Tag: leadership

“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power”. Seth Berkley

Pro Leadership Principle: (My strength) x (My Passion) = My Level of Fulfillment

The View from the Top

The summit is where you take all you have learned on the inside and you move it to the outside, by turning the first nine steps of your climb into action. You translate your vision into reality. This last phase has four steps: clarifying your strategy, defining your tactics, acting to WIN, and leading yourself TODAY.

First, clarify your strategy. What are the big blocks that need to be moved in order to accomplish your call? Spell it out: identify your specific goal and what it is going to take to get there. What will you do when? Big picture. Let me give you an example following on my previous one of one of my aims–be an author and write five books. In my strategy statement, I have spelled out generally the type of books I will write to fulfill this aim. What I am going to do is here; how I am going to do it comes next.

Next, define the tactics you will use to accomplish your strategy. What is it going to take to win? What specific steps will you need to take to fulfill and when will you need to take them? Here you map it out. You have your goals, now make your plan and next you will work your plan acting to WIN.

WIN stands for “What’s Important Now.” It is a way to set priorities. I do it annually, every four months, monthly, weekly, and daily. It is critical to accomplishing goals that one works on what matters most. Using WIN and breaking my plan into specific time periods allows me to do that successfully.

Finally,remember that today matters. John Maxwell wrote a great book by the same title, Today Matters. You will accomplish all you desire, one day at a time. The more you can train yourself to live in the moment, the easier it will be for you to lead the most important person who needs your leadership. You. Legendary golf teacher, Harvey Penick, taught that a golf tournament is won one shot at a time. That is not only true of golf, it is also true of business and of life–one day at a time, one shot at a time.

I take the first day of every year to plan my year. I divide my year into three four-month periods. I take the first day of each of those periods to plan that period. I take the first day of every month to plan that month. I take 45 minutes every weekend to review and plan my week. I take 15 minutes at the end of every day to plan tomorrow. Does that mean everything goes according to plan? Hardly. However, the more often I focus on WIN, the faster I move toward my ultimate destination.

If you follow this blueprint for leadership, in time you will end up operating not only in your strengths, but also in your passion and that will result in a fulfilled life.

Build Your Own Skill Set

• How do you answer these two questions?
  • What are my strengths?
  • What am I passionate about?
• Do you feel fulfilled in your life; why or why not?
• Are you ready to take action?
  • Have you excavated before you elevated?
  • What type of foundation have you built?

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“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power”. Seth Berkley

Pro Leadership Principle: (My strength) x (My Passion) = My Level of Fulfillment

Stick to Your True Calling—Then Keep Climbing

There are many benefits to answering the base camp questions, but if I picked the best one, it would be that the solid foundation these answers build will prevent the one who answers them from being distracted from their true calling. Why? Because when the inevitable interruptions and distractions common to this life come along, your answers to these base camp questions will serve as a “true north” for you, always bringing you back on course toward your ultimate destination. 

This is especially important as you continue in the climbing phase of leadership, where your vision is clarified, you determine your aim, and your aspirations, and this results in a clear mission. I don’t mean a mission that you simply carve onto a plaque that hangs in your office, but one that becomes a part of your life, a mission that you not only work for, but it works for you.

I am a vision-driven person; I need one to succeed and I believe you do too. First comes your vision, the big dream for the future of your life, your vocation, and your business. Often people are uncomfortable with vision; this is commonly the result of being risk averse, not wanting to believe something that may not be probable. One of my favorite exercises as a coach is to help a client move into a visioneering state. It is simple and it is fun; it is also good for you. Here is how it’s done.

The first step is to turn on your imagination. That’s right, I said turn on your imagination, because adult life and the responsibilities and pressure of it will often cause that switch to be turned off. Think back to childhood; did you have any problem imagining yourself as anything? I doubt you did. What happened between then and now? Life happened.

