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Archives | Serve to Be Great

You Don’t Need a Title to Be a Leader Who Makes a Difference

Image of man serving pancakes - links to video
I was recently in Salt Lake City, Utah, when I heard a story that inspired me deeply.
The story reminded me how meaningful and impactful our lives are, and how we can make a difference no matter what our current position is in life.
I share this story in the video below.
Enjoy!
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If you haven’t seen the free sample chapters of the highly-acclaimed book, 
Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom, please click here.
Matt's Insights, Personal Development, Servant Leadership, Serve to Be Great, Success In Life, Videos, VLOG

Two Ways to Embrace Conflict

Ideally, I’m sure that we’d all like to have workplaces that are completely free of conflict.

We may have dreams of an organization full of people who get along all the time, always acting harmoniously.

But reality quickly reminds us that this is not possible. So the important question to ask is:

How do we handle conflict when it arises personally or between people we lead?

Do we ignore it? Do we feign niceties to create the façade of harmony? Do we aggressively defend our position? Do we allow our people to do the same?

Effective leaders who truly care about their people and achieving excellence take a different approach.

They embrace conflict…

This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.  To continue reading, please CLICK HERE.
Huffington Post, Leadership, Servant Leadership

Magic Balloons and Building Influence as a Leader

It has been said that influence is the foundation of leadership.  I was recently reminded of the essence of influence and how to create it as I watched some rather magical balloons float up to the heavens.

I was grabbing a bite to eat on the lovely terrace outside the Terrace Café at Shands Cancer Hospital here in Gainesville.  It would be an almost 13-hour day at Shands working on our Kids Kicking Cancer program, and it was nice to just take in the view of the sky, the clouds, the trees, and the Fountain of Hope, all of which were in clear view as I ate my dinner.
Suddenly, the view changed as I noticed two balloons floating up in front of me, only 20 feet away.  I’m not sure if they were released intentionally or by accident.  Maybe it was a bit of both.
They floated up rather quickly, but I noticed as they rotated in the breeze that both balloons read, “Get Well Soon!”
Almost as if the balloons were intending to do so, they headed over towards the windows of the patient’s rooms.  And, as if to further give the impression that these balloons were somehow magical, a couple times they seemed to pause for a second or so as they floated in front of a patient’s room.
I could only imagine how nice it must have felt for a person sitting in a hospital room to receive such a lovely gift – a magical balloon that seemed to be meant just for them, wishing that they be well.
This is a gift that we can give each person we meet, which just might also be one of the most important things we can do as leaders, whether we have a title or not.
Influence is the essence of leadership.  If we are unable to influence the behaviors of others, then we are not effective as a leader.  Some people still think fear is a good way to influence behaviors, but most of us know that it doesn’t work very well, and certainly isn’t sustainable.
A very effective way to build our influence is to show people that we truly care about them.  When people know that we are committed to their well-being and success, they are much more likely to follow us.
A wonderful and simple technique for building our capacity to care for and help others is to make a new mental habit.  As you approach an interaction with another person, you can simply ask silently in the mind, “How can I help this person to be happy?”
You don’t need to immediately have an answer.  You just need to ask the question.  A way to help them may present itself while you interact, after you interact, or not at all.  What’s most important is that you set the intention for the interaction as one of service.  People will pick up on this unconscious signal that you care about them.  You might find that when people talk about you they say, “I feel good when I’m around her.” 
You definitely don’t need a title to attract people to you when they feel good in your presence.  I believe that this is the essence of truly great leadership.

