Key Lessons From the 2009 Oklahoma Career Tech University

Last week, we had 50+ elected student leaders from the Oklahoma BPA, DECA, FCCLA, FFA, HOSA, SkillsUSA and TSA organizations for 16 hours of leadership training.

They were one powerfully excited and intense groups of student leaders! Here are a few of the key lessons we taught at this three-day Oklahoma CareerTech University...

• You are now an Intentional Student Leader. An ISL is someone who intentionally engages at a deeper level than ever before.


• Many people would have loved to be in your position, so remember to treat it like a privilege rather than a burden.


• You must know what it is that makes your organization successful in order to continue achieving your goals. You must know yourself and your organization.


• You are the face of your organization. You represent your organization with every action.


• Many people in leadership positions deal with an ego problem. For you as an ISL to be interested in what is going on in someone else’s world is HUGE.


• It doesn’t matter how much you love your organization, unless you know how to share that passion with the world.


• To overcome team creativity barriers, encourage others' ideas, consider thoughtfully those ideas that conflict with yours and sometimes compromise is the best way to go.


• Teams don't get things done. Individuals do. We must work hard individually toward the team goal.


• Thousands of messages are sent with body language, and only a few with what you are actually saying.


• Keep the emotional charge going and transition straight into serious mode. Emotional charge turns the audience into wet clay and you can take them wherever you would like to.

(Special thanks to Kelly (Sugar) Barnes and Sarah (Hootie) Reasnor for all their help in making the instruction of the leadership lessons awesomenominal!)

General: TRAX

TRAX is an evaluation tool built into the PLI curriculum.  The PLI philosophy is built around the concepts of value and growth.  As my old student leadership mentor put it, “When you’re green, you’re growing.  When you’re ripe, you rot.”

TRAX is a leader’s way of telling if they are at the Entry, Emerging, Engaged or Expert level of leadership ability.  There are two goals here: 

• Be better everyday to become an Expert leader.
• Be better everyday even when you are an Expert leader.

Each TRAX level has a task associated with it.  If you are able to fully complete the task, you know you are ready to work on the next one.  An Expert PLI Leader is able to say they have successfully completed all four tasks for all Ten PLI Essentials. 

The Four TRAX Tasks

Entry Leader – Provide a written description of the Essential in your own words. 
(Demonstrates Essential awareness.)

Emerging Leader – Provide an example of the Essential being used properly, as well as improperly.
(Demonstrates Essential understanding.)

Engaged Leader – Provide evidence of implementing the core principle of the Essential in your life.
(Demonstrates Essential action.)

Expert Leader – Provide evidence of you helping someone else learn and/or act upon the core principle of the Essential in their life.
(Demonstrates Essential mentoring.)

This is an excellent testing method for your PLI class, as well.  Good luck!

General: PLI Required Reading List

There is a great new book titled "The 100 Best Business Books of All Time." The authors have put together a fabulous collection and did a great job in the book of summarizing the main points of these classics and new-classics. I personally have my reading to-do list done for the year, as I have only read 31 of the 100.

The other great benefit of this book to our PLI teachers and trainers is that it inspired a "PLI Required Reading List." This list certainly isn't all-inclusive, but it is a great place to start to get your students doing some out-of-class, non-curriculum PLI reading.

Again, the following books are all in Jack and Todd's new book. So, you can get a quick synopsis of each by reading their new book. Click on the ^ after each to go directly to that book's 800CEOREAD page, where you can read about the book and/or buy it. If there is more than one book listed in an Essential, I put an * to donate the one I would recommend most.

Vision
Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will^
What Should I Do With My Life?*^

Integrity
Questions of Character^

Innovativeness
The Art of Innovation^
The Innovator's Dilemma^
Orbiting the Giant Hairball*^
The Creative Habit^

Wise Judgement
Influence*^
The Power of Intuition^

Service Mindedness
(This being a business book list, there isn't a book about service leadership. All the service books listed are about customer service.)

Goal Processing
Getting Things Done^

Skill Assessment
Now, Discover Your Strengths^

Emotional Maturity
Emotional Intelligence^

Fostering Relationships
How to Win Friends and Influence People*^
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team^
The Team Handbook^

Masterful Communication
Made to Stick*^
The Story Factor^
Never Give In!^

Following is a list of the books that I would recommend you have your students read, but they just don't fit nicely into one of the Ten Essentials:

General
The Leadership Challenge^
Leadership Is An Art*^
The Leadership Moment^
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People^

General: A Few Simple Leadership Truths

Six Simple Leadership Truths


1. The best leadership truths are as simple to say as they are complex to do.


2. Any person in a position of power should hold an inborn fondness for the complete well-being of the people they are called to lead.


