H3 Leadership: Be Humble. Stay Hungry. Always Hustle by Brad Lomenick. Thomas Nelson. 256 pages. 2015
The author led Catalyst, a movement of young leaders for 12 years. He writes of needing to take a sabbatical which caused him to re-think his leadership. In this book he writes about 20 key transformational leadership habits, organized under the headers Humble, Hungry and Hustle. With each leadership habit, he offers helpful and practical suggestions on how to cultivate each habit from both himself and others (pastors, leaders, authors) who he quotes liberally throughout the book.
He writes that leadership is habitual work. Habits take time to develop. Leaders must develop habits hat create consistency.
Below are a few brief notes I jotted down while going through the book:
HUMBLE
Self-Discovery: Know who you are.
- Yoursense of identity will help define your scale of influence
- Discovery is progressive. It is never ending
- Your identity is not what you do, it is who you are
- We receive our identities from God
Openness: Share the real you with others.
- Authenticity
- Trust
Meekness: Remember it’s not about you.
Conviction: Stick to your principles
- Principles vs. preferences. Character
- Integrity
- Trust
- Your reputation takes years to build, and seconds to destroy
- How do you handle the “grey areas”?Compromise
Faith: Prioritize your day so God is first
- Spiritual disciplines
- Get involved in a church
Assignment: Live out your calling
- Your calling is not your identity. Your calling is your purpose
- Your job is an assignment, it is not your calling. Your calling is made up of assignments.
- Identity – Calling – Assignments
- Are you content in your assignments?
HUNGRY
Ambition: Develop an appetite for what’s next.
- Your greatest strength could also be your greatest weakness.
- Set good goals
- Push yourself daily
Curiosity: Keep learning
- Ask great questions
- Surround yourself with people smarter than you
- Read (books, blogs and magazines). Leaders are readers
- Ask yourself, have I learned anything new today?
Passion: Love what you do
- Your team feeds on your energy
- No one on your team will be as passionate as you
Innovation: Stay current, creative, and engaged
- Intentionality
- Innovative is the opposite of average
- Leaders change things
- Make meetings more creative
- Create an environment in which failure is OK
Inspiration: Nurture a vision for a better tomorrow
- People long to be part of something bigger than themselves.
- Vision statements and vision casting
- Dream big
- Evaluate regularly.
Bravery: Take calculated risks
- Facing fear and overcoming it
- Take risks
- Embrace uncertainty
- Failure is not necessarily bad
HUSTLE
Excellence: Set standards that scare you
- Set standards high
- Do all you can for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31)
Stick-with-it-ness: Take the long view
- Disciple and perseverance
- Commit to daily disciplines
- Greatness is a journey, not a destination
Execution: Commit to completion
- Great leaders are great finishers
- Out-work everyone else
- No habit is more important
- Reward completion
Team Building: Create an environment that attracts and retains the best and brightest
- When you prioritize your team, your team prioritizes you
- Be the leader you wish you had
- Provide good experiences
- Reduce meetings
- Measure the morale of your team
Partnership: Collaborate with colleagues and competitors
- Purposeful partnerships are optimal
- Those who don’t form partnerships will sink, those who do will soar
Margin: Nurture healthier rhythms
- Rest
Generosity: Leave the world a better place
- Involves the head, heart, hand and feet
- Be generous in things such as power, access, time and praise
Succession: Find power in passing the baton
- Success requires succession
- There is power in passing on
- Start earlier than you think you should
The book concludes with an appendix with thoughts on the hard work of leadership from other leaders.