Encouraging, encourager, …encouragement is something that always comes up in Leadership vs Management-discussions. These kinds of thoughts are expressed, “I want my leader to be an encourager” or “A leader encourages people”. I have always somewhat discounted it as a separate quality or trait.
Whether meant sincerely or not, I just see encouraging comments as superficial and oftentimes lacking depth in
meaning. What are these kinds of words worth really: “That was amazing Bob, …Shelia that was a great effort, …I am so glad to have you on the team, …You are the best widget-maker in the company, (or) …keep up the good work”.
On their own these comments just seem kind of artificial, forced and contrived.
If you know me or if have read anything of mine in the past, you know I am about appreciating, valuing, growing people, etc.
So I hope it is obvious I am not against ‘encouraging’ people. I just think we actually encourage people through all of our other actions/behaviors as the leader – our walk vs our talk maybe!
Here is a brief listing of substantive ways we really encourage folks, or not:
• Listening to them, him/her (who I listen to is who I value/care about)…
• Developing a relationship with them, her/him (if I spend time getting to know you, it says I see you as important)…
• Asking their opinion, involving them in all that goes on (creates a sense of belonging and being wanted)…
• Helping them achieve their goals/what they want…
• Praising them for specific accomplishments in front of others (even if they say they don’t like that sort of thing)…
• Showing you genuinely care about them / not just about their widget-producing
(after all your job as the boss ‘requires’ you to care about their job; leaders also care about the person)…
• Protecting/shielding them from abuse (not letting others tear them down)…
• Delegate to them (this says much about your trust & value of them to you)…
• Coach and mentor them (again, spending time with people to grow them)…
• Find time once/month to formally sit down and give them honest feedback on expectations & accountability.
(the good & the bad, help them improve, etc)…
Believe me, if you lead in these ways, he/she WILL feel and be encouraged. I hope this encourages you to go
‘Walk ENCOURAGEMENT, and not just Talk it’.
[ If you are a parent, I am betting these thoughts have you thinking, huh? ]
Blessings my friend (which I should point out encourages me - that you are my friend),
Booker
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
It does not get any better than this - again this year!
Lots of emotions and thoughts in my head over recent days due to family, Thanksgiving, Church, Veterans Day, holidays and well, ....LIFE!
It struck me the phrase (above) made popular years ago, and how it used to be MY greeting to anyone and everyone back then. I used it for several years. I used it as an optimistic point of view to internalize and portray a positive attitude.
Interestingly it was during a time of struggles and I think it helped me. It was also before I knew HIM. Somewhere in the midst of some deeper human struggles in life it went away from my vocabulary.
Sunday, in church I got to thinking about this for some strange reason; HE, the pastors, Sunday School class and my church do that frequently (make me think); that is a good thing.
I was praying for my wife’s health, my work and business, finances and oh yeah, ........ALL those zillions of people in this world who are struggling soooooo much more than I am!
That is when that old phrase hit me. I was thinking of how so many years later, now that I have BECOME NEW and God is all over my life, I should REALLY be using that phrase. I plan to adopt it again - because truly IT DOES NOT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!
You see, it cannot be any better, because it is His Will and HE is there with me (and with us) huh?
Our struggles are relative and someone is always worse off than we are. Still our struggles are very real! It is where we are, the pains, suffering and struggles are ours indeed. That place is as good as it gets, because HE determines it so.
We are TO BE glad for this day - to be thankful for where we are, right? Did this make any sense to you? Be thankful if it did~!
Thanks for letting me share that with you. It does not get any better than this.
Think about others this holiday season.
All for the moment, Booker
It struck me the phrase (above) made popular years ago, and how it used to be MY greeting to anyone and everyone back then. I used it for several years. I used it as an optimistic point of view to internalize and portray a positive attitude.
Interestingly it was during a time of struggles and I think it helped me. It was also before I knew HIM. Somewhere in the midst of some deeper human struggles in life it went away from my vocabulary.
Sunday, in church I got to thinking about this for some strange reason; HE, the pastors, Sunday School class and my church do that frequently (make me think); that is a good thing.
I was praying for my wife’s health, my work and business, finances and oh yeah, ........ALL those zillions of people in this world who are struggling soooooo much more than I am!
That is when that old phrase hit me. I was thinking of how so many years later, now that I have BECOME NEW and God is all over my life, I should REALLY be using that phrase. I plan to adopt it again - because truly IT DOES NOT GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS!
You see, it cannot be any better, because it is His Will and HE is there with me (and with us) huh?
Our struggles are relative and someone is always worse off than we are. Still our struggles are very real! It is where we are, the pains, suffering and struggles are ours indeed. That place is as good as it gets, because HE determines it so.
We are TO BE glad for this day - to be thankful for where we are, right? Did this make any sense to you? Be thankful if it did~!
Thanks for letting me share that with you. It does not get any better than this.
Think about others this holiday season.
All for the moment, Booker
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Senior Executive Development Consultant
Another St Louis opportunity just sharing: Senior Executive Development Consultant (#10169)
St. Louis based Ameren Corporation (AEE) is among the nation’s largest investor-owned electric or gas utilities with approximately $24B in assets. Ameren is the largest electric utility in Missouri and the second largest in Illinois. Ameren’s 9,800 employees provide energy services to 2.4 million electric customers and 1 million natural gas customers throughout its 64,000 square mile territory. Learn more at www.Ameren.com.
( don't have any other info myself)
St. Louis based Ameren Corporation (AEE) is among the nation’s largest investor-owned electric or gas utilities with approximately $24B in assets. Ameren is the largest electric utility in Missouri and the second largest in Illinois. Ameren’s 9,800 employees provide energy services to 2.4 million electric customers and 1 million natural gas customers throughout its 64,000 square mile territory. Learn more at www.Ameren.com.
( don't have any other info myself)
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
http://www.businessinsider.com/8-habits-of-highly-effective-google-managers-2011-3
Nice list that Google has here, as many orgs/businesses sometimes have developed. The challenge is always of course in the follow-thru and making the list reality in terms of the leaders/leadership in the trenches. Frequently the shortfall is in the fact that we never carry thru to create these ideas/concepts into a set of competencies for leaders that are then used for the actual identification, interviewing/hiring, promoting, growing, training, mentoring & coaching of leaders. Of course this has a huge connection to the fact that the current leaders there (generically intended, not about Google) were not grown accordingly. Again a good start but can these be sustainably used to find and grow leaders?
http://ping.fm/vPEZw
http://ping.fm/vPEZw
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