Brent Filson's Action Leadership Report is a monthly e-zine helping leaders achieve more results, faster results, continually. 
 
In this issue: LEADERSHIP WITH A KIND HEART: MAKING THE ELEPHANT JUMP
 
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"Authority is a poor excuse for leadership.  Poor leaders order people to do a job.  Action leaders have those people choose to be the cause leaders of that job -- for more results faster, continually."  –Brent Filson
 
Vol. 3  Number 12 – December, 2005
Publisher: The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.
brent@actionleadership.com
(413) 458-4403
www.actionleadership.com
(c) Copyright 2005 The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.
 
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Reprinted from "Brent Filson's Action Leadership Report," a free e-zine helping leaders get more results faster (continually).  Subscribe at www.actionleadership.com and receive Brent Filson's free report: 49 Tips On Using Action To Get Results.  
 

IN THIS ISSUE:
 

SECTION 1: Leading With A Kind Heart: Making The Elephant Jump
SECTION 2: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.    
SECTION 3: Points of Light.
SECTION 4: Message from Brent Filson: 25 Leadership Maxims
SECTION 5: News. 
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SECTION 1: Leading With A Kind Heart: Making The Elephant Jump 
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Leadership is not about getting people to do what they want.  If they did what they want, you wouldn't be needed as a leader.  Instead, leadership is about getting people to do what they don't want to do (or don't think they can do) – and be ardently committed to doing it.
 
This seeming contradiction is really the keystone for the arch of great leadership. 
 
Unlike management, which involves simply the care and feeding of your organizational elephant, leadership gets that elephant to jump. 
 
Anyone who knows anything about elephants knows that they may run, they may stand on their hind legs, they may kneel on their fore legs, they may roll over; but they don't jump.
 
And that's what leadership is all about: getting organizations to do what they usually can't do, i.e., getting great results consistently. 
 
Now, as a leader in the organization, you yourself can't jump.  The elephant must do it.  You yourself can't push the elephant into the air.  It must jump of its own volition.
 
Making the elephant jump involves a special relationship between the leader and the people of the organization.
 
Many leaders misunderstand that relationship.  Some of these leaders try to use fear and pain to spur the activity needed to achieve consistently great results.  "Sure, I'll get this elephant to jump.  Just give me a cattle prod!"
 
But inducing fear and pain are habit forming and ultimately destructive both to the leader and the people.
 
To make the elephant jump -- not now and then but consistently, i.e., to lead people to consistently do great things -- deep, human emotional bonding between leader and people must take place.  And fundamental to that bonding is the character of the heart of the leader.
 
And this is the secret: You can't get the elephant to jump on a consistent basis unless you have a kind heart.  Kindness in leadership means following the Leadership Imperative: "I will lead people in such a way that we not only achieve the needed results but they become better as leaders and people."
 
Most leaders focus on the first part "getting better results" and forget about the second part. But in truth, when you have a kind heart, getting results and helping people be better are not two things but one. 
 
See every results-oriented leadership challenge you face as a way of having people increase in their knowledge, their skills, their courage, their tenacity,  their leadership abilities -- instilling that increase is a kindness.
 
But don't mistake kindness for being nice.  Don't mistake kindness for having people simply feel good.  Don't mistake kindness for allowing people to indulge the worst aspects of their character, laziness, inconsiderateness, selfishness, etc.
 
You may be kind and have people be frustrated with you.  Many great leaders I've had relationships with got me frustrated as they forced me to get out of my comfort zone and go through the trouble of tackling challenges I might not otherwise have tackled.  In fact, deep, human, emotional bonding cannot happen without a great deal of frustration.  But the prerequisite in establishing those relationships is first and foremost a kind heart. 
 
Yes, through skill, persuasiveness, understanding, forcefulness, education, and guidance, you can get the elephant to jump -- as long as you do it through the kindness of your heart.
 
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Section 2: The Good.  The Bad.  The Ugly.
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The Good:
An executive I know had his career changed through the kindness of a C.E.O.  He was a young salesman in a large, international company.  The CEO came to town and asked to go on a sales call with a sales man.  The future executive was selected as the salesman and was told by his boss to take the CEO on a easy sales call with a loyal customer.  The salesman instead took him on difficult sales call with skeptical customer.  A month or so later, the CEO set up a meeting with his senior executives and invited the young salesman to present his views on how to deal with skeptical customers.  The executive told me, "That the CEO showed he trusted me and respected my ideas boosted my confidence in ways that live in me today." 
 
The Bad:
Napoleon supposedly had a corporal sitting in on all his meetings with his generals.  If the corporal did not understand the general's plans, Napoleon rejected those plans. 
 
--When you are developing plans for your organization, think of Napoleon's corporal.  Are those plans simple enough to be understood by everyone?  Often, plans are for the planner, not the people who must implement them.  Simplicity is a leadership kindness.
 