What question are you asking in your mind when you approach another human being?
Image credit – http://worldwidewhether.wordpress.com/
Communication, Leadership, Matt's Insights, Personal Development, Servant Leadership, Success In Life

3 Ideas for Being More Charismatic

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Have you ever noticed how truly great people have an incredible ability to make you feel as though you are the most important person in the world when they interact with you? 
One of the most important things we can do to dramatically improve our success as leaders is to cultivate the ability to make other people feel important. 
Over the last three years, I’ve spent a lot of time at Shands hospital at the University of Florida, working on our Kids Kicking Cancer program.  Every time I walk the halls of the hospital I am both surprised and amused at how few of the staff members make eye contact as they walk by.  These people are looking at my ID badge instead of at me.
I’ve thought of some fun ways to wake people up from their label-obsession-induced slumber.  The most kind way I could think of is to say, a little louder than necessary, “Hi there fellow human being!”
When we look closely at our mental habits, we can see that we’re constantly labeling and classifying the people around us, aren’t we?
She’s the grumpy, middle-aged, mailroom lady…  He’s the overweight, arrogant, sales guy… She’s the flaky, new-age, granola bar-eating, receptionist…  The mind is always doing this, isn’t it?
If we want to build influence with others and improve our effectiveness as leaders, we need to work at transcending this habit of mind and improve our ability to simply see other people as fellow human beings who ultimately want what we want: To be happy.
Eye Contact and a Smile
A great first step is to make the habit of always making eye contact with people walking by, smiling, and saying, “Hello.”  If this becomes a habit with strangers, it will become a habit with people we work with as well.
While at work, we should greet people by name.   If we don’t know their name, we should learn it immediately.
Wishing Happiness
Once we become more comfortable making eye contact, smiling at, and greeting everyone we walk past (everyone possible anyhow), we’re ready to take it to the next step.  As we’re walking around, we can mentally wish, “May she/he be happy and well,” for each person we see, whether or not she/he makes eye contact with us.
Being Genuinely Interested
Wishing people happiness helps us with the next practice, which is cultivating genuine interest in others.  When we’re genuinely interested in other people, we ask a lot of questions and do a lot of listening.  We look for and comment on the positive we see in people. 
Charisma
People often say that great leaders have charisma, which is defined as “compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.”  Practicing these three ideas gives you charisma.  Nothing is more attractive or charming than caring for and being genuinely interested in others.
Do you ever feel as though people only see your label? 

Who do you know that really sees you and is interested in you?  
Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  


CLICK HERE to learn more about the eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Communication, Leadership, Matt's Insights, Personal Development, Servant Leadership, Success In Life

Fantastic Book! Love Is The Killer App – By Tim Sanders

Today, I write simply to recommend one of my favorite books: Love Is the Killer App by Tim Sanders.
This book is incredible!  After reading it, I immediately incorporated concepts and practices from the book into my personal life and my professional life.
When Tim wrote the book, he was the chief solutions offer at Yahoo!.  He achieved this executive position in a top company relatively quickly, employing the concepts and practices he wrote about in Love Is the Killer App.  
Instead of following the stereotypical corporate path of doing whatever it takes to get ahead, even at the expense of others, Tim followed a path of kindness and service.  This resulted not only in quickly achieving an executive position at Yahoo!, but in building a network of interpersonal connections that staggers the mind, which in turn resulted in him getting his first book deal and becoming a highly sought-after public speaker.
In Love Is the Killer App, Tim shares incredibly practical tools for building a personal brand that will set you apart from the crowd and significantly increase the value you can add for other people, potential employers, and potential business partners. 
He suggests an approach of selfless giving as the secret to accomplishing this.  However, he focuses on giving things that are valuable but intangible, and thus sustainable, meaning you can give them freely to as many people as you meet without ever running out of your resources for helping.
Which intangibles?  Your knowledge, your network, and your compassion.  
Tim gives very practical suggestions for increasing your level of knowledge and effectively sharing it with others, effectively growing your network of personal connections and freely sharing it with others, practical ways for caring for people that enrich your life and strengthen the connections in your network.  Tim makes it very easy to see how sharing these assets not only makes your life more enjoyable, but how doing so adds so much value to your personal brand.
This book is very well written, fun to read, and will leave you feeling inspired and prepared to achieve true success.  I highly, highly recommend Love Is the Killer App.
As a result of Tim’s status and success, he has been able to make compassion and kindness in the business world credible.  His work has already been and will continue to be very helpful for my efforts to teach people in the business world practices that help us develop kindness, compassion, and empathy, as he makes it clear how effective people with these abilities prove to be.
Be Love,

Matt
Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  

CLICK HERE to learn more about the eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Book Reviews, Personal Development, Servant Leadership

The Heart of Leadership – An Interview With Mark Miller, Bestselling Author and Chick-fil-A Executive

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What makes leaders different?

