Leading - from behind?

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I got this story from Ezine articles, and the message that it is sending forth is quite a breaker from today's prevailing culture. When the common leadership calls for the leader to be standing infront, or leading the pack, it is quite a sudden change or an uncommon thing that a leader is leading from the back.

Not so with this gentleman told about in the story. I could say equally that 'he is my type of guy, my type of leader' - quietly and unassumingly leading the pack - from the back.

Read on...

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Leading the Pack From the Back

I'll never forget this...

It's March of 2007 and I'm attending my first Toastmasters speech contest. I don't know a single soul. I arrive at the building and there's this casually dressed guy, clean-cut, a huge smile, semi-nasally voice with thin-rimmed eyeglasses directing traffic.

"It's not this building. It's two buildings that-a-way," he instructed.

"Okay chief," I complied.

As I'm parking the car, I'm thinking Mr. Traffic Cop must not be that important. He's only directing traffic. He can't be one of those higher-ups in the organization. If he were he'd be inside: busy facilitating the contest.

To my surprise, Mr. Traffic Cop spoke that evening. He gave a humorous speech about his latest adventure visiting a new dentist. He stole the show.

His calm Clark Kent exterior hid the Super Comedy Man interior. He had the audience rolling on the floor, holding their sides, in the fetal position laughing hysterically. He wasn't only good-he was "The Bomb."

I couldn't picture this earlier when I pulled up on the driveway. I thought he was someone low on the totem pole. Speaking contestants weren't supposed to be performing menial jobs. They're supposed to dress sharp and receive lavish accolades.

My bad...

I found out Super Comedy Man has filled so many roles in his home club that he is now its current president. He also leads three other clubs as their area governor. He possesses a strong resolve to pull off everything he's involved with.

Do you know what I learned from him that March evening?

True leaders do deeds...

That meet all needs...

So everyone succeeds.

What is the secret to his success? What makes him such agood leader? What does he do that gains him so much respect?

Super Comedy Man's three assets that can make you an invaluable leader:

1) Putting others first. In Star Trek II, gasping his last few breaths Mr. Spock said, "The needs of the many outweigh the need of the one." He had given his life to save the Enterprise. It was the most touching and unforgettable scene in the entire series.

This flies in the face of today's Me First Society. From early school age, children are programmed to get the best grades, land the best jobs and live in the best neighborhoods. Unfortunately, they never really stand out among the pack.

Then you hear about someone like Sister Teresa. She didn't own much, but what she had she gave away. She made the honor roll by putting others' needs first.

2) Giving from within. In the Middle East there's a body of water called the Dead Sea. Nothing lives in it because water flows in, but cannot flow out. It's stagnant.

In nature there's no stagnation. Everything that lives... gives. The seed gives fruit, the sun gives life, and the clouds give rain.

It's the same for human beings. Those who give with integrity usually get back much more than they invested. Yet can you believe there are people who never share their abundance, talents or knowledge? Hoarding leads to stagnancy.

3) Being a team player. It's no mystery that five mediocre team players can usually beat five lone ranger all-stars in almost any sport. Their secret is teamwork. The power of a united group poses too mighty a force for most opponents.

Part of participating in a winning team involves filling other roles when needed. That may include doing tasks that might be a little beneath you. Your teammates will respect you even more for taking odd jobs when needed.

You may also have to share, or step backward from the limelight. Doing so helps keep your team strong and balanced while achieving a common goal. It's called an "assist" in basketball. One player alley oops while the other gets the slam dunk.

If you are a leader or want to become one-people will watch, model and even quote you. Especially if they admire you. Put on a smile and show them you can lead from any position.

Tommy Yan helps business owners and entrepreneurs make more money through direct response marketing. He publishes Tommy's Tease weekly e-zine to inspire people to succeed in business and personal growth. Get your free subscription today at http://www.tommyyan.com/.

If you're a speaker, trainer, coach, or a consultant-the major challenge you face is connecting with your audience. You talk, shout, or recite your message while they are dreaming about dinner.

Their eyes are glossy, their minds' elsewhere, and their bodies ready to bolt. You don't have a lot of time, so you've got to grab their attention fast. Or else, you'll die wrestling against audience resistance.

But it doesn't have to be this way...

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Think, before it's too late

Image via Wikipedia

John Bittleston

succeed@mediacorp.com.sg

IF WE want to prevent the imminent end of the human species as we know it, we need all the creative thought we can muster.

We have less than 20 years to manage technology and keep our ability to decide our future. The alternative is a controlled species of semi-sentient automatons responding to a central decision-making organisation run, perhaps, by bankers.

Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to measure how happy we are. The basic ingredient of happiness - selflessness - is hard to grasp because it has to do with motive as well as action. We do not understand our own motives and are usually wrong about other people's, because everything we do is done for a mixture of selfless and selfish reasons.

That is what the human race has at stake. Our world is interesting and challenging because of its imperfections, not in spite of them. Eradicating them is seen as the road to Valhalla. The journey provides opportunity for character-building, for fun and as a test of our capabilities. The material destination is within sight. The emotional destination has yet to be identified. Now is the time to do that by concerted creative thought and effort.