So, take a break from life and dream a dream; see yourself as the leader you want to be and see your company where you want to lead it. Now, write it down. Voila, you have a vision! Let it “cook” for a while and see where it goes (i.e., let it settle in your thinking and allow it to help shape your direction and decisions). Remember the guiding question, “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

Next question: what is the aim of your vision? If it were fulfilled, where would this vision take you? Keep it simple.

I have seven aims and they are all “Be” statements: one is Be an Author – write five books. You are reading the first one right now. My aims have been revised and refined over time as my vision has grown or been fulfilled. Yours will too, so do not worry about being perfect, write down what comes to mind.

From your aim you go to your aspirations: why do you want to go where your vision will take you? This may be one thing or a list of things. I have found these to be bigger and broader desires—life changing desires. You may not share these with many people outside of your inner circle, so don’t worry about what you aspire to. I am a possibility thinker who believes any aspiration a person has, given the talent, the time, and the environment, is possible.

A word of clarity: our aspirations need to fit with our natural talents and abilities. As an example, I love to play golf and sometimes I will imagine I am playing The Masters. In reality, I will never play at that tournament because no matter how strong my aspiration is to do so, I am not talented enough to get there, so it will remain an imaginary exercise and not an aspiration I will work towards.

The last part of the climb phase is your mission. This will be a reflection of a central governing belief. Often your “why” will be born from this. You read my “why” at the beginning of the chapter. It came out of my primary governing belief: Without leadership nothing happens; strong, caring, servant leaders are good leaders and good leaders produce good outcomes. Once you have defined your belief, you are able to form your mission.

It is possible that your “why” is your mission. I have seen this to be the case for many entrepreneurs, me included. Take a look at your “why” and ask, “Is this our mission?” If your answer is yes, you’re done and ready to move on to the final phase: the summit.

Build Your Own Skill Set

• How do you answer these two questions?
  • What are my strengths?
  • What am I passionate about?
• Do you feel fulfilled in your life; why or why not?
• Are you ready to take action?
  • Have you excavated before you elevated?
  • What type of foundation have you built?

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“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power”. Seth Berkley

Pro Leadership Principle: (My strength) x (My Passion) = My Level of Fulfillment

Clearing the Fulfillment Bar

When I coach, one-on-one, the ultimate goal of the coaching process is to help my clients to clear the bar, the bar they alone can set. This is part of my coaching process, “the blueprint for leadership,” and it has three phases: base-camp, climb, and summit.

The base camp phase is knowing who you are, how you were made, and how you work. It is based on the principle of in before out. You cannot be effective on the outside until you are clear about what’s inside.

The climbing phase is understanding your mission, what it means, and what it will require to fulfill it. In this phase you take what you know from the inside and plan its application on the outside.

The summit is the place where you know who you are, you are clear about your call, and you are clear about the strategy and the tactics necessary to fulfill your mission, and as a result you begin to live your life to the fullest.

Each phase is composed of a number of critical steps; each must be accomplished before moving on to the next. To skip any of the steps is to risk not only delay, but also a change in your destination. Each section of the climb will answer a number of questions, and, like building blocks, the answers you give will become the foundation for your success.

In base camp, you will answer five questions: who am I, what are my governing values, what are my roles, what is my why, and what is my calling? The purpose of answering these questions is, as I wrote above, to learn who you are, how you were made, and how you work. This is a tough phase because it requires a great deal of self-reflection, which may be difficult for some people, just as it was for me. So why do the work? Because no one can change the outside unless they are willing to either accept or change the inside. When answering the five base camp questions, here is how to frame your answers:

Question #1 – Who am I? It all starts by answering this question. I am asking you to step in front of the mirror to take a good look into yourself. Ask anyone you see, “Who are you?” and the answer you will get from most people is what they do, not who they are. None of us are what we do; we are all more valuable than that. Who we are may determine what we do, but what we do is not who we are.

