mentors – Leadership Simplified

Goals, Humility, Investing, Leadership, Potential, Team Building, teams, Uncategorized

What Horses Teach us…

I feel like this is one of those, everything I learned, I learned in Kindergarten type post! It sort of is when I say that everything I learned I learned from a horse!

You see horseback riding is alot like a dance (credit to my trainer!) and in this dance your partner is a 1000lb animal who doesn’t speak the language and generally has it’s own idea of what the dance should look like (and quick tip it does not start with you on it’s back!)

You see when you get on a horse for the first time or the 1000th time the horse has to adjust to what you want! The horse does not want to walk around in circles going fast and slow. It does not want to walk over water by roads, or over tree limbs. It wants to go hang out with his buddies in a pasture where it can eat, sleep and lay in the sun! (Yes they do lay down but that’s another post)

When you get on the horse you have to adjust your idea AND make sure the horse knows you are the boss. You can get the idea across by being mean just like you can when you lead. But the horse is probably going to take it for a while then dump you… literally! Or you can get on the horse and you can encourage the horse to go in the direction you want. You do this with multiple aids, your body, feet, reins and pressure.

The horse I am currently riding is an old draft horse. He’s big, slow and would much rather be in his stall. In fact yesterday I walked over with his halter and he left. Literally walked out of his stall into the mud. This was his way of telling me that he was just not that into me! (My trainer did explain to him that we were riding and he finally agreed)

You see I could of yelled and hit him but all that does is show him that I am mean. Why do we think this is ok as leaders? We get mad at our team because they are human and don’t want to do some of the stuff we are asking. Instead of getting mad, why don’t we encourage them. Share how this is helping them and the team!

Reward them when they are done. My horse got apples and carrots yesterday. Now when I go back on Wednesday to ride he’s going to remember that this human is OK. She gives treats!

As leaders we need to remember that we are doing a dance with our team. We are the leader but we are going to get our team to go in the direction we want if we approach it in a more friendly manner.

Humility, Leadership, Potential, Team Building, teams, Uncategorized

Embrace the Quirky

It is not a secret among horse owners that the painted ones are well quirky. You see they are bred for color while others are bred for speed and to work. The paints or Pinto’s are bred to be pretty and they are! They are also a bit odd!

As leaders we all have that one person on our team who is a little different and we often get frustrated with them because they don’t fit into our mold. I had someone on my team once who would not work past 5. He felt that this was not part of his job, I work in an industry where this is kind of expected. I had another person who really only excelled in jobs that were very complex. At first I struggled to led these 2, because well they were quirky!

I learned that I had to motivate them, I had to work with their own specific ideas and once I was able to do that I had 2 great employees! Just like with my horse (who is also a paint) I have to learn what makes him tick. You see if Keno is trying to bite me when I first take him into the arena I should not ride him that day. He’s going to be a brat (I wouldn’t ever call a person that but my horse has that down to a science)! What I do know is that on these days we do alot of ground work and I read his body language. He might just be telling me that I need to leave him alone to do his own thing.

As leaders we can’t always leave our employees alone, however we can learn that in some situations letting them do their own thing can be the best for everyone! It’s alot like learning what battles you are willing to take on. Some days you are going to have to ask the person to stay late or work on something that simply isn’t that fun! However if you spend every day challenging this person, even when it isn’t needed you are going to frustrate both of you and you are going to end up with an employee who resents you!

Learning what works and what doesn’t is going to make you both successful.

This week, figure out what quirks each of your employees have (We all have them) and figure out who you can take those quirks and make them successful WITH them! Just like I’ll be listening to Keno and if he’s nippy then we’ll be working on our love for corners (Read hate) and maybe just letting him run around with his buddy!

Happy Quirky Leading everyone!

Humility, Leadership, Potential, Team Building, Uncategorized

Fact Checking

On one of the Facebook pages I follow someone posted about 52 Thoroughbred horses that needed rescuing from imminent death. Of course the original post was from 2011 but hey whose checking. How often have you been surfing social media and saw someone post something that you know for a fact is either old or false.

I cringe every time I see something like this because the extra 30 seconds it takes to fact check could really make a difference. As leaders we often do the same thing. We go off on something that hasn’t been fully fact checked!

As a leader I keep track of things, not because I want to keep track of someone’s faults or mistakes but to show that what seems like a constant issue is really very intermint. We need to be very diligent in our reporting, and make sure that we double and triple check our facts. We have the potential to really hurt the people we work with and lead if we aren’t careful.

Many years ago as a young church leader I had a husband and wife team that were struggling. They were doing an OK job leading but weren’t really getting the vision behind the ministry. Instead of working with them, I listened to a single source and asked them to step down. They ended up leaving the church all together because of my words.

You see if I had fact checked and looked I may have seem something different. I may have also come to the same conclusion however I would of approach it differently and maybe found another place for them to serve.

As leaders it is critical that we fact check constantly and not react based on our gut. AND when we do react (which we all will) we have to step back and apologize and then go back and fact check again.

As you move into 2019 think about what makes you react and then how can you fact check just a bit more, because remember no one is going to save those 52 horses!!!

Leadership, Potential, Team Building, Uncategorized

Good Leaders…..

Lead! They lead, but not only do they lead they DO! When you think about some of the best leaders you have seen in your life and in history they all have 1 thing in common, they DO! They don’t just talk, they DO! They lead by example!

This doesn’t mean they solve your problems, it doesn’t mean they jump in and make the issue go away it means they HELP!

When I started in my current industry my boss was notorious for asking did you look it up? Did you try to recreate it? It furstrated me to no end because more often than not I had NOT done those things! I wanted him to solve the problem for me, because I knew he had the answer! The problem was he wanted ME to find the answer not just have it handed to me!!

As a leader I have learned that this frustrates most of us, we want to have our problems solved quickly and easily and often without work on our part, however this isn’t always the best for our team! Yes as the leader you have the answer, no that doesn’t mean you should solve all the problems!!

Ask questions, ask what problem solving techniques your team has used and acknowledge that you sense their frustration and that you will help them get to the right answer! Now if you have a screaming mad client you may have to jump in and solve the problem, because that could get ugly quickly! Most of the time though we don’t have a screaming client, we have a frustrated team member.

Today instead of simply solving the problem, ask questions see if your team has tried to solve the problem and offer ideas on where they might find the answers!

Then take your team out for drinks because you are ALL going to need it after!!

Leadership, Potential, Team Building, teams, Uncategorized

ICNU Challenge

HI Everyone,

As we go into Thanksgiving and start to think about the things we are thankful for I want to challenge you to find things to be thankful for in your team!

We all have that 1 employee or co-worker who annoys us greatly! And I say that in all honesty! If we are honest with ourselves there is always someone who is different, thinks differently or comes at the job different and it frustrates us!

At one of my recent jobs I had someone on my team who worked 8 hours a day. That’s it, no more no less! I work in an industry where we are always very busy!! You just have alot to do and you just keep going until it’s done. It wasn’t until I learned how to motivate my employee and learned to understand how his life worked that I learned how to work with him in a way that was beneficial to all of us.

I had another team member who worked really well on the tough tasks but ask him to do something mundane and he struggled. I learned that if I made sure he had a good combination of hard and normal.

Seeing and understanding what motivates the team and how what they do benefits the team and the organization will help you work with them!

Your challenge this week is to write down the 3 employees that frustrate you the most and then write down 3 things that make them a good employee. What gifts do they bring to the organization and how can you use those to better your team!