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Are You a House Cut or a Chair Cut?

I got a haircut today. Are you excited to hear that news? At this stage of my life it takes about 3 minutes and, according to the pair of Vietnamese that cut my hair, I am “easy money.” They laugh and say that every time I come by for a haircut. They tease with one another about who will get to cut my hair because I am so easy to do and they think I am a big tipper.

Several years ago I gave up on dealing with my hair. What hair that I had left was not, nor had ever been, very cooperative. On calm days it tended to want to go wherever it wanted despite the lotions and potions that I piled on it to keep it down. And on a windy day, it went wherever the wind blew. So, one day, I asked my barber to make a suggestion. She suggested that I just go to a “#1 razor guard, cut it really short and be done with it. I did it and I loved it.

You can’t imagine the freedom came with that decision. I no longer had to wait in line for my particular barber that remembered how to cut my hair. I now was no longer what barbers call a ”Chair Cut”. I was now a “House Cut”. All I needed to tell whoever cut my hair was “#1 all over” and they would take it from there.

It is now simple.

It is now easy.

There is zero stress involved.

In fact, it has been liberating to some degree.

Now for the Leadership Application

Continue reading “Are You a House Cut or a Chair Cut?”

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It Is Never Too Late To Be Encouraging Leaders

The English language can be a little tricky, can’t it? You can read the title of today’s article in two ways. You can read it as an admonition to us as followers that we should encourage our leaders. And that would be a great admonition and that would be a great article.

However, my purpose today is to view it from the obverse perspective. I want to admonish the leaders among us that we should be “encouragers” to those around us. And who doesn’t need a little encouragement?

Am I supposed to do that?

One of the most important tasks of a leader is to encourage his followers. Leaders often have to lead in the midst of difficult times and through tough circumstances. These times and circumstances weigh heavily on our team. And one of the things to which they will look to their leaders for is some form of encouragement.

Are you an encourager? 

Do you build your team up? Do you take pro-active steps to speak positive words to your team as they struggle with the tasks that you have given them? Or are you demeaning and demanding? When your team sees you approaching are they looking forward to what you are about to say? Or do they feel a sense of dread and foreboding in your presence and turn the other way and suddenly look too busy to speak to you?

If I were to make a list of those who need encouragement from me, as a father, I need to look no farther than my own home. It seems to me that daily life today is an assault on one’s self-esteem and confidence. Our kids’ schools are not very affirming to those who are not part of the “In” crowd. And, unfortunately, many of our churches are not much better. Many churches have the same “caste society” that the world employs. And if you are not part of the Worship Team or friends with the pastoral staff then you can go largely unnoticed. And our jobs have become so competitive in this still struggling economy that you may not find much encouragement there.

What is the Leadership Lesson?

Continue reading “It Is Never Too Late To Be Encouraging Leaders”

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Leadership Culture

The purpose of leadership in any organization is to advance the mission, vision, scope, or provide a return on an investment. It is the strong leaders in an organization who can take your mission farther, faster than trying to do it alone. Unfortunately, some organizations or senior managers (leaders) do not foster a leadership culture.

When this takes place, everyone and everything loses. The organization loses. The senior manager loses. The community loses. The investors lose. People lose. Everyone and everything loses.

There are many reasons for this. And I will not take time to deal with all of them here. But fear plays a huge role. Fear that they will get cast aside by the new leaders. Fear that they will not be able to compete against a younger and often a more energetic crowd.

But a leadership culture works both ways. Older leaders mentoring young leaders. And young leaders honoring and respecting older leaders who have paved the way to make their success possible.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to an organization about a particular leadership topic. Clearly, they are building a leadership culture. And I applaud them for doing so. But, what about your organization? Do you have a strong leadership culture? If not, consider the following signs and see if you recognize any of them in your organization.

The following are 5 Signs Your Organization Does Not Have A Strong Leadership Culture: Continue reading “Leadership Culture”

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#LeadershipStrong in 2018

For any who live in or around Houston, TX and the south Texas region, you will be aware that #HoustonStrong became the hashtag that dominated social media in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. It came to represent the strength and resilience of folks of the greater Houston metropolitan area.

Texans are made of the same stuff that legends are made of. And Houstonians often feel that they are the caretakers of those legends. And there were some new legends that were created throughout the days of rain and the many days of rescue and recovery that followed.

For a few weeks that started in mid-August of this past year and lasted until the National Weather Service downgraded the hurricane on September 3, 2017, I had a front row seat for some inspiring leadership. Not that I was only an observer. Not at all. But, I watched some folks step up and lead in ways that you may not otherwise see without such a huge humanitarian crisis or catastrophic weather event that unleashes trillions and trillions of gallons of water on your city.

To put this storm in perspective you need to consider just a few numbers. In just a four-day period, many areas in and around Houston received more than 40 inches of rain as the storm system slowly meandered over our city and over southeastern Texas, causing catastrophic flooding. The highest recorded accumulation of 60.58 inches was not far from where my son, his wife, and their young son live. Hurricane Harvey was the wettest tropical storm on record in the United States. The resulting floods inundated hundreds of thousands of homes, displaced more than 30,000 people, and prompted more than 17,000 rescues.

It is against that backdrop that leadership took center stage. #HoustonStrong gave us #LeadershipStrong. And leadership talent was on display for all to see if you were looking for it. I was looking for it and I was not disappointed. Continue reading “#LeadershipStrong in 2018”