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Discipline will set you free

Motivation is fantastic. Motivation is the thing that gets you out of bed in the morning. It gets you to the front door and inspires you to open the door to look outside. But then you discover it’s raining and your motivation wavers. You think, I’m not giving up, but I’m not going out! I’ll just start tomorrow. The next day your alarm goes off, you get out of bed, get dressed, and go to the front door. You open the door and it’s raining again, and you think to yourself wow, two days in a row, I need a better plan. You go back inside and convince yourself that tomorrow will be the day.  Then the next day you get up and go to the door and this time it’s freezing cold, so, you think I don’t have the right gear to go outside and do this. I’d love to do it and I really want to, but it’s just so cold.

This is the problem with relying solely on motivation. Motivation will get you out of bed and to the door but it falters easily, leaving you standing looking into the cold, wet abyss. What motivation won’t do is force you to take your first step outside and every other step after that. It won’t make you commit to taking real action and achieving real results. That takes commitment and it takes discipline.

Motivation is great at inspiring you and getting you to the door, but it’s like eating sugar for energy. Its effect dissipates quickly and leaves you feeling empty and needing more. Discipline, on the other hand, gives you the sustained energy and power to continue through the pain, doubt, and difficulty. Despite the hardship, discipline is the driving force, when your motivation fades. Discipline will see you through the pain and allow you to ‘just do it’, to quote the Nike ad.

Discipline is the driving force that underpins the success of whatever you want to achieve, and the good news is discipline is something you can develop. Discipline comes from being able to create a vision of where you want to go, a plan for how you want to get there, and having the will to execute the plan. Most people fail because they don’t have a plan or the will to execute it and try to use motivation to inspire action. This is unsustainable and will lead to failure unless it transmutes into discipline. Motivation is just your vision! Everything else is self-discipline.

Discipline has an amazing, almost illogical way of setting you free.  Developing discipline normally results in establishing systems, processes, and routines. Your discipline drives you to stick to your routine and refine your systems and processes until they become habitual. Forming good habits will help you to focus and get stuff done. Being disciplined and forming good habits doesn’t mean being dogmatic or refusing to evolve or change your habits over time. On the contrary, being disciplined means always searching for ways to be more effective and efficient to make sure the discipline you apply is appropriate to achieve the outcome you desire. Process is important but purpose is king.

Developing discipline requires mental toughness. It means being serious about what you want, really serious. It also means being committed. You must be serious and committed if you really want to achieve your desired goals. Your desire to succeed must outweigh all your other desires such as pleasure and comfort, like going back to bed on a cold, wet morning.  According to Tony Robbins, there are only two motivating factors in life. Pleasure and pain. The pleasure derived from achieving your goals must outweigh the pain endured in attaining them, otherwise, you will quit and won’t succeed.

There are also different types of discipline. The best discipline is self-discipline. Self-discipline is the discipline you place upon yourself that makes you do the things you need to do with no external pressure. It’s your drive, your ambition, your focus, and your commitment to succeed. 

Then there’s group discipline.  Group discipline is a form of discipline where someone, normally a leader, commander, or manager, enforces discipline through the threat of some sort of reprisal. It also manifests in the form of individuals not wanting to let down the leader or the group they are a part of. Group discipline results from individuals demonstrating their self-discipline in a group setting to achieve a common outcome, goal, or mission. Group discipline is used to great effect by organisations like the military and sporting teams where the mission must come first and failure is not an option.

Then there’s a third type of discipline which is generally negative and is dealt out to people as a form of punishment. This can take the form of correcting poor form, preventing someone from doing something they shouldn’t, or being punished for doing something unlawful or foolish.  

Performance management can be considered a type of discipline especially when there are consequences for underperformance. This discipline takes the form of correcting a problem to bring the person back in line with expectations. Discipline also extends to the legal system in the form of laws that if broken will result in punishment. The mere threat of punishment for breaking laws is enough to ensure most people maintain the expected level of discipline or acceptable standard.

As a leader, it’s important to understand all three types of discipline so you can develop self-discipline in yourself and your staff, apply group discipline to your team and enforce rules and the law when necessary.

