Tag: leadership

  • How High Will You Fly?

    Seth's new book The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? pushes us to fly towards the Sun. The question isn't "How high are you allowed to fly" or "How high do you dare to fly" but "How high WILL you fly." Seth pushes us to dare to do the hard, emotional labor of creating change. In our deeply interconnected world where anyone can reach out to anyone else, we don't need to wait to be picked. We can take the initiative and create the situation that we want to create.

    You can read this book one of two ways. If you read it casually, it is an easy, fun read. There are many nice little bite size chunks and many parts that don't apply to your life–"I would never stoop to putting pink slime in ground beef." Or, you can take it as a challenge. You can read it with the intent to change your life–to stop waiting to be picked and to take your own initiative.

    I am a Seth Fan Boy. I've read everyone of his books. I read his blog each day. I supported this book through Kickstarter as soon as it went up. As a result of this constant bombardment of messages, I am a better person. I speak up in meetings, I dare to write this public blog, and I have become a good public speaker.

    One of the things that I love about Seth is that he is quite clear on his message. If you are happy with your life or don't want to put in the hard, emotional labor to change yourself; then don't waste your time with this book. If instead you dare to reach higher–to fly towards the Sun–then Seth is a wonderful guide.

    Yes, this builds on Linchpin and Poke the Box, but it is more powerful. I would encourage you to read all three, but start with The Icarus Deception.

  • Are you a Leader or a Manager?

    Exclusive interview with Seth Godin from GiANT Impact on Vimeo for the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast.

    There is practical, everyday management. I am not interested in that. Leadership is not practical and it is not everyday. Management and Leadership are totally different things. You think that you are being a leader, but you are probably being a manager. Seth's opening words in the video.

    I love how blunt Seth is. We all aspire to be leaders, but leadership is scary. Management is following the rules–good accounting, completing the activities in the log framework, writing complete reports. A good manager can squeeze a bit more impact from a project. Management is safe–we know what we need to do and how to measure our success.

    Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. Peter Drucker, and Warren Bennis, as quoted in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Stephen R. Covey, p. 101

    The challenge with leadership is that you have to be in front. If the path was known, then a leader would not be needed. I know that I am leading when I can feel the pressure. When a coworker says, "You can't do that.", but I know that I can and think that I will succeed. When I am 100% sure of myself, I am managing. When I am pushing in a new direction and pretty sure that it will work (even if though I will act 100% sure), then I know that I am pushing the envelope.

     

    Steve Farber tells this beautifully in his free audio series (available through this website) and less well in this video (skip the first seven minutes of selling–the core content start after this introduction). His point is that if you are not scared, if you are not experiencing an OS!M, you are not pushing yourself–you are not really leading.

    And this is the challenge. Leading is hard work. It is scary. It is the only way to make a difference. To paraphrase the subtitle of Seth's book Tribes, Lead, because we need you to lead us. So what do you want to do, Manage or Lead?

  • Completing my work in Haiti

    Four months after the earthquake, there is still so much to be done
    I drove away from Haiti yesterday, having finally been relieved of my role as the Acting Country Director. I chose to make the five-hour drive to give myself time to reflect on the last four months. I am both wonderfully relieved to be done and sad to leave my team. In my farewell speech the day before, I had stressed how proud I was of everyone. It was the hardest four months of my life. We had great successes–reopening the office within days of the earthquake, developing a logistics chain that delivered 50 containers of supplies to our most needy partners, restarting and accelerating all our programs so that we could help as many people as quickly as possible. 

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