3. The most effective leaders find out what their people need to be successful and help them get there.


4. You can't get an accurate diagnosis of your leadership effectiveness until you ask the people you are leading how you are doing.


5. In the workplace, the best leaders are trusted by their team, help their team have pride in their work and help everyone enjoy one another.


6. Your role as a leader is separate, but not wholly separated from your primary job role.

General: Happy Holidays

This blog is on vacation until January '09. Until then, please feel free to peruse our over 250 insightful and personal leadership posts. If you are a leadership teacher or trainer, please visit our PLI curriculum page at http://tinyurl.com/thepli.

Happy holidays to you and yours.

General: DUH Leadership - Drab, Uninteresting, Heroic

I, like you I'm sure, have a fair amount of cynical, too-good-to-do-good friends. You know the type...

* Too cool to follow the simple, but really important rules (like calling people back, doing what you say you will do, etc.).
* Too self-absorbed to care about others.
* Too good at what they do to be humble.

These folks think that just because they are talented or aren't in an official leadership role or don't feel like it, that following a few basic leadership rules won't make a single bit of difference in their life or the lives of the people around them. When, in many cases, their talent and ambition actually make them a perfect candidate for something called DUH (Drab, Uninteresting, Heroic) Leadership.

I have a friend just like this. The kid is as talented as anyone I know. He has moved up in his industry. Makes a ton of money. Etc. But for some reason, he chooses to live an immoral, unethical, certainly un-leaderly lifestyle. He throws his relationships around like rag dolls. His word is worth less than a button on his $1,000 suits. If he only followed even a few DUH Leadership rules, his quality of life, his relationships, and his reputation would break right through the glass ceiling he has inadvertently created.

So, what is DUH Leadership you ask? Well, it is a simple set of behaviors that are basically very boring when you think about them and even more non-sexy when you do them. Most require little energy to do once or twice, but require a heroic amount of energy to do habitually. And the acronym for them is perfect because most people who struggle with their leadership impact would look at the list of heroic behaviors and think, "Well, DUH! Everyone knows you should do those things." But then, if you asked them to do a self-inventory on how many they do on a regular basis, another DUH moment occurs. They actually don't do many of them and that is exactly why they aren't making a big leadership impact - because they aren't doing the small, mundane tasks necessary to be a heroic leader.

The PLI Essentials give us a good structure to highlight 10 acts that represent the heroic way and DUH Leadership. As you read this list, your thoughts will go to those friends you have who do the exact opposite. Just because they have chosen to be average, instead of heroic doesn't mean you have to. They want you to be "too-good-to-do-good" on the surface because they will have persuaded yet another friend to live the average life with them. However, under the surface, even your most cynical peers want you and need you to be heroic. They know there is a better way to live, they just haven't mustered the strength to do it. You can be the spark they need. How? Here are 10 DUH ideas...

Vision - Talk optimistically about the future.

Integrity - Follow through on every commitment you make. If you're not going to follow through, don't make it.

Innovative - Talk more about solutions than problems.

Wise Judgment - Admit quickly when you make a mistake.

Service Minded - Give your time, money or both for the benefit of a complete stranger in need.

Goal Processing - Create and stick to a "Not-to-do List".

Skill Assessment - Learn something today to move you one step closer to being excellent at a task you do everyday.

Emotional Maturity - When you get mad, step away from the situation before you respond.

Fostering Relationships - Be nice.

Masterful Communication - If an email you are drafting is longer than 5 sentences, delete it and call the person.

A good closing metaphor to demonstrate the power of DUH Leadership is your average American millionaire. He or she is a normal, working-class person who drives a drab car, sleeps in an uninteresting home and lives a normal life. What they did to accumulate a heroic amount of wealth was small, simple, and disciplined daily acts.

* They spent less than they made.
* They started and stuck to a long-term savings plan from a young age.
* They placed more value in the money itself (which, because of compound interest, is worth more with each passing day) than on the things it could buy (which, because of depreciation, is worth less with each passing day).

Very much DUH. Very much uncommon among the masses. Very heroic.


Sent to you from the road.

General: The Leadership Blog Voting

Personal Leadership Insight has been nominated for the Best of Leadership Blogs 2008 award. Please click here to vote for your favorite leadership blog.

