Author: Don McMinn

John Maxwell says: “All leaders can become good problem-solvers. To do so, they must do four things: Anticipate problems before they occur; maintain a positive attitude while they occur; use all their resources to solve them as quickly as possible so they cease to occur; learn from them so the same problems do not occur again.”

In life and in leadership, problems and challenges are ever-present. You’re either in the midst of a challenge, you just pulled out of one, or there’s one coming.

Instead of hesitating and procrastinating, run at your problems.

The biblical story of David and Goliath pits a giant against a young man in an epic confrontation between good and evil. My favorite part of the story is when the duel begins: “Then it happened when the Philistine rose and came and drew near to meet David, that David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine.”

David ran at Goliath.

It wasn’t a display of youthful hubris or stupidity; it was considered aggression and confident courage. David’s pugnacity must have thrown Goliath off balance. The giant was used to frightened, tepid foes, but here was a young man running towards him.

In your personal and professional affairs, run at your problems.

The alternate approach is procrastination or avoidance. Most problems do not resolve themselves; they must be aggressively and tenaciously pursued.

Identify several problems in your business or personal life that need to be addressed. Pursue them sooner rather than later. Develop a plan and schedule a time to deal with each one.

I recently took 48 friends on a cruise of the British Isles. A good time was had by all.

The morning we were in Bruges, Belgium we disembarked the ship using  the gangway. Two thousand passengers had to follow one another down a narrow flight of steps to reach the pier.

One lady, as soon as her foot touched the dock, stopped, took a deep breath as if to absorb the moment, and looked around to enjoy the splendid scenery. She was totally unaware of the hundreds of people behind her who also wanted to get off the ship and enjoy the beauty. Her social ignorance almost caused an accident. When people are walking down steep steps they get into a good cadence and when the rhythm is suddenly disrupted it can cause the “dominoes to fall.”

An important  aspect  of social intelligence is to constantly monitor your current environment and be an asset not a liability to those around you.

• • • When you’re walking in a crowded area, carefully navigate how your presence and movement will affect others. Don’t  suddenly change directions or stop (like the woman getting off the ship).
    • Before you push open a door think about what’s on the other side. Are you going to knock someone down?
    • When you’re standing in a group, are  you blocking anyone’s line of site?
    • When driving, are you aware of the cars around you and adjust appropriately?
    • When you enter a space already occupied by others, pause and consider how you can compliment and not disrupt what’s going on.

Management consultant Karl Albrecht defines social intelligence as: “The accumulated wisdom that comes from constantly observing and learning what works and what doesn’t in human situations.” SQ involves accurately assessing and properly relating to a social environment – to behave properly in any given situation. It is to possess strategic situational awareness and a complimentary set of skills for interacting successfully in relational settings. 

An important aspect of SQ is to constantly monitor the physical space you are in and graciously adjust to it.

Here are some pictures from the Travel with Friends September, 2023 trip to the British Isles. In November I’ll announce plans for the 2024 trip. One of the great joys in life is traveling with friends.

 

As I write this post, it’s very hot outside. I live in Dallas where the temperature has hovered around 106° degrees for weeks. Yesterday, I had a bad, somewhat traumatic event.

I picked up my grandson from his basketball camp and was driving home on I35 when the traffic stopped due to an accident. We didn’t move for an hour. It was 107° degree. I drive a 16-year old car and it started started overheating. So every five minutes I turned the AC off and lowered the windows to let the engine cool (but made us hot), then turned the AC back on for five minutes, then repeated. There was no breeze. Large trucks were spewing their exhausts. We had no water in the car. 

It was a difficult experience, certainly the worst part of that day.

That evening I read the following words from neuroscientist and philosopher, Sam Harris. I wish I had read them the morning of my bad event.

“As you go about your day today, see if you can identify your lowest moment. The point in time where you are least happy, least in touch with how good your life is, or can be. Most agitated, or contracted, or worried… and in that moment see if you can bring to mind one thing that you are deeply grateful for. A relationship, or your health, or that you’re comparatively free of pain. 

“You might even use a negative visualization and reflect on how much worse life could be and think about all the people who would consider their prayers answered if they could trade places with you in that moment. Just think of what it would be like to lose everything and then be restored to the moment you’re now in, your lowest moment of the day, and see if you can transform your experience in this way. 

“You can almost always do this if you remember to do it. Because to have your health, even only sort of, and to have friends, even only a few, and to have hobbies and interests, and the freedom to pursue them, to have spent this day free from some terrifying encounter with chaos is to be blessed. So just look around you and take a moment to actually feel how blessed you are. 

“You get another day to live on this earth. Enjoy it.”

Perspective and attitude are powerful influencers and controllers of our experiences and lives. And we control both at all times.

 Yes, I was stuck in traffic and sweating, but: I have a car to drive (though it be old); I’m with my grandson whom I adore; I have a home and family to go home to (and the house has AC); I have family who are worried about our situation (thanks to cell phones).

Ben and I made it home safely that day.

Tomorrow, when life throws another dagger of disappointment, I’ll take Sam’s advice and reframe the experience, turning it into a reason to give thanks.

“One can’t lead unless he can leverage more than his own capabilities.”   Scully

There is a significant difference between an achiever and a leader.

• • • An achiever gets the job done.
    • A leader gets the job done through other people.

This is huge; don’t miss it.

Many people have honed their “get it done” skills; they live disciplined lives and accomplish immense amounts of work. They are achievers. Give them a job and they’ll get it done. I admire these people, but I don’t consider them leaders, because leaders accomplish work through others.

Peter Drucker illustrates this difference by challenging us to think of which pronouns we use when given work to do: “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I.’ And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I.’ They don’t think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’; they think ‘team.’ They understand their job to be to make the team function.”

When you are given an assignment or when you have a vision to fulfill, what is your first thought? “I can do that.” Or, “I need to put a team together.” As Drucker says, leaders think first of accomplishing work through their team. Leaders use plural pronouns when planning work.

No doubt, a good leader must also be an achiever—you must possess the skills necessary to accomplish tasks. When a leader doesn’t know how to get work done, he loses credibility with his team and progress suffers because he doesn’t understand how work is accomplished. So for a leader it’s not “I’m either an achiever or a leader” but “I am both an achiever and a leader.”

There’s even a difference between a leader and an achiever with helpers. Some high achievers will surround themselves with a group of assistants and helpers whose job is to help the achiever be more efficient, but this is still not the exercise of leadership. For instance, a dentist may have a staff that assists him in his work—a dental assistant, dental hygienist, receptionist, x-ray technician—but all the work centers around the dentist. A leader will empower others to conceptualize and perform work on their own.

The ability to get work done through other people is fundamental to leadership. In fact, if you’re not doing that, you’re not leading.

As you reflect on your past, have you functioned more as an achiever or a leader?