The Ugly:
Lycurgus the great Spartan law maker (circa 800 B.C.) was beset upon by a mob in the marketplace during a time of political turbulence.  He ran for his life, but a hot-headed young man caught up with him and put out his eye with a stick.  Plutarch takes it from there: "Lycurgus, so far from being daunted and discouraged by this accident, stopped short, and showed his disfigured face and eye beat out to his countrymen; they, dismayed and ashamed at the sight, delivered Alcander into his hands to be punished, and escorted him home, with expressions of great concern for his ill usage.  Lycurgus, having thanked them for their care of his person, dismissed them all, excepting only Alcander; and, taking him with him to his house, neither did nor said anything severely to him, but, dismissing those whose place it was, bade Alcander to wait upon him at the table.  The young man, who was of an ingenuous temper, without murmuring did as he was commanded; and, being thus admitted to live with Lycurgus, he had an opportunity to observe in him, besides his gentleness and calmness of temper, an extraordinary sobriety and an indefatigable industry, and so, from an enemy, became one of his most zealous admirers, and told his friends and relations that Lycurgus was not that morose and ill-natured man they had formerly taken him for, but the one mild and gentle character of the world.  And thus did Lycurgus, for chastisement of his fault, make of a wild and passionate young man one of the discreetest citizens of Sparta." 
 
–Kindness is often all the more influential when done in the face of violence and anger. 
 
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SECTION THREE: Points of Light.
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Kindness is a language the dumb can speak and the deaf can understand.  –C. N. Bovee.
 
He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.  –Benjamin Franklin
 
The first thing a kindness deserves is acceptance, the second, transmission.  –George Macdonald
 
Mobs gather for many purposes except one -- to do a kindness.  –Brent Filson
 
A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.  –Prentice
 
Tigers have courage and the rugged bear, but man alone, whom he conquers spare.  –Waller
 
Thoughts of recompense make kindness less than kind.  –Brent Filson
 
Not always actions show the man; we find
Who does a kindness is not therefore kind.  –Pope
 
Nobody is kind to one person at once but to many people in one.  –Frederick Faber
 
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SECTION FOUR: Message From Brent Filson:
25 Leadership Maxims:
http://www.actionleadership.com/articles/0036.html
 
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SECTION FIVE: NEWS:
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For sales reps and though who wish to be sales reps, get Brent's "19 Sales Tools." 
 
Meeting planners have a great, new  website: http://www.brentfilson.com
 
Speaking of meeting planners, Brent has an article coming up in the January issue of "Meeting Planners Magazine."  It's called "Getting Level 2 Results." 
 
Brent also has an article in the winter issue of Dottie Walters "Sharing Ideas" magazine.  It's called, "The Leadership Talk."  PDF version available.  
 
Brent is now offering a $50,000 guarantee with his one-day Leadership Talk session.  E-mail Brent for more information. 
 
Brent will be a featured speaker at Ragan's Speechwriters Conference in Washington, D.C. February 10th and at 15th Annual Corporate Communicators Conference April 25-27 in Chicago.
 
Brent has put together two great systems that will boost your leadership and your leadership communication abilities.  One is Brent Filson's The Leadership Talk System: www.theleadershiptalk.com
 
The other is Brent Filson's The CEO Public Speaking System: www.theceopublicspeakingsystem.com
 
Read Brent's interview conducted by Alistair Craven in ManagementFirst, an international business magazine out of London.  http://www.managementfirst.com/management_styles/index.htm
 
Brent's article, "Are You Sabotaging Your Career?" has been translated into Turkish and is featured in the January issue of  "HR Magazine", Turkey's first human resources magazine.
 
During the past few months, Brent has been interviewed on more than 125 radio shows  – and many more are on the way.  If you are interested in having him on your show or at your meeting, go to the Action Leadership website and click on either the "meeting planner" button or the "media room" button.
 
Listen to Brent being interviewed:  http://audiomotivation.com/go/brent-filson1204.htm
 
The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. is putting together a CD collection of interviews with leaders, called the "Leaders Speak" Series.  It will begin this month and can be found on the Action Leadership website.  Click on "Leaders Speak CD Series."   Brent says, "I want to interview leaders from a broad spectrum of human endeavor to be represented.  Don't be surprised to find landscape contractors, gang leaders, horse trainers, sports coaches, as well as business and political leaders.  Leadership is practiced by practically everyone, and we will bring it to you on the CDs in all the richness of human relationships."  For more information, call the F.L.G. headquarters, 413-458-4403 or email Brent at brent@actionleadership.com
 
Brent's latest leadership books, The Leadership Talk: The Greatest Leadership Tool and 101 Ways To Give Great Leadership Talks , are available in bookstores.  You can also purchase advance copies by calling 800-403-5368. Mention this e-zine and you'll receive a free wallet card with the Leadership Talk processes. If you purchase the hardcover book, you'll receive a free copy of 101 Ways To Give Great Leadership Talks. In addition, you'll be eligible to receive a set of Brent's previously published books at half price.
 
COMMISSIONS can be earned selling Brent's books and other products as well as helping him get booked for speaking and seminar engagements.  Email Brent for more details.