So, while motivation may get you out of bed in the morning, it’s discipline that will help you drive results and achieve your goals. Discipline will save you time, reduce uncertainty and risk, and improve your overall performance. Discipline will help you focus and take control, allowing you to achieve your goals every time, unlike motivation which will fade in and out and only return limited success. 

Ultimately, discipline will set you free.

7 Essential Attributes Found in all Great Leaders

Great leaders are characterised by a great number of traits, qualities, and attributes. Here is my pick of the 7 essential attributes found in all great leaders. Developing and applying these 7 attributes will help take you from being a good leader to being a great leader. Reflect on these attributes regularly. Work them into your day-to-day leadership and notice the difference they make straight away.

Wisdom

Wisdom is born of experience, develops as common sense, grows into knowledge, and matures as foresight. Great leaders are lifelong learners who cherish the wisdom of others and constantly look for opportunities to grow their knowledge and share what they’ve learned. If knowledge is power, wisdom is the way leaders share their power.

Optimism

Like master archers of old and the keenest marksmen of today, more often than not we hit the targets we aim for. Hence, it’s best to aim for the results we want rather than to focus on those we don’t. Insidious self-talk and self-doubt are not only destructive to their host but are also damaging in the way they affect others when verbalized. Great leaders know this and look for the good in any situation. Positive, upbeat leaders inspire others with their ability to remain focused on goals and they stay the course in a way that is infectious.

Acceptance of Responsibility

Great leaders accept responsibility. They know the buck stops with them and no one else. They don’t blame market conditions, or the dominance of their competitors and they know there are no bad teams just bad leaders. If their team fails to achieve the results necessary it’s because the leader failed to provide the right direction, guidance, support, tools, funding or opportunities, and may not have provided the correct training or the right resources.

Courage

Leaders are at the helm of all organisations and industries and operate across a large variety of different environments, each with its own unique challenges, threats, and risks. Some environments are physically demanding, remote, or isolated and pose physical dangers such as Defence and law enforcement. Other environments may be less dramatic but can still result in the loss of life or serious injuries such as operating theatres, mining, and firefighting. Regardless of the industry, all leaders need to demonstrate courage and not allow the gravity of the situation to paralyse them and prevent them from taking the necessary action to achieve crucial outcomes. Courage takes many forms, from the Corporal leading his men into battle to the corporate executive briefing shareholders on poor financial results. Courage is an essential quality for any great leader.

Humility

Great leaders are not meek or timid, but they are humble. They don’t speak in terms of “I” or me, they speak in terms of ‘us’ and ‘we’. They know that their role is to set the direction for their team or organisation and then to serve those charged with delivering the outcomes. Humble leaders do not seek the accolades for their success, rather they push them through to their team. When great leaders speak about their success, they praise the hard work and dedication of their team. These leaders are secure in themselves and realise that others know the role they play in setting the direction and supporting their team.

Selflessness

Great leaders are selfless. They put the needs of their team before their own because they understand that the team delivers the outcomes and they merely steer the team in the right direction. Great leaders serve their teams by removing bottlenecks and roadblocks and creating relationships and opportunities. They create a safe environment and encourage their team to stretch themselves knowing they have ‘top cover’ should something go wrong. Great leaders are the first in and last out and always put the welfare of their team ahead of their own. In the military, leaders stay at the back of the line until their troops are fed. If someone is going to miss out, it’s the leader!

Drive

Great leaders set the pace for their organisations. They drive results through their determination, tireless effort, and absolute belief that their plans will yield their desired outcomes. Great leaders monitor the tempo to ensure that they don’t burnout resources or wear out equipment. They are cautious to ensure they maintain ‘one foot on the ground’ as they push forward so they don’t outpace the organisation’s capability or capacity.

Modern Leadership

Mainstream academic environments define leadership as “a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task“.

Prior to the 19th century, the concept of leadership had far less relevance than it does today. Society expected and obtained traditional deference and obedience to kings, lords, nobles, master-craftsmen, and slave-masters.