As a bestselling author and Executive Vice President of Organizational Effectiveness at Chik-fil-A, Mark Miller learned over the years that only 10% of leadership relates to skills.  He realized that 90% of leadership is a function of the leader’s character, and there are five key elements of character that make leaders different.

In this interview, Mark identifies what sets leaders apart from the crowd by discussing some of the key concepts in his new book, The Heart Of Leadership: Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow.



Want to connect with Mark?

1) Get a FREE sample chapter of his new book

2) Visit his blog, Great Leaders Serve

3) Follow him on Twitter –  Mark Miller @LeadersServe

Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  

CLICK HERE to learn more about the eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Interviews, Leadership, Personal Development, Servant Leadership

How You Can Lead More Like Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is an intro to a piece that I wrote for the Huffington Post.

Last week, as I reflected on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech, it occurred to me that Dr. King is certainly one of the most influential leaders in American history. Have you ever wondered why that is so? Answering this question can help us to be more effective leaders.

There were, of course, numerous factors that contributed to Dr. King becoming the de facto leader of the civil rights movement in America. However, it is clear that the principle cause is the fact that Dr. King was incredibly inspiring. He was able touch people’s hearts in a way that few others in history ever have. Fortunately for us, his secrets for inspiring others and moving them to action are traits that we can all emulate.

If you’d like to read the entire post, please CLICK HERE.

Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  

Just CLICK HERE, and I’ll send you this eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Huffington Post, Personal Development, Servant Leadership

Working For Good as a Leader – An Interview with Jeff Klein

Powerful tools for achieving leadership excellence while making the world a better place.

Jeff Klein is an activator, producer, process facilitator, and the author of Working For Good and It’s Just Good Business.  He is one of the founders of Conscious Capitalism, Inc.(activator), (producer) of Conscious Capitalism events, including an annual Conscious Capitalism CEO Summit, and as a (process facilitator) he designs and leads workshops, meetings, Conscious Culture development programs and Stakeholder Engagement Marketing™ campaigns.

Below is a recent interview I had the pleasure of facilitating with Jeff, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy!

