Global Leadership Conundrums

 Recently attending the Global Leadership Summit, I was wishing for a big of debate or rebuttal talks. Sometimes speakers gave us a formula for leadership success that contradicts others' talks in previous years or were counter to other good advice.

Craig Groeschel started out with a leadership formula: (Consistency + Faithfulness)xTime = Lasting Impact. And his talk mostly focused on some "atomic habits" (James Clear's work). In 2023, Groeschel gave us Consistency + Empathy + Transparency = Trust. That's a lot of work for consistency. However, in business, while consistency is good, it's in danger of keeping us in an unsuccessful rut. What if innovation is needed? What if breaking a routine leads to new insights, new efficiencies, captures new markets? We shouldn't rest on our laurels--as some other speakers this year also encouraged--and we should: 

  • Evaluate whether some practices are “waste” (Lean/Six Sigma)

 • Evaluate whether some practices are medium gear performance [James Hewitt categorized some practices as low gear (rest, recuperate), medium gear (emails, mtgs) or high gear (deliberate focus, productivity)]

• Strategize reduction of extraneous efforts, instead of prioritizing or improving non-mission-critical efforts. For example, move daily actions to weekly/weekly to monthly and so on for "nice" but not necessary efforts to create space for focusing on the important things. One well-known company has 184 items on a "dashboard" including how many people interact with the dashboard! Too many! (Juliet Funt's Reductive Mindset)
• Ensure that we are really helping team members make progress on a project/performance improvement, or creating "busy work". High motivation happens when people are making forward progress, while managers fail to recognize this aspect (Teresa Amabile's "Progress Principle")

Similarly, Groeschel asserted that consistency keeps the heat going till 210 deg turns into 212 and boiling point success. But what if your efforts remain at "simmer." How do you determine a necessary ending (Dr. Henry Cloud)? There are times to quit when the rut is only getting deeper. 

Tasha Eurich talked about going beyond resilience and what factors take us forward, and not stopping at "bouncing back." Most people bounce back. Only a few get better after a disaster. We have a resilience ceiling. But we can call on confidence, making choices and strong connections to thrive. She mentioned how there's so much "grit gaslighting" and I wanted to have Angela Duckworth (author of "Grit") come out in rebuttal. 

John Maxwell was touted as doing a multitude of great things. My rebuttal is that if we change the vector of someone's life, we have done a great thing for that person and the generations to follow. And we won't know the total impact of one word of encouragement, one challenge, one hand-up, one promotion, one bit of support in one person's life until we get to heaven.

We are all capable of great leadership things if we serve and love one another.