In stark contrast, modern leaders face a multitude of challenges their distant predecessors could never have prophesized. Leading in the 21st century is complex and requires the leader to possess a technical mastery of their relevant profession, strategic foresight, socio-political astuteness, emotional intelligence, charisma, and resilience amongst a plethora of other desirable character traits and skills.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the magnitude of expectation and burden of responsibility attached to being at the helm of an organisation, be it very large or very small. It’s also far too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day management of the business and lose sight of the bigger picture and what’s truly important to you as the leader.

Taking time out to reflect and reset needs to be a part of every leader’s regular mantra. An effective way to do this is to block out 30 minutes per week in your diary [my preference is Friday afternoons] to stop, review the week, and assess your performance as a leader.

Consider how much time you spend managing vs leading and if the ratio is right?  Ask yourself if your leadership provided direction and truly added value or if it caused confusion and increased unnecessary burden? I think you probably get the picture!

Importantly, keep a leadership diary and record your thoughts for regular review, and to gauge if you are learning and evolving from your own experiences.

I recommend including the following acronym on the first page of your leadership diary. Regular review of this simple memory jogger will help keep you focused on what’s important.

Language
Enthusiasm
Attitude
Discipline
Ethics
Responsibility
Strategy
Honesty
Integrity
Professionalism

Modeling positive behavior based on this acronym will help build trust and respect amongst your team, colleagues, and other leaders in your organisation and more widely. 

Stoic Leadership

Being a leader is hard work. You always need to be out in front, inspiring your followers with your enthusiasm, motivation, and drive. You need to be the one with the vision for where your organisation needs to be in three, five, ten, and thirty years. You need to be a mentor to your peers and subordinate leaders, a teacher for junior leaders, and a role model to all. Intelligent, charismatic, connected, empathetic and compassionate, a great communicator with high integrity; but also self-motivated and driven. The buck stops with you. You are both responsible and accountable for the success or failure of everything you preside over.

How best to cope with this tremendous burden of responsibility? In my view, the answer is not in the future but in the teaching of the great stoics of the past. Embracing the wisdom and teaching of the stoics gives leaders the ability to remain calm and focus on what they can control and accept what they can not. It provides clarity of mind and resilience of character, especially in times of crisis.

For leaders, stoicism is the ability to separate emotions from feelings and disassociate emotions from the situation. This is not to say that stoics ignore emotions, rather they acknowledge them but choose not to allow them, or those of others, to direct their decisions or actions. Emotions are judgements that involve beliefs about value. We often apply disproportionate value to things we deem important or sacred to us and this drives our behaviour. Being stoic is to remain objective and use logic rather than emotion to shape action.

This is often easier said than done as the more important the issue or sacred the artefact, the higher the emotional response will be and the harder it is to remain objective.

Centred around the time of the Vietnam War, society was transforming from a generation that valued morality and self-control to one where freedom of expression was paramount. Young people were disenfranchised and resorted to the use of mind-altering drugs and spiritual pursuits. The influence of Libertarianism, the Hippie Movement and the expression of free love saw a shift from the ’stiff upper lip’ mindset of the WWII generation to that of the more emotionally expressive Baby Boomers. The push for people, men in particular, to express their feelings and share their emotions has continued to be the advice of psychologists and gurus alike.

The belief that bottling up your emotions will result in you becoming overwhelmed by them and eventually ‘exploding’ is widely held. However, practitioners of stoicism seem to miraculously and relatively easily cope with their emotions by understanding that they are nothing more than feelings that can be acknowledged, understood, and moved past.

This is not to say that strong feelings and emotions don’t have a chemical impact on the body, they do, if you let them. However, those who can control their emotions are also able to greatly reduce the rise of cortisol and take advantage of the power of adrenaline, rather than being reduced to a whimpering mess lying in a corner in the foetal position.

Research shows that leaders who are able to control their emotions and respond effectively to difficult situations are more likely to be successful. This is because they are better equipped to handle stress, make objective decisions, communicate effectively, and build trust with their team. These skills are crucial for success as a leader and are associated with higher levels of emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

Additionally, leaders who can regulate their emotions and respond appropriately in challenging situations are perceived as more credible, trustworthy, and effective by their followers.