The voting ends in July. We are currently in third place and just need a few more votes. Thank you for your support!

General: Student Award/Recognition Banquet Success Strategies

The middle of the summer isn't the best time of the year to be thinking about year-end banquets, but I promised a room full of teachers today that I would put up this post. So, if you are going to be in charge of or helping to plan a year-end student organization award/recognition banquet, here are a few tips to print off and save for later...

1. Set the date, announce it early, and build in a "WOW" factor.

Obviously, if you are working with a school's calendar, you are going to set the date fairly early. What most people forget is to announce it early. I am certain you don't have a big promotional budget (plus, you will have to send an announcement a few weeks before the event), but even just a simple postcard with a "save the date" message works wonders. Send it to local boosters, all the students' parents/guardians, all your school's staff/administration, etc. If you include a "WOW" factor, you can build in anticipation. This could be a special guest appearance, a special meal item, and/or a unique demonstration from the students. Don't be afraid to build it up and make it seem greater than it is. A little showmanship here goes a long way to people anticipating a cool event.

I spoke at one banquet where the big thing every year was what a local shop was going to do for the table center pieces. They were always something phenomenal and someone from each table got to take their table's centerpiece home. This was also a great promotional for the local vendor.

2. Assign every student a duty, check on their progress, offer them assistance and help them be exceptional.

Students get engaged in anything where they have a clear purpose and role. Find out their talents and/or the talents of their family members and go from there. Our local FFA chapter in the small town of Laverne, Oklahoma (population 1,000) had a huge banquet every year because we delegated and assigned roles. It was a huge event that created strong community awareness and support of our little 60-member FFA chapter.

Have a handful of gophers - students who simply play the role of helping you do misc. tasks. Put your nicest, friendliest and most outgoing students at the front as greeters. If you have a guest speaker, local VIPs or school administration coming, assign two students to each to specially greet them, help them feel "extra special", show them where they are seated, etc.

3. Talk positively about the event.

It is amazing how our language is powerful in shaping the mood of the planning and delivery of an event. The more you talk up about the event, the more your students will do the same. Everything is not going to go as planned and everything is not going to be as great as you say it will be, but if you (as the chief planner of the event) can't get excited about it, why should anyone else?

4. Have students perform with equipment that works.

I have been to hundreds of student award/recognition banquets and the best ones are the ones where the students not only do most of the podium work (emcee, introductions, announce awards, etc.), but where the students get to show off their talents also. This might be traditional banquet entertainment (singing, piano, etc.), but also showing off their speaking skills. Regarding the performances, whether from the podium or otherwise, make absolutely certain you have (and triple-check the morning of) facility items that add to the experience instead of detracting from it....

1. If you can't hear the speakers, then why have an event? I have been to banquets where the microphone is literally running into the portal podium built in 1960. If your town doesn't have a facility with a good sound system, someone in town has to have a portable sound system you can borrow. Ask the local churches, car dealers, auctioneers, local motivational speakers :), etc. You don't have to secure a high-dollar BOSE system, but one built after Reagan was in office would be nice.

2. If you are doing a slide-show, lighting is critical. If you can't turn the lights down for the show, then don't have the show.

3. If you can't hear the music behind the slide show, then don't have music. And a laptop's speakers with a microphone pointed at it is not good. Ask your local Radio Shack AV expert (come on, even my grandparents' town in po-dunk Oklahoma has a Radio Shack), to show you how to get the laptop's sound to run through the house sound. It takes an investment of about $40. It involves a few cords, adapters, and a little thing called a DI box.

4. If you are going to hang signs, banners, etc., make absolutely certain they will stay up. Duct tape is good, but duct tape and bailing wire (seriously) will hold anything. 50-pound fishing line works better and is more discreet than bailing wire also. You also need to check your facility's rules before using tape. Many places don't allow it. But if your banquet is in your grade school's 60-year old cafeteria, I doubt they will mind.

5. Make the room cooler than normal. If a few of your guests are complaining it is too cool, that is a good thing. 70 is a good room temp for meal functions. But remember, 65 in an empty room might get you 70 in a full one.

5. Keep the agenda short and simple.

No one ever, in the history of banquets, has ever complained about the event being too short. 90-minutes should be your target and 120-minutes should be your ceiling. You know you have reached your perfect banquet flow not when you have nothing left to add, but when you have nothing left to take away. Some say that every student should get something at an awards banquet. Well, if every student accomplished something, then that is true. However, you and I both know that not every student put in the work necessary to receive an award.

