LEADERS LEAD... 4 MUSCLES EVERY LEADER MUST EXERCISE

4 Muscles Every Leader Must Exercise

We use our leg muscles for walking, our back muscles for lifting, our arm muscles for holding, our jaw muscles for eating and our facial muscles for expression.  But what muscles do we use for leading? Let's talk about four key muscles every great leader must develop in order to lead strong. 1 | CLARITY | One of the greatest obstacles to great leadership is clarity.  Having a clear vision of how to arrive at a destination and expressing that vision with clarity is the role of every great leader. Even when a leader lacks clarity, they know how to get the right people in the room to gain the clarity needed.  In my opinion, this is a muscle that needs exercised with regularity.  Exercising the CLARITY muscle looks like revisiting your vision and mission often.  It sounds like asking whether or not the organization has drifted or is on track.  It is also honing the purpose of the team.  Great leaders spend the time to get clear, and then take that clarity and roll it into the next muscle... 2 | COMMUNICATION | I remember this sequence from "The Incredibles" when Lucius (a Superhero) is telling about how he narrowly escaped a villain: LUCIUS:  So now I'm in deep trouble.  I mean, one more jolt of this death ray and I'm an epitaph. Somehow I manage to find cover and what does Baron von Ruthless do? MR. INCREDIBLE:  [laughing] He starts monologuing. LUCIUS: He starts monologuing!  He starts like, this prepared speech about how feeble I am compared to him, how inevitable my defeat is, how the world will soon be his, yadda yadda yadda. MR. INCREDIBLE: Yammering. LUCIUS: Yammering! I mean, the guy has me on a platter and he won't shut up! As leaders, we often get trapped in a monologue.  We have a TON of thoughts to share; vision, strategy, correction, ideas; and they all get thrown into the monologue. Unfortunately, many people check out during these one-sided conversations. True communication involves both talking and listening. I say it this way: "Communication is not about what we say, it is about what others hear." A very practical way to exercise the COMMUNICATION muscle is to listen.  Ask questions, like:  "Tell me what you heard me say."  Also listen when you're walking around; What are people saying?  What is the team saying?  Do they seem clear about their objectives?  Is the vision stated with precision? Purpose to get better at COMMUNICATING clearly. Shorten your monologues. Get them down to bite-size morsels.  We live in the Twitter generation, so try to say it in 140 characters or less.  I realize some things take longer to say, but trying to get your message down to its essence will build your COMMUNICATION muscle. 3 | RELATIONSHIPS | Vanishing are the days of leading from isolation. Today's culture demands relationship.  People want authenticity in leadership. They want to know that their leader is an ordinary person with extraordinary drive and vision. They're not looking for flaws, they just want to know their leader is not trying to hide them, or worse yet, acting like they don't have any.  Leaders don't have to air out their dirty laundry to be real, they just have to relate. Exercising the RELATIONSHIP muscle looks like taking a minute to genuinely ask how your team is doing, then really listening.  I have watched leaders use "techniques" to accomplish this, and, quite frankly, it gets awkward.  But those leaders who have taken the technique step on the way to a new attitude toward relationships have found success.  In the end, it is our ability to relate to those we lead that produces great leaders. 4 | ENDURANCE | Finally, their is the ENDURANCE muscle.  The endurance muscle is more than a leader's ability to stand the test of time.  In fact, there are some leaders who have stood the test of time and the organizations have been worse off for it.  The ENDURANCE muscle is more about the ability to endure tough times, the wrong personnel, changes in direction, shifting cultures, rapid growth and so on, and still find success.  Endurance is so much more than just surviving in the leadership position, it is thriving as a strong leader.  Every great leader has had to endure many difficult moments; Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, Walt Disney, Rosa Parks, just to name a few.  That list would also include the millions of founders, CEO's, managers, directors, board chairs and people like me and you that ENDURE in leadership on a daily basis and help their organizations thrive. Exercising the ENDURANCE muscle means doing some heavy leadership lifting; having the hard conversation, making tough decisions, leading toward an unpopular goal with confidence, putting in the unrecognized effort, and doing it all with grace.  True ENDURANCE leads to the sweetest success! Maybe you recognize one of these areas as a weak leadership muscle. My hope is that you can use these exercise tools to help you strengthen that area and... ...Lead Strong!