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Author Richard Brookhiser wrote, "There is no formula for educating a leader, because he must be responsible for much of his own education himself."

One of the top priorities for any leader is education.  The formal variety may be fine, but the type of education to which I’m referring encompasses much more than that.  It begins with the spirit of gaining knowledge.  Leaders and would-be leaders alike must be hungry for learning, and the result should be habitual, ongoing, aggressive, self-education.

It is the job of the leader, and no one else, to advance their own education.

Leaders learn from many sources and circumstances.  Here is just a short list:

1. Other leaders: Leaders learn from others; those who provide a good example and those who provide a bad one.  Leaders should always look at those who’ve gone before them in a category, edeavor, or situation and seek to glean what can be useful from that person’s experience.  As the saying goes, experience is the best teacher: OTHER people’s experience!

2. Mentors: One of the lost arts of leadership is the use of a mentor.  Many of the great leaders throughout history had excellent mentors for at least portions of their lives.  Mentors can provide clarity, insight, and guidance in areas of blindness or ignorance for the leader.  Friends will tell you what you want to hear, mentors will tell you what you need to hear.  It may not always be comfortable, you might not alw ays want to hear what the mentor has to say, but a true leader will want to know the truth so that he or she can change and get more effective. 

3. Experience: It has been joked that experience comes from good judgment.  And good judgment occurs after enough bad judgment.  In other words, experience is a trial and error affair.  The only way to process our mistakes productively is to learn from them and never repeat them.  It’s okay to make a mistake, but it’s never okay to continue on with the same mistake, and certainly not to the point where the mistake becomes a destructive habit.  Our experiences are there to make us better.  Take all you can from each one.

4. Books: Almost without exception the great leaders of the ages have been big readers. Most people don’t read.  And of those that do, most of them are reading only for entertainment.  But leaders read with a specific intent to get better, to gain insight, and to grow in their wisdom, discernment, and influence. Richard Brookhiser, in his excellent book George Washington on Leadership wrote, "Washington supplemented a meager education with a lifetime of self-education.  Washington would read history, and military history, all his life."

With just these four methods (and there are more), one can get a good idea of the many ways leaders have before them to learn both the principles and the specifics of their trade.  The key is that the education of a leaders becomes a magnificent obsession. It should be developed as the most precious professional skill.  When a leader is through learning, he or she is through! 

What habits are you forming in the area of personal development?

Are you hungry for learning?

Are you reading good books on a regular basis?

Do you have a mentor?

Do you organize your experiences and/or thoughts in a journal or in "game planning" sessions?

Are you "thinking ahead of the airplane" or just taking the shots of life as they come?

Are you associating with other leaders?

I’ll leave you with this: may the goal of all your learning not be knowledge, but action!   

There is a comfortable, easy lifestyle available to anyone who wants it.  You can have peace and even affluence, if you wish.  You can pass through your days without anyone bothering you too awful much, and can slip through the pages of history without so much as an enemy.

What is this lifestyle, you say?

It’s the life lived by someone who doesn’t really live it.  It’s the life lived by someone who never takes a stand, who won’t take a position, who takes no risks and colors inside the lines their whole life.  For many people, I fear this sounds a little too attractive.  Just find some nice, peaceful, non-controversial way to get through your life and make it to death safely.

But that’s not what leaders do.  Leaders attack the status quo.  They can’t stand things the way they found them, and they not only want to make a change, they realize that they have to make a change. 

If this is true of a leader, then automatically true at the same time is the fact that a leader will take criticism.  Try to help people, and someone will say you are doing it for personal gain.  Try to achieve something, and be criticized for having ambition.  Try to leave a legacy, and someone will call you an egomaniac.  Try to do something unconventional, and someone will call you a rebel.  Try giving to a great cause, and someone will say your cause is unjust. 

When I study history, this is one of its aspects that fascinates and inspires me the most.  In fact, there is almost a proportional ratio that the greater the leader the greater the criticism and vile opposition he or she had to face.  This gets missed sometimes.  We know George Washington led the colonial army during the American Revolutionary war, and we remember him by stiff paintings and busts, but it is easy to forget that for eight years an opposing army was doing everything they could to KILL him and his soldiers!  We know Winston Churchill stood defiantly during Britain’s "finest hour," but it is easy to forget that one of humanities worst characters did everything in his power to destry not only Churchill, but the very population that put him in power.

Michelangelo is arguably the best artist to ever walk the planet, but he was criticized violently in his day.  Ulysses S. Grant was the general that finally understood the method by which the Union Army in the north could defeat the Confederacy in the south, but his critics hurled massive bile his way for his conduct of the war and his alleged drinking problem.  Martin Luther King was assasinated for striving peacefully toward civil rights, and even with a strong legacy people still like to whisper about his extramarital activity.  Pastors who preach the message of the gospel of Christ are villified for being offensive.  Christ himself was crucified on a cross.

So don’t be surprised by the unfair opposition you will face if you take a stand for anything.  And by the way, the more aligned your postion is with Biblical truth and the Judeo-Christian world-view, the more violent will be the opposition.  It’s just the way it works.  Christ said it would be this way. 

The only alternative?  Do nothing, Be nothing, and Stand for nothing.

Personally, I’d rather give them something to shout about!

One of the key components in a leader’s effectiveness is his or her ability to build and foster positive, strong, and productive relationships.  Often, this part of the "art" of leadership is overlooked.  Some seem to think that leadership means authority, position, or power.  Rather, leadership is the influence of other people through a strong vision, through the example and character of the leader, and ultimately through the quality of the relationships that are built and the quality of the individuals with whom those relationships are built.