Because every event planner should be concerned with program length, here are a few time savers:

1. Have multiple registration/sign-in lines.

2. Have multiple food lines (if you are doing a buffet). Also, don't have food in a buffet line people have to assemble (tacos, sandwiches, etc.).

3. If you ask people to speak, ask them to speak about half as long as you actually want them to speak (i.e. - tell your Mayor she has 5 minutes if you expect her to go 10.)

4. Have someone other than the teacher give out the awards. It is tough for teachers to not want to say everything they can think of about every student who received an award. If certain highlights need to be said to give special recognition to work done, put it in the script. The best person to announce student awards is another student.

5. If you do a year-end slide show, put a two-song limit on it. I know you took a ton of great pictures throughout the year, but after 7-minutes even grandparents stop looking for their grandchild's smiling face and start looking for the last slide. If you have more pictures to share than can fit in a 7-minute show, put them in an online web album, put the URL in the program and announce the URL from the podium.

6. If you have a guest speaker, don't ask them to talk longer than 15-minutes. Trust me on this one, if the speaker is worth their keep, they can say in 15-minutes what they can in 30.

7. Bring multiples up all at once. If you have an award that goes to a group of individuals, call their names out all at once, have all of them come up to the front, then give them their awards individually. Award winner walking time is the third biggest time killer (second place is not having enough buffet lines and first place is a long winded teacher.)

6. Invite both friends and enemies.

Send out invitations to both your best supporters and to those people who you know don't support your organization. If you are out-of-sorts with the coaches or administration or the adult leader of a different student organization, send them an invite and call them personally to extend a personal invite. Tell them you just want to let them see the good work "the school's students" have been doing all year long. Don't make it about your students versus their students or your agenda versus their agenda. Make it about your event being a place for the school's students to be recognized for their hard work. It is amazing how much support you can create when people see you are trying to include them and, if they actually show, when people see the good works you do.

7. Seek sponsorships.

A banquet is a great marketing opportunity for local businesses and individuals that want to get their name in front of the community for a good cause. Check out this post on fundraising. The connection isn't direct, but some of the same principles apply to sponsorship acquisition. Getting sponsors isn't easy, but it gets easier as time goes on. Most organizations have a set "donations" budget and once you are in their list, it is easier to stay on their list year after year. And if you can get one bank or one retail outlet to sponsor, you can use that sponsorship to "nudge" their competition to do the same.

8. Invite the media.

Telling the good news is critical to the success of your organization. There is no better place to shout than at your annual banquet. Invite as many media outlets as you can. If no one from their shop shows, then send a picture and a press release the day after your event and ask them to run it. They will print it if the picture is good and the press release follows some basic rules. Here is a post at BNet an overview of press release rules... BNet. Also, make certain your picture has a few close-up shots of faces in it. Better to be able to actually recognize three faces than barely make out 20. Remember, the picture won't be printed full-sized and will be in black and white.

9. Have a printed script.

Your script should be in at least three, three-ring binders, double-spaced, 14-font, numbered pages and not copied until the morning of the banquet. You want multiple copies of the final event-ready script just in case something happens to one. You don't want to print it until the day of the event because things will change on you at the last minute. If things do change at the very last minute, just write in the changes. Use a three-ring binder so it will lay flat on the podium and so you can insert pages with changes. You should have students memorize their parts (the better they know their speaking parts, the more comfortable they will be at the podium), but have the manuscript available just in case their nerves get the best of them. When you put names in your manuscript, put them in phonetically correct, not grammatically correct (i.e. - Law-buck, not Laubach.)

10. Practice the night before, show up extra early to start preparing the day of and expect things to go wrong.

As much energy should be exerted in the practice the night before as the actual banquet itself. Early, in event planning terms, means as early as humanly possible. Everything at a banquet takes longer to prepare than you think. When things go wrong, as the event coordinator, you need to keep a calm head, walk with a hurried calmness and remember to put relationships before results. If something goes wrong, most times no one can tell anyway except you and your planning team. Just roll with it. And take notes after the event for next year. Send thank you notes out the next day. Send your press release and picture out the next day. Then celebrate with your students for a job well done!

I welcome any comments with more great banquet tips.

General: Book Review

A Leader Becomes A Leader is a phenomenal new historical leadership study book by J. Kevin Sheehan. It includes 65 in-depth, creative and insightful profiles of highly successful individuals and the corresponding leadership trait they exemplified.

