We previously looked at the leader communicating effectively. Related to that is the running of effective meetings. If you are like me, you dread meetings, well, at least poorly run meetings. Most meetings I’ve participated in over the years are boring and ineffective. But meetings are the place when many important decisions are made. As a result, great leaders need to run great meetings.
First, I have to say up front that there are a variety of different types of meetings. There are daily status or “stand-up” meetings, weekly staff or team meetings, quarterly strategy meetings, annual planning meetings, etc. How you approach these meetings differs, but I want to share a few general principles that I have learned that might help you to be able to run better, if not great, meetings. Continue reading
Category Archives: Articles ~ Work
20 Leadership Lessons from Dan Hurley
Dan Hurley is the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Connecticut. He won back-to-back NCAA championships in 2023 and 2024. He tells his story and shares his leadership philosophies in his new book Never Stop: Life, Leadership, and What It Takes to Be Great, written with Ian O’Connor. Read my review of the book here.
Here are 20 of Hurley’s leadership lessons from the book:
- Teaching them to be disciplined, to grow their minds as students while also growing their games, to build great relationships and be passionate about life. That’s me caring about them.
- I wanted to teach as much as I could, as quickly as I could, mature them and get them ready for the big, bad world.
- It was always also about giving them the mental toughness they need to be successful.
- I try to be a role model for my players—in every way. I walk it before I ever talk it. That’s a big reason why I get the buy-in.
Leadership Lessons from Duke Basketball Coach Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski
In 42 seasons as head men’s basketball coach at Duke, Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, a Naismith Hall of Fame coach, was a five-time national champion and NCAA record 13-time Final Four participant. No coach in Division I men’s basketball history won more games than Coach K’s 1,202. Coach K served as head coach at both Duke and Army West Point, finishing his amazing career with a 1,202-368 record, including a 1,129-309 mark at Duke.
Coach K also contributed significantly to USA Basketball. Beginning in 1979 he was a member of 21 USA coaching staffs, and teams with Coach K on the coaching staff compiled a 139-7 overall mark for an amazing 95.2 winning percentage. In the 15 international competitions he has been involved in as a USA head or assistant coach, those teams have captured 11 gold medals, two silver medals and two bronze medals. Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Leaders are Results Driven
In the organization that I worked at, there were three “Obligations of Leadership” for all of our leaders. They were: drive results, build a high performing work environment and develop people. I believe that’s a good summation of what the obligations of each leader should be. However, the achievement of each of these obligations was not rewarded equally. What I tended to see was that those who drove results were rewarded and recognized at a higher level than those who built a high performing work environment or those who excelled at developing others. And as important as those latter things are, organizations pay leaders to drive results and move their organizations forward. In our series on leadership attributes, we now look at the importance of leaders driving results. A leader who is results driven excels in many leadership attributes and competencies. Briefly, here are 10 of them: Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Leaders are Readers
In our series on leadership attributes, we have previously looked at how leaders are learners. They demonstrate continuous and lifelong learning. A subset of continuous learning is reading. Leaders are readers.
In his book The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters, Albert Mohler writes that there is no substitute for effective reading when it comes to developing and maintaining the intelligence necessary to lead. Where I worked my entire career, continuous learning was emphasized – be it an insurance certification or an IT designation. Reading is always an important part of learning.
Even though I am now retired, I am still an avid reader. Actually, since I am retired, I have more time than ever to read. And as I read as a leader, I read primarily in four categories: Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Leaders are Good Listeners
In our series on leadership attributes, we now turn to perhaps an underappreciated attribute – listening. Leaders are good listeners. I would go even further and say that listening is an underappreciated skill for everyone, not just leaders. For example, when I was working full-time and attending seminary, I was constantly tired. My mind was going in all directions about work and my studies. My wife Tammy and I would regularly meet at a restaurant for an early dinner after work before I would begin studying in the evening. More than once in the middle of a conversation, she would say “You haven’t heard a word that I’ve said, have you?” She was right. I was distracted, thinking about what had happened at work that day, or what I needed to do that evening, whether it was reading, writing a paper or studying for an exam. Whatever the reason, my lack of good listening showed a lack of respect for my wife. Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Leaders are Interim
For a few years, I assisted one of the pastors at our church in teaching soft skills to seminary students in one-day classes through the NXTGEN Pastors organization. We taught a class entitled “Healthy Pastoral Transitions”, which was written by pastor Christopher A. Polski. The module was specifically written about making the transition from the founding pastor of a church to the first succeeding pastor. A key takeaway from the session for me was that every pastor is an interim pastor. Click here to read my article “A Leadership Succession Success Story”. Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Influence
In our series on leadership attributes, we now look at influence. John Maxwell often says that leadership is influence, nothing more and nothing less. Do you agree with this? I recall one of my leaders years ago disagreeing with this statement after I had shared it in a meeting. But saying that leadership is influence does seem to make sense.
