Leading with Grace

Today, I am presenting a post by Dr. Jack King of the Northfork Center for Servant Leadership. Dr. King works to develop servant leaders. At Leadership Upsidedown he develops and teaches young leaders the timeless principles and values of servant leadership. I met Dr. King on Twitter and always appreciate his support.

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I believe we often share a misconception about leading, leadership, and leaders. What do you think?

For example, does leading have to be stuffy? No. It is much of the time, but nothing says it has to be.

Leading has everything to do with love. Did you know that? Think about it for a moment. When you boil everything down, every leader you want to follow generously seasons all they do with love. Really.

They lead because they exude a love for others. They lead because they love what they do. They lead because they love what you do, and what you help others do.

Leading is not static. Because life is not static.

Leading is energy; it is flow. Leading is emotion, full tilt. Leading is electrifying. Leading is moving; it is intense. Because leading loves.

Did you watch the video? Did you wonder why it's on this page? Some of you may have thought something like, "Boy, Jack must have flipped his lid. What's this video got to do with servant leadership anyway?"

After all, servant leadership is soft, right? Only wimps are servant leaders, right? Wrong. On both counts.

Servant leadership requires strength; it is not for the faint of heart. The servant as leader, Robert Greenleaf suggests, sets out, first and foremost, to help those served to grow as persons, and for the least privileged in society to benefit, or at least, not be further deprived. Nuttin' easy about that.

Speaking of nuttin', Damien and Tourie Escobar, also know as Nuttin' but Stringz, bring popular and classical genres to the streets. In so doing, they edify, they inspire, they energize, and they move others to new heights. Did you pick up on their thoughts about "a lot of young kids getting violin lessons?" Damien and Tourie quietly lead with grace (well, maybe not so quietly.

And so can you!

Now get out there and quietly take the lead. Before you know it, followers will soon raise their arms high to the sky, joyfully moving them from side to side in tribute to your graceful leadership. Give it a try. You'll see!

Facts About Ego

Google’s dictionary defines “ego” as “an inflated feeling of pride in your superiority to others.” In other words, ego makes you feel inappropriately better than other people. For example, if you walked up to a person and said that you did something that they might like and they were to respond saying “Are you serious? Mine is so much better than yours,” this would mean they have a huge ego. Ego can destroy teams and relationships as you probably saw above.

Ego won’t just destroy others, it will also destroy you. If you have a big ego, you will learn to be more and more of disrespectful. Also, people will not want to be around you much because all you’re going to do is complement yourself. Another thing that will happen to you if you keep growing your ego is that you will never be happy. You will always try to make yourself better than someone else. You can never say that something is good or that you really like an idea. No, you will always try to put down others.

If you put ego aside, wonders will happen for you. People will enjoy your presence. People will want to share things with you. More importantly, by setting your ego aside, you will be so much happier. You will always feel more supported by others. You’ll also get that good feeling that comes from helping make someone else feel happy. Your mind won’t be clouded with thoughts of just yourself. Your mind will be full of thoughts of others.

A way to do this is to have the trait of humility. Humility makes you courteous and respectful. In Matthew 5:5, within the King James Bible, it says “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” An example of humility, is saying “You first buddy!” when you are entering a door or doing an activity. Being humble will help balance your ego by putting other people in front of yourself.

So don’t allow ego to get in your way because it’s just going to bring you down. Scientist Nathaniel Bronner Jr. says “Ego has a voracious appetite, the more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.” I think he is so right.

My Leadership Page: Leader: Me!

How to Get Along With an Enemy

We always want to avoid making enemies, but it will certainly happen. It may be the opposite of what you would want to do, but the first step to try to turn enemies into friends is to get to know the person better. As Abraham Lincoln said, “I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.” Getting to know them will enable you to learn about most of his or her strengths and weaknesses. Knowing that will help you understand them and get along. You might even figure out what you did (if you did really do something) to them. Then you can apologize to them and this will hopefully turn your enemy into your friend.

Now what if that doesn’t work because they just don’t seem to like you for whatever reason, you must now learn how to get along with them. To do this, you must first ignore their comments. Now I don’t mean that you should blow them off like “who cares about them” because that’s just what they would do to you. No, you must not react to their comments in a negative way. Don’t make their problem your problem. The next step is to not say anything about what he or she does. Don’t be critical of them. Don’t make negative comments. Otherwise, again, you are doing exactly what they are doing. You must ignore the urge to get back at them or the desire to embarrass them. Finally, you must always remember to be nice to them even if they are being a jerk to you. If you do this you will be setting an example. Hopefully they will follow your example.

The people we don’t like are usually the people we don’t know or seem to be not like us. We don’t usually like people that are different from us. The solution is to get to know others even if they are different and be nice to everyone we see.
Will Rogers, speaking of Leon Trosky, said, “I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I didn't like.” Get to know people. You’ll be surprised how much you might like them.