lead – Leadership from the front.

#35 lead with purpose

Some inspiration for you

When we are asked to guide, a single person or a group of people you are asked to change other people lives. The world has decided that you are the person that should do something. If you do not take a step with any direction and lead in whatever anyone wants you to do, you are not getting anyone else favor your failing them. Take the purpose to understand the scale of your responsibility and drive your people. For a good reason, for justice or whatever you find necessary. But do Lead with purpose, it may be one of the only times in life you get the opportunity, don’t waste it.

Your Canadian Brother.

#22 Disobedient subordinates

I have had the pleasure of working with hundreds of people at this point in my career, and all have relativelty been the same person. They each look at one another to establish the standards for themselves, they try their best not to stand out, and all secretly hate themselves. Meet three employees and how to deal with each one of them here.

1. Testing you. If your subordinates are trying to get under your skin by not doing what you ask from them, or managing to do the bare minimum to get by you are probably being tested. It is up to you to decide how you will treat the situation that is facing you in the form of disobedient subordinates. Your reaction or in-action will both be taken personally, be recieved negativley and will potentially benefit the institutuion, otherwise that employee might just quit. However, as a leader you must do something.

2. They are bored and can handle more responsibility. The second type of disobedience stems from boredom, and I think I fall into this category. However bored employees can be just as dangerous as the lazy. They will find discontent where there wasnt any and they will sow seeds that you will find later after they have passed your managment. Keep these employees fed and watered give them more work than they can handle, they will hate you for it, but they will appreciate you for the opportunity.

3. The outright no. There are people who I have worked with who simply do not give a shit about the company, or their peers, or their own selves they show up because they have an obligation that they cannot get out of and they have to pay for something because that is where they are in their lives. These employees are not dangerous, but they are not productive and if you can pay someone else to do their job better, faster, and be an active member of your team, take the plunge and find a role for them where they drive themselves up the wall until they are ready to play.

#14 what are you willing to sacrifice

Generally, what will differentiate you from the next person is the amount you are willing to sacrifice. My employer to some degree causes the entire organization to sacrifice what would normally be accepted as a “normal” North American life. I have a friend who is unwilling to sacrifice a moment of his time towards work. A recommendation from a boss turns into a cascade of messages about being abused and overlooked. I hate to break it to you, buddy, but if you’re not willing to sacrifice a moment of your time, why do you expect an acknowledgment of your ability? Obviously there are three things that you will have to sacrifice to be a success.

Set your limits. Before you go out making lofty goals like conquering the world, you have to be willing to set your limits on sacrifice. If you aren’t willing to, give up where you live, your social circle, or your daily routines, you should consider what lane on the freeway you are willing to travel.
Know yourself. Getting to your limits means you first must know what you are capable of. Before you understand where you can get you must understand where you first can go.
Develop. If you are going to give something up, you have to have it in the first place. Continue to develop yourself in all aspects, a tireless and endless pursuit absorb everything like a sponge.

Your Canadian brother.

#11 redefine what you must do – the specialist vs the generalist

In the past you would die if you were not a generalist, and that lead to a millennia of people being generalists. Why would you die? Well, if you lived and couldn’t provide for your family and community completely, as a general husband, spouse, and beacon for the community like a hunter or a farmer, you could reason that your life was incomplete. However, now where so much of that auxiliary work can and is accomplished by far fewer people, in a managed and logical process-driven society. You have the opportunity to be a specialist like at no other time in history.

The fact of getting or achieving wealth, respect or fame.
Miriam-Webster Dictionary

To break it down there are three things you must accomplish to become a revered specialist.

Choose specialty. Special is a definition worth looking at being distinguished in some unusual quality. If someone says they are a painter you may assume that it is a specialty, is your specialty in painting, or an alcoholic that is oil-painting on canvas of mountainside landscapes in northern Italy from June to August in the golden hour? Sometimes life does not give you a chance to be anything but a generalist and to an extent you must be, to live, but in other cases people have their surroundings so well suited for their specialty, so build your environment to work for you, even when you are asleep.
I can’t relate. You will constantly be bombarded with what other people think that you should be doing so that you fit the image of you they have in their mind. It is a dangerous game, and one that will undoubtedly lead you away from the path of specialist. If you are confronted with individuals or groups telling you that they do things this way or that way, you can’t relate, they don’t write your biography.
Focus. The world is becoming more and more attention grabbing like standing in the middle of times square. Focus on your craft, your art, and you will get there. There isn’t a doubt in my mind.

Your CDN brother.