Finding good people and forging tight relationships with them are not an option for a leader.  Once these relationships are established, a leader then must be capable of maintaining them.  Some people are great at first impressions and quick friendships.  Others are better the more people get to know them.  Great leaders are both.  And don’t underestimate this: it takes different skills to start relationships than it does to maintain and strengthen them over time.

Strong relationships make for strong organizations.  When the winds of adversity blow, it is the bond of strong relationships that  holds things together.  Influence, changing things for the better, and attaining a vision are all brought about through powerful relationships.

What are you doing on a daily basis to improve your ability to build relationships?  Have you established the connections you need with the kind of people you require to achieve your dreams and visions?  Remember: all accomplishment is with, through, and for people.  None of us are an island.  We must accomplish all things by dealing with people.  Even "individual" activities like painting and golf are worthless without customers, patrons, fans, competitors, and admirers.  Yes, like it or not, God put us here to serve Him and to serve others.  That’s what leaders do.  So get "other-minded," find people to forge tight, sincere, lasting relationships with, and set about together to achieve great things.  It’s the only way it ever happens!

I have had many people ask if Terri would contribute to this fine blog of literary amusement from time to time, and yes, it has finally happened!  Due to a tremendous amount of requests for a copy of the poem Terri’s grandmother had written  (as read by Terri in Columbus, OH and Phoenix, AZ) Terri compiled the following.  Enjoy!

Here is the Quilt of Life Poem that was read in

Columbus

in June, 2008.  The points that I love to apply to this awesome Team business are:

1.       We need to design what our “Quilt of Life” will look like – i.e. what do we want the end product of our life to be?  We need to write it down so we see the pattern that we desire to make.

2.       Don’t focus on the “gray squares”.  They happen.  This too shall pass.  And when the gray does pass, it will be a beautiful backdrop for the rest of the colors of life…as long as we continue to press on despite the gray squares.

3.       We need to start stitching!  So many have a great plan for a quilt and then they get distracted with the good when the great awaits. They get afraid to do what it takes.  They get focused on the color of the thread or the shape of the needle or how the thread and needle were recently changed and they lose sight of the Quilt they designed.   It takes work, but the success of seeing your quilt come to fruition makes every stitch worth it.

God has great plans for each of us (Jer 29:11), so we need to make our Quilt of Life for His glory.

God bless,

Terri

Quilt of Life

by Fern Estes

Golden Poet of the Year Award 1987

Our life here on earth is much the same

As a beautiful quilt on display

The pattern is there, we are given the cloth

To form the blocks each day.

As children, we choose the reds and the golds,

The pinks, the blues and the greens.

We have never yet seen the drabness that comes

With the shattering gray of our dreams.

We form the blocks haphazardly

With no thought of hues or design.

It is only when it is half finished

Do we notice the passing of time.

It is then we can see the red and the gold

More beautiful patches of gray.

Just like the darkest nights of our lives

Are made bright by the breaking of day.

As the quilt stretches out in my twilight years

And I add a few stitches each day.

I can see the touch of the Master’s Hand

As I look at those patches of gray.

Life wasn’t meant to be a an array

Of bright colored pinks and blue.

He knew there would be patches of gray

When He gave the pattern to you.

Sequel to the Quilt of Life

Silver Poet Award 1990

The quilt of life is nearly finished

Just a few more seams to run

Just a few more roads to travel

And [the] my journey will be done.

There were days when (my) life was sunny

There were days when the sky was gray

But when the quilt of life is finished

It will be a glorious day.

There will be no blocks unfinished

All complete and all made true

The colors blended like He promised

When He gave the blocks to you.

Yes, our lives are like patchwork

Stitched together with our love

Blues and pinks and grays together

Sent to us from God above.

An often overlooked leadership skill is the ability to play on a team.  Cooperation, teamwork, and unity sound easy enough, but there are people that struggle mightily with these concepts.  They can’t seem to get along for long with groups of people in a productive way.  These people end up complaining about their teammates, getting frustrated, leaving the group, or some combination of all of these.  Then later, in a new situation, they begin the cycle again!

Real leaders are good at getting along with people.  Period.  This means that they can function productively in a group environment where their ideas may not only not get implemented, but sometimes won’t even be heard.  That’s okay for the mature leader, however, because the mature leader knows that there is power in a group working together to find the best answer that works for the largest number of them, and then becomes something they can all do in unison.  The power of shared goals and combined effort is hard to describe. 

I have had the privilege of working on some excellent teams.  First and foremost in that experience has been my time in with the LIFE Leadership company.  We have had so many great master-mind sessions, massive changes to be made and reacted to, “jam sessions,” and just overall good team play that I feel blessed to have played a part.  What great synergy.  Seeing leaders like Orrin Woodward and Tim Marks in motion in a group dynamic is truly a great experience! 

Leaders learn to foster collaboration.  They learn to succumb some of their wishes to the good of the team.  They learn to search for common ground and win-win scenarios, and they are selfless and respectful as the team dynamic ebbs and flows.  Sometimes they play a prominent role, other times their role is more passive but just as important!  Learn to foster this set of skillsets as you grow as a leader.  Become a teammate others can count on.  Contribute, share, and be an enthusiastic and engaged partner, but don’t dominate or sulk.  Find out the uniqueness you bring to the table and contribute it!  See if you can harmoniously add to the overall output so that the team is better because of your participation.  When things go a little awry; take the blame and accept responsibility.  When things go really well; give credit away.  This all sounds so easy!  But let me assure you that it is rare.  So strive to be a great teammate and let your leadership grow in a collaborative way.

I dare you.