definition of priority is something that supersedes everything else, and so we have a goal, we have our priorities that we need to focus on that supersedes everything else, the critical and vital tasks that I previously talked about, we’ll put a link in the comment section to access that video. And then what are your strategies, how do you go about executing that? What are you going to execute? And all three things need to be in play, why? Because you need to have a focus on a goal, that’s your point B, that’s where you’re trying to go, that’s the spring break party, that’s visiting your family, that’s going to grandma…ma’s with regard to the analogy that I used for the road trip. The goal is your Point B, it’s understanding where you’re trying to go, and you must have a clear understanding of the goal.
Now inside that goal there are some things that we need to focus on, and it’s another acronym called SMART- specific, measurable action-oriented, realistic, and time- bound. And we’ll do a separate video on that here in the coming days, but just understand you must establish a goal and have a SMART goal, a specific goal right, it needs to be very specific; you need to be able to measure it; it needs to have action behind it, the understanding of the action; it needs to be realistic; and it needs to be time-bound. What we understand about goals is there’s no a realistic goal, the only thing that becomes unrealistic sometimes for people is time, the amount of time it takes to accomplish that goal.
So leaders how we help our people is we get them focused on a very specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, time-bound goal, where are you trying to go? And then we create their priorities, three to five critical and one vital task inside every goal, and we get focused on that. So to learn more about that visit our video either on our Youtube link, if you’re watching this live on Facebook or even on replay go to our Youtube, we’ll post our Youtube link in the comments section so you can go back and check out some of our previous Lead Strong videos, and check out the video on priorities and how leaders prioritize their people’s priorities, so you get a really clear understanding about priorities.
And then the third one is strategies. We help our people become strategic in nature, not just… when we talk about goals being action-oriented, your action needs to be strategic. Where most people fail in accomplishing their goal and achievement is they don’t become strategic, strategic is where you have multiple action elements designed to collectively collaborate to achieve the desired goal. Most people usually just say “Oh I’m going to do one to two things.” That’s not strategic. Strategic is multiple activities, multiple actions that work together to collaborate, not do this, do that, and do this and hope something happens. So when we focus on those we start focusing our conversations on these, we help our people identify the goal, identify the priorities and strategies, and then we help them take action; and along the way when they’re taking action we need to measure it so we can have accountability. And accountability becomes the key element to being able to help people get to where they’re trying to go in the time frame they’re trying to get there. And then our conversations are shaped around these three elements, not your emotions, the goal, the priorities and the strategies.
Now inside all this here’s what I’ll tell you, you need to have one specific measurable action-oriented realistic time bound goal, one. You see I think a lot of times people try and have too many goals and their focus gets clouded, we understand that where our focus goes energy flows. So create one goal because if you have multiple goals and that means there is a higher level goal that you need to create better understanding and awareness to. Get to that level where it’s a one all-assuming goal and then create your priorities, that way your focus starts to go from …like we talked about in the video… all the things you need to do to the have-to-do, the critical and vital task that supersedes everything else, and your strategies are created around that and then your conversations take all of this into shape. You’re measuring your activities that you’re going to take in your strategic approach to assure… to understand, and my on pace and my trailing are ahead of my goal.
Are we focused on our priorities?
If you’re trailing here’s what tends to happen leaders, your people have lost focus of their priorities I can promise you this, if you understand your critical and vital tasks, AKA your priorities that relate to your goal and you stay focused on them and strategically implement the execution, you’re going to be on pace or pretty darn close to it. So when we lose focus of these priorities do we start to veer off course and we become… we start trailing our goal. And then our strategies… one of the key things I want to tell you guys here, leaders is that we need to remain focused on our strategies in conjunction with our priorities.
Here’s what tends to happen, and leaders sometimes you guys are guilty of this, you go to an event, you go to some national association thing, you go to a class and you come home with these great ideas and you come home and you wipe the board clean. That strategy, that business plan you created, you wipe the board clean and you tell your team “I’ve got this new awesome plan we’re going to do,” and you rip right into the ditch. Stay focused on your strategies. You should never have to radically change your strategies unless you’re radically wrong. But if you believe your strategic execution focuses on your priorities that determine your goal the only thing you should ever have to do is make minor adjustments to your strategies. If you’re wiping the board clean and always constantly creating new strategies your priorities are wrong and I promise you this, you’ll be so far off your goal that you’re going to abandon your goals and you start bringing your goal back down to where you’re at. Remember, trying to get to where you’re at, the GPS, figures out where you’re at and where you’re trying to go, not what you want to do and bring your goals to you, it doesn’t work like that leaders.
So understand, be the GPS, be the leader that has the ability to inspire, breathe life into people and empower them, give the ability and authority to achieve that which they want to achieve by helping them focus on their one all assuming goal; their priorities – no more than three to four, probably no less than that too, maybe two, three, or four; no more than four, you don’t want them to have too many priorities then they start to lose focus. And then what are their three to five strategies, the strategic approaches that collaborate together to massively increase our ability to achieve that goal?
So remember something guys, as we talk about these leadership content… context and content, I want you guys to remain focused on one thing, there’s a parallel here, life and business. Life will affect business and business will affect life. These principles here, these are for you to lead your own self, Step Two leadership on our Six-Level Leadership Model, to lead yourself, to lead another person, to lead others to create leaders that create subordinate leaders and then legacy leadership. That’s our model that we’ve spoken about in previous videos so go back and check out those videos as well. So make sure you take in this content, applying it to your own life, applying it to other people’s life, and watch where it takes you.
Hey if you have any questions please feel free to fill out a comment in the comments section, we’d be glad to answer them. Would love to hear your ah-ha’s as well, what are you taking away from this video. What are you taking away from our Lead Strong video series and how has it shaped your leadership, your impact, your influence, and even further, your income. So love to hear from you; check out our website www.transforminglivescoaching.com. Thank you for joining me today. Remember one thing, God loves you, so do I. Lead strong. Have an amazing day. Take care.
About the author:
Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!
To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com
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