About thirty years ago, you felt a calling to leverage the power of business for the greater good and in the process to make your work a path to learning, growth, and development.  Ever since, you have been helping people see the connection between making a difference in the world, achieving better business outcomes, and enjoying the ride.  What are the three biggest competitive advantages you see for a leader who successfully aligns the achievement of positive business outcomes with serving the greater good?  
Perhaps the most significant benefit is the personal and collective energy and flow this fosters. When a person (e.g. a business leader) and a group of people (e.g. their team and their entire business stakeholder ecosystem) are focused on a higher purpose and act in alignment with that purpose, there is a tremendous sense of meaning, engagement, and connectedness, which leads to high motivation, an embodied commitment to responsible communications, and exceptional creativity and productivity.
A second, related benefit, is the trust, engagement, loyalty and sustainability in the relationships between the people (individually and as whole stakeholder groups – e.g. customers, employees, vendors, etc.), which lead to great resilience when challenges arise and sustainability over a long time horizon. Business is a social endeavor and relationships are the foundation of a healthy, flourishing social organism/organization.
A third significant competitive advantage is health, well-being, and flourishing – for the leader, her team and her business. At each level, health enhances performance and reduces direct and indirect or opportunity costs.
What would you say are the three most important things a leader can do to become less self-centered, and more focused on how they can serve, sustainably, the people they lead and the community around them?
As with all things, practice is the key to high performance and to cultivating new capacities. As Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” If you want to be less self-centered and to serve others, then serve others. There’s a great quote on humility that is relevant here, which goes “humility is not thinking less of yourself, but more of others.” So you don’t have to put yourself down, just see and celebrate the talents and humanity in others.
A key to cultivating the capacity to serve is to elicit and really listen to feedback from others. You may have an idea what it means to serve them, but their needs, perceptions and styles may be different from yours. Ask people what they need and how they can best receive it. And you can ask people if they are open to your observations – ask permission to point out areas where you notice they may benefit from your support and guidance. If they give you permission, they will be more open to receiving your support. And ask “how can I support you right now?”
Ironically, the third thing, which might be the first thing, is to take care of yourself. While that might seem self-centered, if you don’t genuinely take care of yourself, which is different from being self-centered, then you won’t have the knowledge, experience or capacity to truly care for others. By taking care of yourself, I mean physically (what you eat, exercise, sleep, recreation, etc.), emotionally, mentally and spiritually, whatever that means to you. 
How important is it to measure progress with this work of becoming a conscious leader?  Could you share some ideas for successfully measuring progress?
As human beings we are always measuring in one way or another. Receiving and processing feedback from our environment, which includes other people, is essential to our survival, learning, and flourishing. With respect to the previous question about service versus self-centeredness, we can measure our progress informally by observing the quality of our relationships and the attitude and engagement of the people we work with. We can do so more formally be measuring these things with one or more of the wide variety of assessment tools. Before and after (or ongoing) assessments can provide us with direct and indirect measures of “how we’re doing.” The net Promoter System tools for assessing Customer and Employee engagement are very good. Tilt365 has a good tool for assessing our relationships within our teams, and for shining light on our blind spots. And good, open, honest, periodic conversations with our key collaborators can provide great insight into how we are doing and where we may need or want to focus our attention on further development. This is truly an ongoing process. There is no end point, but a continual journey of discovery and development.
In the words of the late George Leonard, “We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.”


Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  


Just CLICK HERE, and I’ll send you this eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Great Cultures, Interviews, Personal Development, Servant Leadership

How to Become A Level 5 Leader

How to Become What Jim Collins Calls A Level 5 Leader: An Interview With Mary Jo Asmus

A former executive in a Fortune 100 company, Mary Jo Asmus, PCC is the founder and president of Aspire Collaborative Services.  She is an executive coach, writer, and consultant who partners with great leaders to help them become even greater at developing, improving, and sustaining relationships with the people who are essential to their success.

I recently had the chance to interview her, and ask her to share some of the ways she helps great leaders get even better.  Below is the transcript:


A part of your executive coaching work that I find very interesting is that you actually create action plans for helping leaders become “Level 5 leaders,” which are leaders that Jim Collins found through extensive research to be most effective at taking an organization from “good to great.” Could you share your thoughts on why humility and high achievement drive for the greater good are such important qualities of Level 5 leaders?

First of all, I want to make it clear that I don’t create the action plans; the leaders I work with do, with my guidance, based on feedback they’ve received and behavioral goals they are passionate about working on. In a way, this speaks directly to humility (the feedback addresses their “opportunities for development”) and drive (their desire to work on goals that are important to them to help them become great leaders). So we start out with these characteristics of humility and drive from the very start as foundational to the work we do.

Humility is important because it keeps a leader in a learning mindset. The humble leader understands that they don’t know it all, and that they need to count on others to help them. This is important in our fast moving, competitive business world. If a leader doesn’t continually stay in touch with others in order to learn, the pace of change may get ahead of them, causing them to fall behind and ultimately fail.

Drive is important to achieve goals, pure and simple. Leadership is simple in concept, difficult in practice. Very few are actually “born leaders” in my opinion, and it takes significant effort for most to bust through the barriers to become a Level 5 leader. Although I completely understand Jim Collins’ definition of Level 5 leader who is focused on the “greater good” of the company, many of the barriers experienced by a leader in critical stages of their development are self-imposed, requiring a leader to have the energy and ambition to look at themselves with a critical eye and overcome them. This takes a lot of courage and requires an internal focus before a leader can be fully focused on goals for the organization.

