Being Conscientious

Every six months I try to take some time and focus on what my core beliefs are regarding leadership.  Yesterday I was taking time to do this, looking over old journals and notes of things that had influenced me, and helped me gain clarity. I was thinking about how important relationships are when you’re a leader.  One thing that I’m a big believer in is making sure that you’re continually growing and a great way to do that is through reading. I’m currently reading a book called Be Exceptional by Joe Navarro.  Joe was talking about the things that he believed were the most important parts and pieces to being a great leader and one of the things that he mentioned was the importance of being conscientious

In reading what Joe was talking about, I started to think about all the things that I do as a leader for others that would be considered conscientious, and then it dawned on me. We make leadership much harder than it needs to be. Sometimes instead of thinking about all the things that we should do as a leader when it comes to relationships we should simply focus on being conscientious. When we take time to be actively and genuinely conscientious, our relationships with others will naturally grow and improve. In being conscientious, we are giving people the respect, empathy and attention that they deserve and oftentimes crave.  Being conscientious doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to be difficult. It just has to be doing what’s right.

I’ve always felt like one of my most important philosophies when it came to leadership was keeping it simple. It doesn’t matter what I’m trying to do, the more simple you make things the easier it is to follow and the more likely you are to have success. We all can become overwhelmed by leadership especially when we think about all the different things that we do as leaders, particularly when it comes to our work with others; however, if we live by some basic guidelines like being conscientious leadership doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It just becomes a matter of doing what's right for others.  

My call to action for you is to consciously focus on being a more conscientious leader this week and in the weeks to follow.  I’m willing to guarantee if you make being conscientious your focus not only will leadership become easier, but it will also be more satisfying and make those around you more likely to work harder to achieve the goals you have for your school or organization.  Have a great week and remember when your commitment is greater than your feelings you get results.  

My Attitude My Effort

We spend a lot of time focused on what we can’t control. The number of things that are beyond our reach can be insurmountable to think about.  Each day we are confronted with so many things we can’t control the attitude of others, the weather, people showing up late to work and the internet being down. These obstacles and bumps in the road feed into our feelings and can even derail or significantly alter the effort we put into our day.  Why is it that we allow these things to take up space in our minds and distract us from our mission?  

I used to think it was a lack of mental toughness on my part or a desire to always be in control that made all the variables outside of my own reach an obsession.  This would make my life miserable depending on how much I was facing on any given day.  It could get so bad that the mere thought of things not going my way would put me in a tailspin before I could even really get my day started.  It took a lot of reflection to realize that a lot of the time I was obsessed with the uncontrolables in my life was because I wanted to do a good job and I cared deeply for the people around me.  The success of those I was working for and with meant something to me.  I wanted people to be proud of where they worked, who they worked with and what they did.  

When I had the opportunity to lead a school building for the first time I went back to my earliest days as a coach and remembered something I always told my athletes.  “There are only two things you can control in this world: your attitude and your effort.” I realized that I wasn’t following this advice.  My happiness and effort shouldn’t be determined by the things I couldn’t control.  When we focus on the things we can’t control we spend our time chasing something we can never catch.  My attitude can bring a positive light to people but worrying about their attitude can’t improve the situation I’m in.  My effort works in much the same way.  When I lose focus of my effort and start to do the jobs of others my work suffers and suddenly it's not enough.  

You will hear me a lot about keeping things simple. We make life way too complicated when all we have to do is slow down and focus on the basics.  If we start with having a positive attitude, not only will it lift us up but it will naturally lift up the other people around us. Effort works in the same fashion.  When people can see that I work hard it makes it more difficult for them not to put forth a better effort.  By raising the bar and focusing on what I can control, those other things beyond my control will stand to improve because I’ve kept the focus on leading myself and others in a more positive way. 

Where Does Leadership Begin?

For most of my life I have been a leader.  I’ve led student organizations, teams, classrooms, buildings and people in private industry, but it wasn’t until later in life that I really considered where leadership begins.  Most of us think we become a leader as soon as we are in charge of a group of people but it starts much earlier than that and we don’t even know it is happening.  As soon as we are able to start making the most basic decisions in our lives we are starting our journey in leadership.  We don’t realize that we are collecting valuable information on making good and bad decisions and collecting a database of what works and what doesn’t.  We are also very aware of the people around us who are trying to lead us down the appropriate path in life and those that aren’t.  The data we collect is very simple and can be categorized into a chart as simple as what we like and don’t like. 

It wasn’t until I was in my mid 40’s that I realized I had failed to take charge as my own leader.  I had been leading others for over 20 years at that point, but had neglected to lead myself.  I started to reflect on how I got to a point in my life where I was struggling with my physical and mental health weighing in at over 600 pounds uncomfortable in my own skin and ashamed of myself.  I took an honest inventory of how I was leading others and had to consider the difficult reality that by putting them first I really wasn’t giving them my best. I was neglecting myself to the point that I wasn’t able to function at a level the deserved from their leader.  We are all born to lead in some capacity. There are people that may not like to do it, others may not realize they are doing it, and some people just need to have their eyes opened up to the potential they have to change their lives and the lives of those around them.