However, the increased representation and impact of diverse perspectives in the workforce has contributed to a growing emphasis on emotional expression in the workplace. Historically, the vast majority of leadership positions in corporations were dominated by men, with many women pursuing careers in caring fields such as nursing, teaching, and childcare. As more women have taken on leadership positions in corporations, norms regarding emotional expression and expectations have shifted.

Nowadays, it is more widely accepted for individuals of all genders to express their emotions in the workplace, including crying. However, this does not necessarily reflect a healthy response to adversity and can stem from a wider cultural influence that reflects a sort of social neuroticism that has become prevalent in modern times.

The push for emotional expression in the workplace aims to create a more inclusive and equal environment, where all individuals feel comfortable sharing their feelings. This shift has been facilitated by the increased prominence of Human Resource Management (HR), as a trusted leadership advisory function within the boardroom and has likely been influenced by the growing dominance of women in senior HR roles.

Emotions drive us and can be involuntary responses to stimuli. Adopting a stoic approach to leadership does not mean ignoring emotions, but rather recognising and acknowledging them while choosing to make decisions based on logic and without excessive displays of emotions.

Displaying these and succumbing to your emotions will not help you deal with the situation or be a better leader. Rather, they will weigh heavily on you in the future when you reflect on how you handled the situation and how you conducted yourself. Being stoic means remaining true to your values and beliefs but not falling apart if these are challenged or threatened by an external force. It means being true to yourself and maintaining your moral character and virtue above all else.

The four Stoic Virtues are courage, justice, moderation (temperance), and wisdom.

Courage: Leaders can exhibit courage by standing up for what they believe in and not being afraid to take calculated risks.

Justice: Leaders can embody justice by being fair and impartial in their decision-making and treating others with respect and kindness.

Moderation: Leaders can practice moderation by avoiding excess and finding balance in their actions and decisions.

Wisdom: Leaders can incorporate wisdom by continually seeking out knowledge and understanding, as well as using reason and critical thinking when making decisions.

Incorporating these virtues can help leaders make ethical decisions, inspire trust and respect among their team members, and lead by example. They can also help leaders stay calm and level-headed during difficult times.

The ability to remain calm and stay focused also has a way of soothing others and is a powerful form of leading by example. Being a stoic leader does not mean leading without empathy or compassion and requires the leader to possess a high degree of Emotional Intelligence.

Stoicism is the ultimate form of self-regulation and when coupled with the other elements of Emotional Intelligence sets the leader apart from those with less self-control.

We could all benefit from more stoic leadership. If you want to know more about leading in a more stoic manner, I recommend checking out the Daily Stoic

Incompetent Male Leaders

On the surface, this is a very polished presentation, but scratch that surface and you reveal a message that is condescending to women and misandry by a male promoting what he’s selling to an audience wanting to buy-in. It’s quite despicable really.

This video implies that incompetent male leadership is an epidemic, and it’s not! It also implies that males are viewed as competent based on them being ‘aggressive, assertive, bold, abrasive and over-confident’, but this is absurd and stereotypes all confident male leaders as incompetent, linking this to what the ‘Left’ has characterised as ‘Toxic Masculinity’. It’s unlikely that Human Resources departments the world over have included these characteristics as mandatory selection criteria for hiring senior executives.

We’ve all seen our fair share of incompetent male and female leaders. Incompetence is gender-neutral. The masculine traits describe in the video are not in themselves the problem, at least no more a problem than the over-emphasis placed on feminine traits being better for leading. They’re not.

This is unfortunately a weak argument and typical of the current, popular assault on men, especially in positions of power. On the surface the premise of this argument seems completely plausible; however, in the context of this argument, competence is much more a function of management than leadership. True leadership has little to do with technical ability, which seems to be what is being equated to competence or gender, although males tend to want to lead more because anthropologically they are more dominant than females. There are also a vast array of psychological, social, and personal reasons why females are less interested in rising to the top of organisations and into senior leadership roles, and that’s ok.

