Brent Filson’s Action Leadership Report is a monthly e-zine helping leaders achieve more results, faster results, continually.
In this issue: THE LEADERSHIP IMPERATIVE: LIVE IT DAILY, AND IT WILL NOT ONLY CHANGE YOUR LEADERSHIP BUT YOUR LIFE.
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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 5 – May, 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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IN THIS ISSUE:
SECTION 1: THE LEADERSHIP IMPERATIVE: LIVE DAILY, AND IT WILL NOT ONLY CHANGE YOUR LEADERSHIP BUT YOUR LIFE.
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: THE LEADERSHIP IMPERATIVE:
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Nearly all leaders I’ve encountered are underachievers. They’re getting a fraction of the results they are capable of. And in most cases, it’s their fault. Their failures are the result of the choices they make. For the opportunities to consistently get more results are all around them all the time, theirs for the taking.
For instance, to start getting more results right now, you simply have to change your mind-set. Just recognizing and avoiding two leadership traps can automatically improve your results-producing capabilities dramatically. Last month, I described the traps.
http:www.actionleadership.com/ezine/V3n2.html
There are other ways to get great results by changing your mind-set. Read about them in my latest books, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS, I describe many changes you can engender.
http://www.actionleadership.com/products/leadershiptalk.html
http://www.actionleadership.com/products/101ways.html
Changing One’s mind-set is only one path to being a more effective leader. There are other paths:
-- replacing speeches and presentations with Leadership Talks,
-- committing yourself to leadership contracts,
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v3n2.html
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v1n4.html
-- instituting a leadership strategy;
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v2n1.html
And many more.
The paths not only help you get immediate and long term results but also drive your mind-set changes deeply into your leadership DNA. You should aim to make your leadership your life and your life your leadership. If you don’t, you diminish both your leadership and your life. To have the processes really sink in so they change your life, you must cultivate two dynamics: a vision of purpose, what your leadership is in your life, and the dedication to realize that purpose.
The word “vision” has been used and misused ad nauseam. The trouble is that most leaders misunderstand it. When they think “vision”, they look at themselves, at what they can do for themselves. To do well for yourself, an inward focus is the wrong place to look.
Here’s a vision that you can carry with you for the rest of your career. I call it the Leadership Imperative.
I WILL LEAD PEOPLE IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY NOT ONLY ACHIEVE THE RESULTS WE NEED BUT THEY ALSO BECOME BETTER AS PEOPLE AND AS LEADERS.
This vision has two parts: one is result-accomplishments and the other is the betterment of the people.
You are never more powerful as a leader as when, in getting results, you are helping others be better than they are -- even better than thought they could be. Guided by the Leadership Imperative, you’ll find that the jobs you take on, the career(s) you have, will, in terms of your doing well by them, take care of themselves.
However, vision alone is not enough. You must be dedicated to realizing it. Realizing this vision means living not an easy life for ourselves but a hard life for others.
One way to do that is by consistently developing and implementing leadership contracts.
http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v3n2.html
There are many other ways to make such realization happen, and it should be our life’s journey to find them and put them into action. The point is that when you turn the focus of your ambitions away from yourself and toward other people, when you become truly ambitious for their success, your success will take care of itself.
How do we really let our leadership sink deeply into our life and change it and shape it throughout our lives? By dedicating ourselves to passionately realizing the Leadership Imperative.
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SECTION TWO: The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.
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The Good:
Marcel Marceau, the great French mime said to a friend: “Genius is silence. The mime is silent because if he spoke, the expression would be so much easier, and so he is silent to oblige himself to say more.”
–Your unspoken communication when you are living the Leadership Imperative is a far more powerful description of your qualities than what you might say aloud.
The Bad:
During the start of the French Revolution, Lafayette had returned to France as a hero of the American Revolutionary War. One day as he was he was being driven through the streets of Paris, a throng of admirers stopped his carriage, unhitched the horses and, shouting his praise, pulled the carriage to the general’s destination. A few days later, someone mentioned the incident to him, saying that he must have been pleased with the gesture. “Yes, it was delightful,” he said. “But one thing disturbs me. I never saw anything more of my horses.”
–As a leader, you may have people shout your praises and do the equivalent of pulling your carriage. But mind they don’t steal your horses.
The Ugly:
The great French caricaturist Daumier found himself destitute at 65. Nearly blind, he was threatened with eviction from his house for not paying his rent. Then a letter from his friend Corot, the successful landscape painter, arrived. Corot wrote: “I have a little house at Valmondois which I could not, for the life of me, think what to do with. Suddenly, I thought to give it to you, and liking the idea, I have had your ownership legally confirmed. I had no idea of doing you a good turn. The whole scheme was carried out to annoy the landlord.” Daumier wrote back, “You are the only man from whom I could accept such a gift and not feel humiliated.”
–In realizing the Leadership Imperative, be aware of people’s sensitivities and sensibilities. They may feel your helping them puts them in a position in which they owe you a favor. If they feel that way, you are not carrying out the Leadership Imperative in its best ways. You are not a leader to confer favors on people but to help them make choices to better their situations and/or themselves. You do not manifest the Leadership Imperative as one expecting wages.
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SECTION THREE: Points of Light.
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“One of the most delightful feelings one can have is to do a good deed by stealth and be found out by accident.” –Charles Lamb
“In giving, forget; in getting, remember.” –Brent Filson
“Is devotion to others a cover for the hungers and the needs of the self, of which one is ashamed ? I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.” Anais Nin
“It is sweet to be remembered. But it is often cheaper to be forgotten.” Kin Hubbard
“What is bought is cheaper than a gift.” Portugese proverb.
“We’d all like a reputation for generosity, and we all like to buy it cheap.” –Mignon McLaughlin
“The real giving has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future.” –Brent Filson
“He who refuses nothing, Atticilla, will soon have nothing to refuse.” --Martial
“Liberality consists rather in giving reasonably than much.” –La Bruyere
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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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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.
Listen to Brent being interviewed: http://audiomotivation.com/go/brent-filson1204.htm
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?” http://www.actionleadership.com/articles/0018.html has been translated into Chinese and is featured in the May issue of the Chinese magazine, “Global Sources: Career Sources China.” http://csc.globalsources.com
In next month’s issue, catch Brent’s interview in an Australian human resources magazine. In it, he takes HR to task in a big way.
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.
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
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.
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