Blog - Page 41 of 60 - Wheeler Coaching Systems

May

2019

What My Wife Teaches Me About Leadership

Where do we find some of the strongest leaders in the world? In our own homes. I was reflecting on leadership as I tend to do because that is my thing. Since today is Mother’s Day I thought I’d write a list of the top five things my wife teaches me about leadership . . . in no particular order.

Serve

One of the major times I realized my selfishness was when I got married, but when my children were born this realization was amplified. My wife on the other hand, has amplified the opposite. As each child arrived her example of selflessly serving our children has grown. I could list many ways I see that in her, but that would take too much time. She is a model of servant leadership in everything she does for our family.

Patience

We have three boys and they are full of lots of energy. Not only does my wife patiently discipline them, serve them, and meet their various needs, but she also demonstrates extreme patience with me. Because of her patience, she is able to capitalize on teachable moments to help each of our boys grow into men of great character as I know my own mother did for me.

Leadership requires being out in front and providing vision, but also patience to slow down enough to allow others to understand and adapt. All of this requires the same patience my wife and many other mothers model daily.

Perseverance

This was modeled three times for nine plus months. I cannot begin to imagine carrying a human being and all the changes that occur. I’m a wimp and probably would have wanted to quit within the first trimester’s sickness. Whether getting up in the middle of the night, taking care of sick children, or simply persisting in trying to provide the best for our children’s individual needs my wife is a model of perseverance.

Accomplishing any goal requires perseverance. If the goal is worthwhile, it will not happen easily and will require leaders to demonstrate perseverance.

Compassion

When someone gets hurt around our home they run to mom, not me. This is because of the amount of compassion and care my wife demonstrates toward our children. This great compassion she models as a leader is necessary for our children to feel safe.

As leaders if those we lead know we care about them they will try harder. When others feel safe and cared about by their leader this empowers them to take risks that help them and the organization or team to grow.

Unconditional Love

My wife demonstrates compassion on steroids by her unconditional love. I see this most by how often she forgives the most self-centered male in the home (me). This love provides a safe environment for open and honest communication among all family members.

When those we lead know they are valued no matter what they say, leaders get more candid feedback. Honest feedback that is positive or negative is easier to provide when unconditional love is the norm.

What about you? Of these five areas, where do you need to grow most in your leadership? Need someone to come alongside you to help you think into your leadership results? Contact me to schedule a powerful coaching experience today so I can help you think into your leadership results.

May

2019

How Aware Are You?

Not too long ago in our home my three boys had become infatuated with Corvettes. My oldest is creating plans in his mind on how he is going to save up for his corvette.

While listening to my sons talk frequently about these cars, they also pointed them out while we are driving. It seems like there has been a sudden increase of corvettes around where I live. Also I have noticed a sudden increase in silver Honda Odyssey vans like what we have. . . . or has there been an increase?

As we drove around town I noticed another Corvette recently and it struck me that people are not buying more, but I am more aware and tuned into their presence. I wonder what would happen if I were more aware in my leadership. What does this look like?

As leaders we have many stress points. Many people want attention or have questions, there are administrative duties that need attention, and decisions that must be made which impact multiple lives. These are just a few and do not account for the stress various personal stressors. You may be aware of all these stresses and responsibilities . . . or not.

Where is your awareness?

Awareness is a greater perception or knowledge of a fact. For example, if you have never heard of moose tracks ice cream you may not have noticed it at the ice cream shop or store before, but now that I have mentioned it you are going to be more aware of it. Maybe you will even buy it.

In your business what are you tuned into? Are you only focused on the urgent demands and emergency situations? Is the most important item on your agenda the urgent item? Emergencies occur and our plans are interrupted in life and work, but are we maintaining awareness of the important needs in our lives. Are we only aware of our families when an emergency occurs and at all other times work takes precedence?

Daniel Goleman helped people more clearly understand the idea of self-awareness in his book Emotional Intelligence. This is when we are tuned into our emotional state enough that we can adjust our emotions and prevent ourselves from saying and doing what may hurt others and ourselves.