The quantity of male leaders has its roots in biology, not gender, and technical ability is a poor measure of one’s competence as a leader. It’s important not to confuse technical ability, being termed here as competence, with pure leadership. It’s also important to understand that gender is a factor in the male to female leadership ratio due to males being predisposed to being dominant.

A much more concerning fact is that many leaders are psychopaths. They exude charisma and win leadership positions but have no empathy, are toxic, and ruin organisations.

Imagine for a second that we flipped this video to be about incompetent female leaders. It would break the internet! 

Unfortunately, it is entirely probable that the quest for equality, especially the push for equal quantities (quotas) of females in leadership positions, CEO roles, and on Boards will lead to females being promoted too quickly or beyond their capability. This problem is statistically exacerbated due to the pool of suitable females being low, compared with their male counterparts. The only way to prevent incompetent females from being over-promoted is to allow their rise to be organic and at the ‘right pace’. 

Is Compassionate Leadership Weak Leadership?

The land of the brave and the home of the free is on fire and the inmates are in charge of the asylum!

Law and order are under attack with calls to ‘de-fund’ the police, and Seattle now has a newly formed nation downtown. Peaceful protests have morphed into riots and looting with the destruction of property and even the death of a black Police Officer exercising his duty to serve and protect the people who killed him. In some parts of the country, the urban landscape scape more resembles the streets of an active war zone than the peaceful suburbs that 6 months ago where the peaceful residence of the world’s leading economy.

So what, or who has allowed the “greatest country in the world’ to implode on itself?

I think the answer is obvious. Weak leadership by weak leaders!

Love him or loath him, President Donald Trump is one of the world’s most powerful and often most controversial leaders. Whether or not you agree with his politics or his leadership style, there’s no denying President Trump was elected over other leaders because the people of America believed his policies. Or maybe he was just the least bad option available at the polling booth on the day. I believe the manner in which President Trump addresses the current turmoil gripping his country will define his Presidency.

There is a famous quote by Edmund Burke in a letter he addressed to Thomas Mercer where he wrote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The world is watching and wondering, what will President Trump do…

In a recent interview with Fox News Reporter Harris Faulkner, President Trump talks about how weak leadership is not compassionate.

Benefits Realisation

We’ve all heard it a million times, “Projects are how organizations effect change”. But are the changes truly aligned with the organisations strategic direction? Is the Business Case solid but focused on delivering the wrong outcomes? Ever heard the saying “the surgery was a great success, but the patient died”?

Maybe there’s a need to focus more on the benefits that the change is supposed to create rather than the outcomes of the project! Stephen Covey would suggest that we ‘start with the end in mind’ allowing us to work back to the start of the planning process so we plan the right project from the outset.

Benefits Realization Management is a multi-staged process for identifying benefits to determine whether projects, programs, and portfolios can produce the intended business result and then executing and sustaining the change.

The effective uses of Benefits Mapping and Benefits Realisation sets professional project organisations apart in the industry. Engagement with clients as early as possible during their strategic planning will help steer their decisions towards implementing the changes, and projects, that will ultimately deliver their vision. Wanna know more?

Learning from Failure

Learning From Failure…. by Professor Peter Shergold AC, former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (2002-07).

This report was a review into public administration of major programs and projects such as the Home Insulation Program (HIP), National Broadband Network (NBN Co.) and Building Education Revolution (BER).

Whilst much of what is contained in the report will be generally considered long and drawn out to those of you with little or no interest in public sector process, it contains some real nuggets of gold, such as stressing the need for Government and the Australian Public Service (APS) to not only recognise the importance of adopting and integrating proper program and project management in the design and delivery of public policy (major programs and projects), but also about the role the private sector can and should play in enhancing the Government’s policy agenda.

The review is also a good insight into the inner-workings of the machinery of Government from the ‘provision of advice’ perspective as well as providing some good monolog on accepting advice and leadership. I strongly encourage anyone with an interest in public sector program and project management to read this report.

Learning from Failure

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