Question #2 – What are my governing values? Think of these as the cylinders of your engine. They are your underlying motivation in all you do. They are the framework of your life. Values form as you grow, and they strengthen as you mature. They are the foundation you build your life upon. Values are not beliefs, because beliefs can change but values rarely do. As an example, I have seven governing values, these seven have not changed in the thirty years since I defined them, but I have clarified them over time. They are: faithfulness, generosity, leadership, excellence, simplicity, health, and freedom. For each of my values, I have written a clarifying statement. I won’t share those because for the same value, your clarifying statement[AL1]  may be different.  What matters is your value having your clarifying statement.

Question #3 – What are my roles? You will answer this by looking at your responsibilities and then tracing them back to the key people they are related to. For example, I have four roles: Husband, Father, Head Coach/Managing Partner, Friend. Just as I have a clarifying statement for each governing value, I have one for each role. You should have one for each role too.

Question #4 – What is your why? What juices you, what inspires you, why do you do what you do? I ask all of my perspective coaching clients to read Simon Sinek’s Start with Why. If you don’t have time to read the book or to listen to it on Audible, go to YouTube and find Sinek’s Ted Talk, “Start with Why.” We all have a why and discovering it will help you to clarify your direction and free you to move there (more on this in Chapter ##).

Once you have more clarity on what fulfills you, what your governing values are, and you are clear on your roles and your why, it will be easier to recognize the answer to question #5, what is my calling. Given all you know about yourself, what do you feel led to do? I like the question Robert Schuler asked John Maxwell, “What would you do, if you knew you wouldn’t fail?” Answering this question helped me to ultimately identify my call, and I have used it to help others to identify theirs too.

Build Your Own Skill Set

• How do you answer these two questions?
  • What are my strengths?
  • What am I passionate about?
• Do you feel fulfilled in your life; why or why not?
• Are you ready to take action?
  • Have you excavated before you elevated?
  • What type of foundation have you built?

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“Leadership is about vision and responsibility, not power”. Seth Berkley

Pro Leadership Principle: (My strength) x (My Passion) = My Level of Fulfillment

Leadership from a Place of Strength

It was during this “waiting” period between the end of my time at our company and my “second act” that the idea of AndrewWyatt Leadership emerged. I had been invited to speak to a group of business leaders in Madison, Wisconsin. From my home to Madison is 278 miles—a four-hour drive or a half-hour flight. However, flight schedules being what they were, to fly there would consume not only the day, but most of the evening too. I decided to drive and to use the drive time as an opportunity to fulfill some coaching commitments I had made. I was a leadership coach, but I did not know it. Two CEOs, who were the founding entrepreneurs of their respective companies, had sought me out for mentoring. A long drive, with good cell coverage, was the perfect opportunity for a coaching session or two; one on the way down and one on the way back.

I have to say that speaking to leaders on leadership and coaching leaders juices me like nothing else—it is my passion. I have also come to learn, it is my strength. I learned something poignant about this from John Ramstead, a former Navy fighter pilot and leadership coach; that this the formula for a fulfilled life—the degree to which I am operating in my strength, multiplied by the degree to which I am operating in my passion, equals my level of fulfillment.

(My strength) x (My Passion) = My Level of Fulfilment

It works like this: on a scale of 1-10, to what degree are you operating in your strength? Now, using the same measurement, to what degree are you operating in your passion? I have never seen two “10s”, but I have seen leaders who had numbers that were eight or higher—that is my goal. On a scale of one to 10, I very rarely give a 10, which leaves no room for improvement. But Andrew Wyatt Leadership, LLC has resulted in my being at “81” on the fulfilment scale: nine for strength times nine for passion!

Try this exercise as a proof source: think back to an endeavor in which you did not feel fulfilled and score it for strength and passion. I did it, and found I was less than 64 (8 x 8) in all of the endeavors that ultimately sucked the life out of me. Now, apply the exercise to what you are currently doing. Then answer this question for yourself: if 64 is your bar, where are you now? If you are below the bar, what are you going to do about it?

Build Your Own Skill Set

• How do you answer these two questions:
  • What are my strengths?
  • What am I passionate about?
• Do you feel fulfilled in your life; why or why not?
• Are you ready to take action?
  • Have you excavated before you elevated?
  • What type of foundation have you built?