What does all this have to do with leadership? When we are aware of our environment, ourselves, and others it helps us lead more effectively. The question is, do we know what takes most of our attention? Are we allowing the urgent needs to consume our mental space to push out important leadership thinking time? Do you need help in increasing your personal awareness to think at a higher level as a leader? If so, contact me for a no cost thirty-minute coaching experience so I can help you think into your results and achieve breakthroughs in your leadership.

Apr

2019

Learning from the Leadership of a CFO

I was waiting for a meeting with a small business owner and was early. After waiting for a minute I introduced myself to a gentleman getting his day started as he sipped his coffee on this early Friday morning.

We started chatting about what each other does and eventually the conversation shifted to one of my favorite topics: leadership.

Mr. Riddle is the CFO of Gordon Marketing. During our conversation I asked him what leadership looks like from his perspective since his role is very analytical and numbers driven. He provided an excellent definition of his position.

As a CFO he is the historian who documents what has happened within the organization. I found that definition interesting and we explored how that “historian position” interacts with some of his guiding principles as a leader. Mr. Riddle has a few principles that guide how he leads from his position:

Set a good example.

Regardless of the role one plays in an organization or on a team, you must be an example worth following. This principle has nothing to do with the role he is in, but everything to do with the life he lives. He must as if he is an example worth following? More importantly, are we?

Team player.

In his position he feels a responsibility to help others see that as they win whether that is improving their sales, creating an effective marketing strategy or any other win, the whole organization will win. When people come to him with questions on finances he has to help individuals see the bigger picture and ask how this expense/investment can help both that department and the entire organization win.

Bring clarity.

As CFO, Mr. Riddle uses data to help clarify what is important. The numbers will inform what is working and what is not. He filters through the numbers to help team members understand the important metrics that will inform the organization as they strive to accomplish the mission. From his seat he has a responsibility to ask some of the difficult questions such as what is important? Is this strategy good or bad? Combine this data with these questions and he helps provide clarity for the organization.

CFO As a Pacecar?

As we talked, an image came to mind. The CFO is like the pace car for an organization. A pace car slows down the race to prevent further injury when the track is not as safe because of accidents. A pace car also gets out of the way when the track is clear. As a leader he helps set the pace by answering the question: based on what happened is that where we want to go? As he thinks on this question it helps him guide the organization on how to respond to challenges and opportunities.

As a leader are you setting the pace where you can? Is your example worth following and modeling a team vision? How do you need to bring greater clarity to your organization? Need help thinking into these questions? Contact me for a free 30 minute coaching session. In the meantime, lead well.

Apr

2019

An Easter Leader

Easter.

This day may just mean bunnies and chocolate or be a deeply personal day tied to your faith. I am a person of faith and the latter is what it is to me, but that is not what I am going to talk about nor am I trying to push my beliefs on you. Let’s look at the leadership of the man behind that day.

There was a man who walked this earth and was an outstanding leader. What one believes about who he is/was is irrelevant to what I am talking about, but let’s look at some key leadership traits in this man leading up to the end of his life.

Jesus on multiple occasions took on the religious leaders of the day and challenged their beliefs. One day he knocked over the tables in the temple because they were turning a holy place into a business. Another time he entered into a long discourse on how the religious leaders were hypocrites. Was he trying to create a rebellion, no, but he was not afraid to speak truth about the situation and how it did not align with the vision of how it should be.

Humility

If your boss gave you a very difficult assignment that you really didn’t want to do, what would you do? Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating blood as he thought of the next step toward fulfilling his purpose. If you read the story you will see he really didn’t want to go through what was next. With humility and focus on his purpose, he was willing to put aside his agenda and take the next step.

Courage

Leaders constantly enter uncharted territory and must endure the positive and negative feedback that accompanies leading change. Change of any kind will draw criticism and leaders cast vision for and implement change. This requires courage to persevere amidst adversity. Jesus’ mission was clear and even as he endured physical and emotional abuse, he demonstrated a leader’s courage.