What do we need to know? What must we do?

Understanding our personalities, what makes us aspire to create "beyond the single need" and how we work should now be top of the agenda, ahead of technological development, more important than health, wealth, longevity and material comfort.

The mind has been neglected in our researches. If 10 per cent of the effort to understand, explain and promote the soul had been devoted to fathoming the mind, we would have been an infinitely more balanced world than we are. If the amount spent on missile shields was matched by that on expanding the mind, the need for missile shields would disappear.

Even setting up the plan for such research requires creative thought beyond what we have achieved so far. We need to put thinking back on the pedestal it occupied in ancient Greece. Many have tried to do this over the centuries. Some have had modest success, but the conclusion has almost always ended up as a reckoning to be reached beyond death rather than one to be achieved on earth.

When we become immortal - very soon - we shall need to address "heavens below" as well as "heavens above".

Brain and mind research must merge so that we discover how developing the one can be matched with expansion of the other. Unleashing the abilities of the mind, which even today are barely understood, will allow man to put technology and material matters in perspective and give us control of our destinies in ways that we have not yet begun to achieve. Singapore is in a unique position to spearhead this.

The arts let us glimpse the potential of our thoughts and feelings, yet we neglect them in favour of war weapons. The emotional intelligence (EI) of the young is more precious to humanity than is the trick of programming stock market transactions, yet there is no EI programme in Business Administration or Economics.

Desire to communicate with and influence millions of people is less important than the yearning to attend to a fellow creature and, in return, receive the same attention from that person.

An uncontrolled race for wealth and technology deprives people of their right to freedom of choice, to self-understanding and to the balanced lifestyle of which we hear so much and for which so little is being done.

Can we pause to put thought before action, mind before matter and understanding before it is too late?

John Bittleston mentors people in business, career and their personal lives at www.TerrificMentors.com

From TODAY, Business – Monday, 28-Sep-2009

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Can we face the future?

TAKING CHARGE

John Bittleston

succeed@mediacorp.com.sg

WOULD mankind have done better if our forecasting had been more accurate? Would we have taken steps to avoid climate disruption by imposing criteria on technological change that would have slowed it?

Would our handling of capitalism have been smarter if we had predicted the forces we were releasing, even if our control of it had made us poorer?

What is certain is that the forecasters would have been (in some cases, were) burnt at the stake. We dislike people telling us the truth, preferring to be lulled into a false sense of security rather than face the dragon.

In the past, the consequences of our behaviour, even when clearly seen by a few, materialised slowly. We now know that survival of the human species is threatened in its present form within a single lifetime.

That should concentrate the collective mind. The moral nature of human beings is unlikely to change significantly.

The good and bad, the yin and yang will probably be there as long as we have free will to decide between selfish and collective options.

When that freedom is lost, our behaviour will be controlled by whoever is in charge of the apparatus running our brains. As we know, that apparatus - the wholly artificial brain - will be with us within 10 years.

Many are already worried by the consequences of the advanced computer and its contribution to the recent failure of the world's financial system. Computer-programmed stock market and money market trading were partly responsible for what happened. How is the computer going to deal with the after-effects of money-printing - the apparent, if facile, solution to finance gone mad?

A sentient, or at least semi-sentient, robot will follow within 10 years of the wholly artificial brain, allowing us, if we wish, to become physically and brain-sustainably immortal.

Since immortals never die, there will be increasing demand for the limited resources of the planet, depending, of course, on robot maintenance needs. It is even possible there will be reduced demand for the planet's fruits since robots will probably not need to eat or reproduce and their entertainment may exist wholly and cheaply in a virtual world.

Most people either refute these forecasts or declare, unhelpfully, they would rather die. Experience suggests they are wrong about both these attitudes.

The exponential rate of technological development is staggering.

Almost within my lifetime, we have gone from Charles Lindbergh's first flight across the Atlantic to Neil Armstrong's landing on the moon.

And there is repeated evidence that when it comes to the crunch, we would prefer to survive in the world we know, however changed, than head into an unknown existence, however deeply believed in. That would be even truer if pain, disease and ignorance were abolished.

What do we need to do to ensure that the species succeeding us, and which will have many of our characteristics, is more fulfilled and happier than we are collectively today?

Fulfilment and happiness are the two basic criteria for a satisfactory life. But exhortation to behave better has a poor record of success since one rotten apple still contaminates the whole barrel.

The brilliance that led to the Industrial Revolution, then to Slave Liberation and more recently to the Communications Revolution must now lead to the Creative Revolution. That is the next intellectual step in man's existence. The human ability to think is still, for all its successes, hugely undeveloped.

Thought that has been channelled to enhancing and prolonging life must now be devoted to understanding what makes life worthwhile. In my next article, I shall explore how this might happen and what will be its effect on business.

John Bittleston mentors people in business, career and their personal lives at www.TerrificMentors.com.

From TODAY, Business – Monday, 07-Sep-2009

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