Could you share the top three most important ideas you would offer for helping a leader become a Level 5 leader?

1. Get honest feedback often from your stakeholders in a way that they can’t B.S. you (confidential 360 instruments and interviews conducted by a third party are the best way to get this kind of feedback). Find out what behaviors are working and which ones aren’t, and get to work on yourself.

2. Know yourself well. The better you know how you think and react, the better you know what’s important to you, the better you’ll be in a calamity, and you will have at least one of those in your leadership journey.

3. Take care of yourself. Even though a level 5 leader may want to give away everything for the good of the company, if they give away their mental or physical health, they cannot lead well. This requires as much attention to one’s physical and spiritual energy as to their vision and passion for the organization.

Part of your work includes helping leaders move from “me” to “we.”  Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?

Most leaders can become better at relationships with those around them. This requires effort, because so many of them have been promoted because they are great at getting things done, but may lack some critical people skills. Getting things done as a lone wolf might work for a while, but at a critical juncture, they realize they can’t do it all themselves. Leadership isn’t a one-person show, and the few times that I’ve seen someone believe that is the case, they’ve burned out or just plain failed. The best leaders I know put people first, knowing that when they’ve developed great relationships and a system of support around them, they’ll be stronger and more successful than they would by themselves.

Why do you think this is so important? Are there specific, measurable business outcomes that you’ve found are more easily achieved by a leader who has moved from “me” to “we”? 

Of course! If our organizations were filled with individual contributors who hadn’t grasped the concepts of working with others in order to be stronger, they’d be tripping all over each other. It would be utter chaos, and I could imagine very little getting done. You only need to look at the studies to see that leaders who have worked at the soft skills get hard numbers from their employees.

How can a leader develop a more self-less, we-centered mentality?

Make developing relationships every bit as important as achieving your vision, mission, and strategy. I always thought it was strange that organizations put these huge, complex strategic plans in place but don’t address the soft skills that it takes to achieve them, like everything will get done by magic. You actually have to be as strategic about relationships as you do about everything else you’re doing by asking, “who do I need to reach out to?” and then begin your strategies with relationships first. The “doing” will find its own way after that.



Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  

Just CLICK HERE, and I’ll send you this eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Communication, Interviews, Personal Development, Servant Leadership

Surprising Links Between Cockroaches, Compassion, and Profits

A Guest Post that Appeared on The Huffington Post on the Surprising Links Between Cockroaches, Compassion, and Profits

On a recent Saturday morning, when walking into my guest bedroom, I noticed that a rather large palmetto bug (a.k.a. cockroach) had found its way into my home. This happens occasionally during warm months. Usually the bugs are on their backs, near death, or already dead. However, this one was spunky!
I practice catch and release with these critters (I’ll explain why in a moment), covering them with a cup, then sliding a thin piece of cardboard under the cup, carrying the critter outside, and quickly sliding the cup off of the cardboard. This sends the bug falling safely onto the earth, where they usually scurry off to hide from the light.
The little feller I released on this particular Saturday didn’t like the idea of falling safely to the earth and decided to fly: Not just to break his fall, he really started flying! In fact, he flew right back at me. I stepped to the side quickly to get out of the way and when I looked to see where he had landed, I couldn’t find him. There were only a couple places to hide on my small porch – under my running shoes, or on me.
To read the rest of this post, please click here to see it at the Huffington Post.

Thanks for reading this post!  As a gift, I’d like to give you this excellent eBook for FREE!  


Just CLICK HERE, and I’ll send you this eBook, featuring chapters from John Spence, Jeff Klein, Charlie Kim, Michael Carroll, Ted Prince, David Marquet, and Ben Lichtenwalner.
Great Cultures, Innovation, Matt's Insights, Servant Leadership