Sacrifice

Multiple times during the last years of his life Jesus put aside what agenda he may have had to serve others. Frequently a large crowd or individual would come with a need and instead of putting them off he met their physical, emotional, and even spiritual needs. This was an example of sacrifice. Leaders are busy, but sometimes we must sacrifice our agenda to help someone else develop as a leader and ultimately help the move the overall cause forward.

Love

Many of us have heard the idea: “people don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.” This idea is a statement of love. This may feel a little too “soft” for a leader. Think of the best leaders you knew. They probably had incredible drive coupled with a humble caring spirit. Behind everything Jesus did in the last years of his life was genuine love for others.

What about you as a leader? If these were embodied in your leadership how would it transform your team? May I encourage you to pick one of these areas and take one step to grow and improve in that area. As you seek to grow in that area see how it impacts those around you. Lead well.

Apr

2019

Leadership – Succession Planning the OSU Way

The following post was written by Anthony Schlegel who was a former strength coach with The Ohio State University and is the founder of The Difference USA which serves strength and conditioning needs around the nation. He and those he wrote with provide principles for leadership transition that are applicable in sports coaching and all areas of leadership. He gave me permission to post the following article he wrote about leadership transition shortly after Urban Myer retired.

I co wrote this article with a sad by grateful heart. I am blessed to have had the opportunity to work for and learn from Urban Meyer. A great leader of people who motivated me along with Micky Marotti to be more than I thought possible…….

The Urban Meyer era at The Ohio State University is coming to an abrupt end. The Ohio State football program is about to go through a highly visible transition of leadership where Urban Meyer will be handing over the reins to his assistant coach, Ryan Day. The transition has generated a tremendous amount of anxiety about the future of Ohio State football. Coach Meyer has achieved an astonishing record of 82-9, with a career winning percentage of .901, three Big Ten championships, a national championship and a 7-0 record versus their rival — all as the head coach of the Buckeyes. Coach Meyer is a legend and replacing a legend is difficult to say the least.

In 2017, the Wall Street Journal named Ohio State football the highest-valued college football program at $1.5 billion. With this valuation comes a great responsibility to ensure the players, coaches, university and fan base will be led by the right person to successfully grow this historic program.

The research on succession planning identifies a few things to consider:

Long-term goals – The most important aspect of succession planning is that the plan needs to reflect the long-term goals of the program. Staying focused on the long-term goals helps the organization stay focused on what is important and helps prevent it from getting distracted by the politics or drama that may accompany a leadership transition.

Promotable talent instead of promotions – Organizations need to adopt an approach that emphasizes identifying potentially promotable talent rather than the promotions themselves. A succession plan helps develop talent and prepare high-potential talent for upcoming positions. This helps reduce the learning curve and provides flexibility within organizations.

Replacing the top position – When replacing the top person within an organization, it is best to identify a specific successor early in the process. This reduces uncertainty within the organization. Organizations struggle to perform at their best when they are bogged down by uncertainty. Identifying a successor earlier allows everyone in the organization to prepare for the transition and move on more proficiently.

So, how did the Ohio State Buckeyes do?

Long term goals – Ohio State is promoting from within, and the program’s core will stay in place. Culture, which is so difficult to change, will remain consistent along with the already established standard of excellence which permeates throughout the program. This will help the organization stay focused on the long-term goals of the program.

Promotable talent – Ryan Day was previously named interim head coach for the first three games of the 2018 season and is now the coach-in-waiting. He has been groomed for the position. It is hard to discern whether or not the focus is on talent or the promotion, but there has been deliberate effort placed on developing his talent as a coach.

