Month: May 2019

Do you have courage in your convictions? Courage of your convictions happens when you stick by your decision, even when you’re faced with people who don’t support you. This isn’t always easy to do. Yet it’s critical for leaders to develop courage of conviction. When Yum! Brands was being formed, the executive team hired someone who ended up not being a good fit for their culture. The team had to decide between letting that person go, which would lead to a dive in stocks, or keeping him, and consequently communicating to their staff that culture wasn’t as important as they had claimed.

You see, decisions are more difficult as you move up. Leaders have to make the most difficult of decisions and in retrospect, letting the person go was the right decision. But in that moment, the executive team was scared of what would happen. And in reality, the stock did tank and they had to deal with the consequences.

The definition of courage is moving forward in spite of your fears. If you are waiting for fear to go away, that’s not going to happen; that’s where courage of conviction matters.

Building courage in your convictions starts with listening.

Listen to input and reactions from others with your mind open to the possibility that they might be right. But when you feel strongly that the input is not right for you, then you have to choose courage in your convictions and move forward with your plan. People will respect you for listening, considering all opinions, and then making a decision and moving on. Don’t cave to people’s ideas to make them feel validated or to avoid conflict. Rather, seriously consider what’s said and make the right call. If you are still unsure, seek any additional knowledge needed by conducting research and/or asking a mentor or trusted colleague. Then move ahead by turning your intentions into action.

Where do you need to find courage in your convictions? Use the tips above to help you.

If you want more great leadership tips, check out our leadership course, which gives in-depth advice on how to become the best leader you can be.

As a leader, your mindset influences everything. It affects your attitude, how you handle challenges, and ultimately your success.

If you have the wrong mindset, it will show.

You know the kind of leader who has the wrong mindset. He is negative and difficult to be around. He’s out of touch with his team, to the point that they have lost all confidence in his ability to lead them. Basically, he is the kind of leader who is impossible to follow.

If you don’t want to be that guy, here are three principles that will help you choose the right mindset:

Leadership is not just a job, it’s a purpose.

A leader’s role is to inspire, motivate, and provoke others to be great at what they do. If you are the person who has been chosen to do those things, then it’s important to realize the privilege you’ve been given. When you recognize this responsibility, it transforms your behavior. Have you ever noticed how people flock toward leaders that acknowledge how fortunate they are? A grateful leader is more inspirational than one who disregards the influence they’ve been given.

Recognize people are counting on you do to your job.

The best leaders know their purpose is to support their team. By doing your job well, you enable them to do their job well. If you aren’t helping them, you’re hindering them. Goals can’t be met efficiently if you don’t give your people the resources they need. Success remains untapped if you don’t give your team clear direction or set expectations. As a leader, you set the precedent for others. If you do your job well, others will win. And remember, when they win, you win.

You cast a shadow.

Whatever a leader does, others follow. This is true of every organization. People will look to you to model their behavior. If you’re always scowling and pointing out the negative, your team will feel the effect of it; and that gloom will trickle throughout the organization. But if you’re energetic and passionate about what you do, others will do the same. Think about the behaviors you want to inspire in your team and live them out. As a leader, you make or break the culture.

Do you want to transform your leadership? The Heartwiring and Hardwiring Your Leadership™ Program is designed to help you become a stronger leader. It teaches you how to lead yourself and how to inspire others to do their best and make a positive difference in the world. Sign up for a free demo of the program at learn.ogolead.com/demo.

Want to know one of the secret ingredients to becoming a great leader? Become an avid learner! One of the most effective things you can do to continue to grow as a leader is to always be learning. In fact, I believe that being an avid learner is the single biggest thing that separates a good leader from a great one. There is always more to know, and when people ask what I look for when hiring someone, an avid learner tops the list. People who are avid learners love what they do and seek out know-how wherever they can find it, which makes them a whole lot smarter and their results a whole lot better. Someone with a voracious appetite for knowledge is bound to inspire others with their passion and curiosity and can energize an organization by bringing to it new ideas.

While I was CEO of Yum! Brands, when a member of the Executive Team discovered a powerful business book, we would share it with each other, and then cascade the book throughout the organization to other leaders. We didn’t just read the book. We took time to discuss our insights and we looked for lessons that could apply to our business. For example, we read Execution, The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni and Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim. In this way, we were building our know-how and actively encouraging our leaders to become avid learners.

David Novak Leadership was created for avid learners like you. We provide leadership resources to help you become better leaders. Our blogs, like this one, and videos are great ways to gain new leadership insights and approaches that you can apply to your situation. But, the content I enjoy producing the most is my leadership podcast. I enjoy these podcasts so much because it gives me an opportunity to listen and learn from some of the best leaders around the world. Recording these podcasts is one way I stay sharp as a leader and I hope they help you grow as a leader too. One of the questions we typically ask during the podcast is, “What do you do to stay sharp, to grow as a leader?” Here are the answers given by two of the best leaders in the world.