This image is an example of one of the profiles. Each profile includes images, quotes, a page description of the leader's life, a column dedicated to the leader's timeline and a sentence providing a brief, interesting story from their childhood. This profile picture is from John Coltrane, which is an example that not all the profiled leaders are your traditional historical leaders (Lincoln, Churchill, Einstein, etc. - although they are included, as well.)

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in history and leadership, as well as any educators who teach leadership in their classroom.

Purchase it from Amazon or from the publisher, True Gifts.

General: Best Leadership Blog Nomination

Personal Leadership Insight has been nominated for the Best of Leadership Blogs 2008 award. Please click here (the voting box is at the bottom of that page) to vote for your favorite leadership blog. The voting ends when July ends.



Thank you for voting and thank you for being a loyal PLI reader.

The PowerPoint Show

The images I use for my leadership PowerPoint show can be viewed and downloaded here...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23898824@N08/sets/72157604142424437/

Enjoy!

PS - The song I use is by Mat Kearney - Won't Back Down.

General: 200 Words To Lead By

This is the Personal Leadership Insight's 200th post. So, here are exactly 200 words to lead by. These are the important ones.


inhale process exhale


soak up life

turn off the noise and just think

hug a loved one for more than five seconds

ask questions I should know the answer to

make eye contact

stop yelling for once in my life


inhale process exhale


call her

say I’m sorry

find out all the details this time

drive a different route

think before I eat

pray before I eat

think and pray before and after bed

stop talking about them

they aren't going to change


inhale process exhale


I'm not as important as I think I am

call people back earlier than later

be bold with my projects and tender with my people

help someone

get out of my little world

things are as bad as I think they are

but it could always be worse


inhale process exhale


stop whining

they just want to know I will be there for them

let someone else take the glory

just learn how to do it

he doesn’t dislike me

he dislikes everyone

she struggles just like me only she has the guts to show it

it will be okay in the end

if its not okay then you know its not the end

General: Breaking Down Personal Leadership Insight

Personal Leadership Insight is the curriculum we teach to thousands of students, educators and business professionals every year. The definition of PLI explains how Expert leadership works.

"Personal Leadership Insight is our understanding of how to positively influence people and situations to create value and growth."

Let's break down this definition to find the meaning behind it...

1. Understanding - Every time we teach PLI in our keynotes and workshops, we are working on the audience's intellectual and emotional understanding of leadership. Our disclaimer is, "This material only works if you do." Improvement in the area of leadership is just like improvement with any physical task. You can learn about golf by reading a golf book or attending a golf seminar, but you can only improve by physically doing it.

2. Positively - Leadership has both a positive and negative effect. By studying and applying the PLI Essentials, you learn how to maximize the presence and the impact of your positive influence. Expert leaders focus on, encourage, expect and draw out the positive.

3. Influence - Leadership is influence; this is the core mechanism that allows leadership to work. Expert leaders are very self-aware of their influence type and size.

4. People - Leadership is a team sport. Leaders come in all different shapes, sizes and personality types. Some are extroverts and some are introverts. However, the constant in leadership is that it involves people. Five out of the ten PLI Essentials are either totally or partially about understanding human relations. Expert leaders love people and love leading people.

5. Situations - Although leadership is primarily about motivating and moving people, there are many instances when a leader's impact is made through their competence in tasks. Expert leaders understand how to maximize their positive impact in a variety of common and uncommon situations.

6. Create Value - Throughout the PLI curriculum we teach leaders how to be more valuable to their organizations (family, friends, business, associations, community, etc.). Expert leaders constantly have their "how can I add value here" radar on.

7. Growth - This final portion of the PLI definition provides context for value creation. Expert leaders invest their emotional, intellectual and physical energy in growing their organizations, people, resources, skills, and influence. Expert leaders understand there is always room to grow and they clearly see how to get there.

General: Student Leader Questions

At a recent FCCLA event, a few student leaders asked these questions...

How do I keep from procrastinating?

• Chunk down your duties into bite-size pieces and move your projects forward one bite at a time. Don't wait to work on something until you can do all of it at once. You will be waiting forever. Do the most difficult things first and use the TCOIN method of spending your time. Take Care Of It Now. If you can do something in two-minutes or less, do it now! (Refer to David Allen's Getting Things Done for more ideas like this one.)

How can I be friendly with people around me that have traits I don't like?

• Focus on common ground you have with that person. How are you the same?
  

How do I get everybody to participate in fundraising events?