Early naming – Ohio State nailed this. There is no drama that comes with a nationwide search for a head coach, and there is no uncertainty in what mentality a new, unnamed coach may have had. The program will be able to transition quickly, maintain recruiting and have minimal disruption within the program. This is evident with the early understanding that key personnel will be retained:

Micky Marotti – Asst. AD for Football Sports Performance

Mark Pantoni – Asst. AD Player Personnel

Ryan Stamper – Asst. AD, Player Development

Brian Voltolini – Assoc. AD, Director of Football Operations

As they say, only history will tell but it appears that Gene Smith, Urban Meyer and The Ohio State University’s Department of Athletics has implemented a well-structured succession plan that will set the program up for success for years to come. The Urban Meyer era at Ohio State is coming to an end, and the Ryan Day era is just beginning. It provides a powerful display of the significance of succession planning.

By Major Charles Buchanan and Anthony Schlegel

Apr

2019

Leadership and Basketball

Virginia and Texas Tech. Who would have thought?

I must confess I don’t follow basketball much, but I do enjoy March Madness. I know enough to know the two teams in the final game for men’s basketball were unexpected for someone with limited knowledge like me.

I’m not going to discuss my thoughts on these two teams, but instead I pulled off my bookshelf books written by two legendary college basketball coaches. One still coaching and the other no longer with us: Duke University’s Coach K and UCLA legend Coach Wooden.

These two books have a wealth of wisdom to gain when it comes to leadership and if basketball and leadership interest you they are worth the small investment as I am going to share only a few principles I have learned.

DISCIPLINE

In Coach K.’s book Leading with Heart* he defines discipline as: “doing what you are supposed to do in the best possible manner at the time you are supposed to do it.” What I find interesting about this definition is the suggestion that we perform “at the best possible manner.”

As a recovering perfectionist this is freeing to read. Discipline does not mean perfection, but doing our best when we are supposed to. As leaders do we give our best possible with the awareness and ability we have and do we hold others to that same standard of excellence allowing room for appropriate failure?

SUCCESS

Now that I have mentioned failure, I have to share the thoughts each man has on success. In John Wooden’s book Wooden on Leadership* he reflects on success in his career. He states:

“Did I succeed? Yes, but only because I can look at myself in the mirror and honestly say, ‘I did my best – near 100 percent – to become the best of which I was capable.’”

This man saw success as being the best he was capable, but similar to Coach K, he realized he couldn’t be perfect hence his statement “near 100 percent.”

Coach K has had a very successful career in basketball and seems to be a very competitive coach yet says:

“Your definition of success should have more depth than the equivalent of winning a national championship. It should be whatever passion moves you deep in your heart.”

As leaders are we doing our best to perform for a trophy or recognition that tells the world we are “a success” or are we leading from a place of significance? When we lead with a deep purpose and passion pursuing a cause larger than temporary reward then we are gaining true success.

A LEADERS PURPOSE

“It’s my job as the team’s leader to remove any obstacle that can impact our team’s performance.” Coach K.

For many years I functioned as a strength and conditioning coach. At times athletes came to me with an ache or pain. My job in part was to help them determine if this was something that needed attention from the athletic trainer or more of a mental obstacle. As leaders we need to be aware if we are creating or removing obstacles for those we lead. At times we have to point those we lead to another source for help like I did when athletes had a physical pain.

“Personal greatness for any leader is measured by effectiveness in bringing out the greatness of those you lead.” John Wooden

One athletic director I worked for told me as the strength coach I had to be “master psychologist.” I would suggest all great leaders understand this. Effective leaders determine what is important to those they lead and those individuals’ strengths. Once they figure this out and position them to excel in their greatness the leader wins, the person led wins, and the entire team wins.

What about you as a leader? Do you realize you can be a legendary coach in your own right? How do you need to grow in your discipline as a leader? Is success more than wins and losses or deals made and the bottom-line results? What are you doing today to serve those you lead and bring the greatness out in them?

I haven’t watched a lot of March Madness, but I do know that behind every successful team is a great leader and John Wooden said it best:

“When you unleash the desire in those you lead to attain their own personal greatness – day after day, month after month – you’ll find unexpected talent springing up all around you”

Unleash the greatness in yourself and those you lead and please contact me if I can help serve you and your team in this process. Lead well.

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