To begin with, let’s define influence. A dictionary definition of influence that I read was:
The power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible way. Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Leaders Empower Others
In our series on leadership attributes, we now look at how leaders empower others. John Maxwell writes about the Law of Empowerment in his classic book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, indicating that if leaders want to be successful, they have to be willing to empower others. He tells us that only secure leaders give power to others. One reason this is so is that secure leaders are not worried about team members achieving more, or going further in their career than they do. In fact, that’s exactly what a servant leader wants to happen.
Maxwell tells us that to lead others well, leaders in all areas – business, church, sports, non-profits, government, education, etc. – must help others to reach their potential. In other words, lifting others up, lifts you up.
But how do leaders go about empowering others? There’s a lot that we could say about this, but in this article, we’ll look at just three thoughts. They are: Continue reading
Leadership Attributes: Developing Others
Helping others to develop to their fullest potential is my favorite aspect of leadership. I always enjoyed working with team members and mentees, and still enjoy the mentoring or discipling relationships that I am a part of. There is something about working with individuals who want to grow, improve, and reach their highest potential that energizes me. It’s a joy to see someone achieve their goals, which is oftentimes securing their first formal leadership position.
Pouring yourself into others was modeled for me early by my career mentor, Mel. I saw the joy he took when one of his staff members developed and moved on to higher levels of responsibility. He wasn’t interested in keeping them on his staff, which would have been comfortable for him in the short-term, but instead “pushed them out of the nest”. They knew he would always be available for mentoring later as needed.
I’ve never turned down anyone wanting to enter into a mentoring or discipling relationship with me, feeling it is what I should be doing as a leader. In addition, even though I’m the mentor, I always learn a lot from these relationships. John Maxwell has written that as a leader, you will never regret the time you invest in people, as raising up others is one of the greatest joys a leader can have. He goes on to say that it is essential to focus on raising others to a higher level.
It is important for mentor leaders to know how they can help others to develop. If it is a current team member, for example, the leader should have a good idea on what is needed as far as development and growth. If it is a mentoring relationship with someone outside of your team, the prospective mentee will need to express those areas that they need help with, to see if is something that the leader can actually help with. For example, if someone approached me to help them to grow in their technical skills, I would tell them that I would not be the best one to help them, and instead refer them to someone better suited to equip them. Also, it’s important to remember that the mentee has to drive the relationship. This helps to make them accountable for showing up to the meetings and doing the necessary pre-work.
Many of my mentoring relationships included reading and discussing a book such as Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Although the content of the book is important, I always found that the discussion around what we read was even more important. Its best to use a book that has questions for reflection and discussion, if possible.
Where I worked, we would at times provide high performing employees development opportunities in which they led a team for 12-18 months. It’s very important to take full advantage of such opportunities. I remember hearing from one of my leaders about an individual who they felt had done the best job of taking advantage of the opportunity given them. That individual has since gone on to have a good career in leadership and has even higher potential.
Another development suggestion is to give employees “stretch” assignments. A “stretch” assignment is outside/above their current level of responsibilities, and one in which success is not guaranteed. An example of such an assignment would be to lead a strategic effort.
Lastly, when helping others to develop, it’s important to help them to get into their “strengths zone”. As I referenced above, leading a highly technical team would not have been a good use of my skills, and would not have served that team well. Maxwell states that good leaders help others find their strength zones and empower them to work in them.
These are just a few of my thoughts about developing others. Entire books have been written on the subject. What would you add to what I have written?