• 80% of the work in any organization (particularly volunteer-based) gets done by 20% of the people. Your goal is not to get everybody involved. It is to give everyone the chance to get involved, make it easy for them to do so and then reward and celebrate those that do (your 20%).
  

How do I handle it when I don't have an answer for someone who looks up to me as a mentor?

• People will respect you more when you are honest with them. Therefore, just tell them you don't know the answer, but take steps to help them found out the answer. Just because you don't know something doesn't make you less of a leader. There are literally billions of things you don't know.
  

(There are more to follow...)

General: Take a Deeper Bite of PLI Via Del.icio.us

If you are a regular reader of the Personal Leadership Insight blog, you are already aware of our Del.icio.us tags. If not, please peruse the PLI Del.icio.us Tags in the right hand column.

Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking system where I share other PLI-relevant web pages. I read 40+ blogs per day and as I come across a post that is related to one of the PLI essentials or just leadership in general, I "tag" it. These tags are tracked under the PLI Del.icio.us Tags section. Here are our current numbers:

Total PLI Del.icio.us Tags (as of Sunday morning, October 28, 2007): 369

By PLI Essential:

Vision: 12
Integrity: 25
Innovative: 59
Wise Judgment: 24
Service Minded: 16
Goal Processing: 35
Skill Assessment: 29
Emotional Maturity: 29
Fostering Relationships: 37
Masterful Communication: 98

Finally, if you are a teacher, trainer or speaker and use the Personal Leadership Insight system to teach leadership, I highly recommend you leveraging the depth of the Del.icio.us tags to add additional power and learning to your PLI teachings.

General: Remarkable Leadership Book!

Kevin Eikenberry has crafted an extraordinary new leadership development book, Remarkable Leadership.  When you purchase it today on Amazon.com you will receive over 50 additional bonus leadership development items from Kevin and partnering vendors.

Kevin sent me an advance copy of Remarkable Leadership last week and it is chock-full of tangible and relevant leadership tools and strategies. 

"Kevin accurately reminds us that whatever our job title or position, we are all leaders—and all have the potential to become truly remarkable. His belief in us and our ultimate success is real and can be read on every page. This belief is inspiring and empowering—as you read these pages his belief in you will build your own belief, an important ingredient in any successful learning journey."

 

- From the Foreword by Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles

I interviewed Kevin last week to provide you some insight on his leadership philosophies before you invest in the book today...

1. Was Remarkable Leadership written more to reinforce and deepen people's current beliefs about leadership or to persuade them to adopt a different and new viewpoint of leadership?

The only belief I wanted to reinforce is I want people to see it is possible to be who they are and be a remarkable leader! If that requires some persuasion for some readers, I hope I succeed.

2. If you could, please describe the basic difference between Jill and Tara and what caused their different paths?

Jill and Tara are two characters I introduce in the second chapter when I was talking about how leadership development really happens in most organizations. Actually I don’t think there is much difference between them – as I wrote about them in the story both are smart, talented and ambitious. The differences in their development had more to do with the organizations they were in and how each treated leadership development. My hope is that with this book, anyone can be more successful in their own leadership development, perhaps even in spite of what their organization offers.

3. Do you feel this is just as much a personal development book as it is a leadership development book?

I really do Rhett. I personally have some trouble separating personal development from professional development – not because I’m a work-a-holic or place all of my focus on my professional pursuits but because any development in any area of our life has the chance to improve our results, satisfaction and enjoyment in other parts of our life as well.

4. If you could sum up in two to three sentences the core difference between a normal leader and a remarkable leader, what would it be?

First, a remarkable leader as someone who is continually working to become a more effective - continually learning and improving. Second, they recognize that remarkable leadership is not about the technical skills of forecasting, budgeting and technical knowledge of the work, but really about how they engender trust, build relationships, develop others, communicate more effectively—all of those other skills that we really think of when we think of great leaders that we've worked with in the past. That’s a remarkable leader.

5. What are some tips and strategies for being able to recognize the differences between the four communication styles you mention on page 66?  i.e. - what are the simple signs to recognize each one?

There are many different communication and personality style models and I’m sure most everyone reading this is familiar one or has a favorite. What I tried to do in the book is outline some basic styles. Giving signs to recognize each one would make this a very long interview! Let me sidestep just a bit and say that the key to effectively communicating with others is to mirror their communication style – so that you are meeting their needs and communicating in ways that best match their needs.