In my podcast with Home Depot Co-Founder, Ken Langone, he said, “who dares teach, never ceases to learn.” In every relationship, Ken tries to learn as much from others as they learn from him.

Former Taco Bell CEO, Brian Niccol has “coffee talk” once a quarter. Each coffee talk is a forum to discuss what the team has learned around a specific topic. The quarterly topics may be around innovation, or design, or what’s happening in food culture, or technology. Since things are changing so rapidly in the food industry, just having a dialogue on them is really helpful. Brian also pulls the team together to discuss test learnings. Sharing what worked and what didn’t work helps everyone benefit from the learnings.

Do you want to discover how to become an avid learner? Then download this guide to uncover more helpful tips on how to become an avid learner. Who can you invite to join you on your quest to become an avid learner? Share this blog and guide with them today, and invite them to learn more with you. Having support on your journey to becoming a better leader can provide motivation and much needed encouragement.

I imagine you’re reading this blog because you are curious. Maybe the word MUST got your attention and you saw this as an invitation, or perhaps a challenge, to see if my three questions really are that important. There are lots of questions you can ask as a leader, so what separates my three questions from the rest?

All I can say is that after 30+ years of leading in both the profit and non-profit sectors, for both large organizations and a small start-up, I know that all organizations, no matter who they are, must answer three questions effectively:

• Who are we?
• Where are we going?
• How are we going to get there?

These three simple questions are important because they provide direction for you and your organization. In fact, answering these questions is the first step in identifying your True North, but more on this in my next blog. For now, let’s dig in to understand why you MUST answer these three questions.

Who are we?

“Who are we?” helps you identify your unique reason for being. In order to be successful in business, you need to attract customers and stand out from the crowd. But if you don’t know who you are or how you are unique compared to other organizations, then how will you stay the course when challenges come your way? If your True North becomes a moving target based on the ebb and flow of change, you may find yourself lost, or even worse, you may fail. Use these questions to define “Who are we?”

• Why did we come together as a team, group or organization?
• What is unique about us? How are we different from all others who are attempting to do the same thing?
• How do we want to accomplish our why? What are the values we never walk away from in accomplishing our why?

People always want to belong to something bigger than themselves and the answer to “Who are we?” provides the aspiration your team needs to follow you.

Where are we going?

Organizations are living organisms. Your organization is either growing or shrinking, alive or degenerating. How you answer the question “Where are we going?” impacts whether you are moving toward organizational life or death.

Use these questions to define where you’re going.

• What are the most important goals we want to accomplish in the next 5 years?
• How will we know when we accomplish them? What will success look like?
• What roadblocks could stop us? What/who could get in our way?

The answers to these questions remind you and your team where you’re going and help keep you on the path to reaching your True North.

How are we going to get there?

Once you know who you are and where you’re going, your next step is to define how you will reach your True North. Answer these questions to establish how you’ll get there.

• What short and mid-term goals must we set and build action plans around?
• What resources do we need? And how will we address gaps?
  • Do we have the right people in the right seats?
  • Do we have our financial resources supporting the right things?
  • Do we have process and discipline around the most important things?
• As things shift and change, how does it fit into who we are and where we are going?

Keep in mind that how you reach your destination will change over time, so it’s critical to always connect your “how” with “where you’re going.” And remember, with every decision, to always be consistent with “who you are.”

When I became President of KFC, we had drifted away from our true identity. We were trying a bunch of new products, like salads and roasted filets, which really weren’t aligned with who we are or who our customer was. The test markets were throwing things against the wall, hoping one of the new products would stick. After a period of failed test markets, we were forced to go back and remember who we were. We defined our True North (more of that in my next blog), and our True North became our focus. It was a journey to rediscover who we were, and once we did, it made all the difference. 

Keep this in mind: While “How we are going to get there?” changes frequently as you discover tactics to get to your True North, “Who are we?” and “Where are we going?” rarely changes because if you don’t remain constant to these things, you won’t make sustained progress. However, it’s easy to drift as you can see from my KFC example. KFC drifted a few degrees away from who we were and where we were going, and over time, we forgot our true identity. Learn from KFC’s mistake. Resist throwing new identities against the wall and hoping they stick. It’s so important to keep who you are and where you’re going top of mind all the time.

Answering the three questions takes time. It requires you to go slow now so you can go fast later. Remember, you don’t have to do this alone! In fact, inviting others to help shows humility and builds engagement with those who may join you on the journey. Not to mention that it takes some pressure off you having to provide all the answers!

This learning guide will help you answer the three questions every leader MUST ask and answer. Schedule some time to work through the guide. Then invite some trusted colleagues to share their thoughts on who you are, where you’re going and how you will get there. Be on the lookout for my next blog in this series: Why Identifying Your True North Makes You a More Effective Leader.

So, what do you think? Are these three MUST ask questions for leaders? If your answer is yes, then take time to pay it forward and share it with someone else. The minute it takes you to share this could make a long-term positive impact on someone else. Go Lead!