6. Why do so many people today not "get" the likeability factor you discuss on page 82?

I think many people wish it didn’t matter. I’ve heard people say something like this many times, “In a perfect world it wouldn’t matter if people liked me- I could be valued for my skills.” Guess what? It isn’t a perfect world. To be as successful as possible, as a leader or otherwise, we must be likable. Thinking anything else is denial.

Get introduced to Kevin and Remarkable Leadership and then invest in the book today.  It is worth it.

General: Survey for 07-08 State CTSO Officers

If you are serving as a State CTSO Officer for the 2007-2008 term, please click here for a short 10-question survey. This information will be used privately as research for our upcoming book, The Unmade Leader. Thank you in advance for your input and for serving as a State CTSO Officer.

General: How to get the most out of this leadership blog

After spending a week speaking and training in Chicago, we have had a large influx of new readers to the PLI Blog. So, for those of you new to the PLI world here are four ways to get the most out of this blog...

1. Go to the March 1, 2007 post (http://pliblog.yournextspeaker.com/2007/02/general-what-pli-is-and-what-pli-is-not.html) and get a basic understanding of what the Personal Leadership Insight structure is all about.

2.  Go to http://del.icio.us/pliblog and develop your Personal Leadership Insight.  The PLI structure is based around our ten essentials of leadership: Vision, Integrity, Innovative, Wise Judgment, Service Minded, Goal Processing, Skill Assessment, Emotional Maturity, Fostering Relationships and Masterful Communication. Almost every post in this blog is based around one of these essentials. However, I also read 40 blogs everyday and I use the del.icio.us social bookmarking system to "tag" every web page I read that adds value to one of our essentials. This collection is up to almost 300 tags now! The PLI Blog Content Tags is your way of accessing these additional valuable resources and they are sorted and organized by the PLI essentials. So, if you are coming to this blog to get goal setting advice, read all my Goal Processing posts and click on the Goal Processing link under the PLI Blog Content Tags in the right-hand column to learn even more!

I hope you are getting tremendous value from reading the PLI Blog regularly. Please forward this blog to your five closest associates. Also, please visit my speaking blog for tips from a professional speaker - http://speak.terapad.com!

General: Big "Switches" From FCCLA Conference

Big "Switches" from our most recent youth leadership conference...
(Switches are leadership traits that literally turned a leader's ability to
influence others on or off.)

• Ultimately, learning how to be a good leader is the same as learning how to lead a good life.
• If something is important, you will find the time and energy. (Leadership is important)
• Your focus determines your attitude. This is why you should focus on the positive - think about it.
• Once you stop thinking about yourself, you free up your thoughts to focus on others.
• You can reach the Expert level of leadership (Entry - Emerging - Engaged - Expert) when you choose to recognize you have influence, choose to use that influence for positive, focus on your followers and risk big to create value.

General: 100th Post - 100 Ways to Know You Were a Leader Today...

This is my 100th post on the Personal Leadership Insight blog. Wow! Since starting this blog I have seen the birth of my second beautiful daughter, sold our house in anticipation of building our dream home, and drowned my beloved video iPod in a sad pool of rain water. So, in recognition of the 100th post, here are the 100 ways you know you are a leader...

You know you were a leader today if you...

1. Were thinking more about others than yourself

2. Invested time influencing others

3. Made someone smile today

4. Made someone smile yesterday

5. Made plans for making someone smile tomorrow

6. Solved a problem

7. Solved a problem for someone else

8. Wrote down a dream and turned it into a goal

9. Did one thing today to move you closer to your goal

10. Acted in accordance to your values

11. Helped someone else live up to their values

12. Didn't force your values on someone else

13. Created something new

14. Improved something old

15. Overcame your fear

16. Did something even though it wasn't your job

17. Made a smart choice

18. Reversed a bad choice

19. Learned from a mistake

20. Helped someone without letting them know

21. Took personal responsibility today

22. Learned a new skill

23. Made a small adjustment to reach a goal

24. Practiced patience

25. Did something you loved to do today

26. Helped someone else do what they love to do

27. Took time to think about your strengths

28. Engaged your strengths

29. Took time to NOT think about your weaknesses

30. Stopped doing something that made you weak

31. Thought about how you could improve your work environment

32. Acted on that thought

33. Thought about how you could improve your home environment

34. Acted on that thought

35. Thought about how you could improve your community

36. Acted on that thought

37. Recognized the challenges in front of you

38. Decided to spend more time discovering the solutions to those challenges

39. Recognized the negative side of something

40. Decided to focus on the positive

41. Held your tongue

42. Didn't complain when everyone else was complaining

43. Didn't complain about others complaining

44. Made time for play

45. Made time to reflect

46. Made time to laugh

47. Made time to learn something new

48. Made time to read

49. Made time to think

50. Made time to pray

51. Encouraged a stranger

52. Encouraged a friend

53. Called someone you hadn't talked to in a year

54. Talked with a parent

55. Listened to your parents

56. Talked with your children

57. Listened to your children

58. Talked with your spouse

59. Listened to your spouse

60. Followed up with someone you met yesterday

61. Said thank you

62. Said please

63. Said no to something you knew you couldn't do

64. Said no to something you know you couldn't do great

65. Stopped doing something you weren't doing great

66. Made eye contact with someone important to you

67. Made eye contact with a stranger in conversation

68. Prepared before a talk

69. Asked questions before a presentation

70. Asked questions during a presentation

71. Asked questions after a presentation

72. Used specific language during a talk

73. Used simple language during a talk

74. Used visual language during a talk

75. Helped others close the gap between what they knew and what they didn't know

76. Turned your anxiety into enthusiasm by simply thinking about it differently

77. Listened actively

78. Spoke with respect

79. Played politics the right way

80. Worked hard

81. Listened to great music

82. Watched and learned from a child

83. Stopped doing something that you knew was hurting your integrity

84. Rebuilt trust with others

85. Cancelled a meeting that you knew was a waste of time

86. Called your mentor and chatted

87. Mentored someone else

88. Were totally authentic

89. Did the most important things on your to do list first

90. Did the most difficult things on your to do list first

91. Cleaned out your inbox

92. Called someone back sooner rather than later

93. Called your mother

94. Made the connection between being a leader and a being a good person

95. Forwarded this list to three important leaders

96. Saved this list to read again next month

97. Read John Maxwell or Malcom Gladwell or Seth Godin or Zig Ziglar or the Bible or Dale Carnegie or Brian Tracy or Jefferey Gitomer or Harvey MacKay or Stephen Covey or Norman Vincent Peale or Tom Peters or Max DePree or Marshall Goldsmith or Marcus Buckingham or Ken Blanchard or your favorite author(s)

98. Thought about yourself as a leader

99. Acted upon that thought

100. Made today a story you can be proud of

General: The Uphill Journey

Hit the green play button to play and/or right-click the song title to download this grand finale song from my leadership guitar keynote "The Uphill Journey!"

Uphill Song, by Rhett Laubach [2:22, 5.5 MB, Mp3]

General: What PLI is and What PLI is Not!

Personal Leadership Insight is not only the title and focus of this blog, it is also the monicker we developed to describe what it is we teach and speak/write about at YourNextSpeaker and TRI Leadership Resources. PLI does not encompass everything we do, but it does give us and our clients and potential clients a common language to discuss training and development needs for individuals and organizations. The curriculum itself is framed by the PLI Essentials - the ten leadership capacity areas that everything we teach falls under. Vision, Integrity, etc.

Basically, PLI is a wholistic approach to leadership development. What PLI is not is a wholistic approach to leadership effectiveness. This is to say that to be an effective leader does not require one to be great at all of the ten essentials. Because of the wide swath the essentials take on leadership abilities, this is nearly impossible. What PLI and its unique framework does provide is a roadmap for leaders who need to recognize or have already recognized a development need or a strength need in the realm of leadership. One or more of the PLI essentials speaks to the core ability you need to have as a leader to be productive.

Our goal is to provide you with some insights into how that can happen for you and is happening for others.

[Click on the label below to see all posts for that Essential...]

General: Be a Leader-in-Gear!

Are you a Leader-In-Waiting or Leader-In-Gear?

A leader-in-waiting is in.
A leader-in-gear is involved!

A leader-in-waiting seeks comfort.
A leader-in-gear seeks challenges!

A leader-in-waiting says I am the best I will ever be.
A leader-in-gear says we can be better let’s go there together.

A leader-in-waiting has dreams in his head.
A leader-in-gear has goals in her pocket!

A leader-in-waiting wants to be a leader.
A leader-in-gear has decided to be a leader!

A leader-in-waiting ends up somewhere.
A leader-in-gear ends up somewhere on purpose!

A leader-in-waiting doesn’t want to start.
A leader-in-gear doesn’t want to quit!

A leader-in-waiting thinks about self.
A leader-in-gear thinks about others!

A leader-in-waiting wishes and hopes.
A leader-in-gear wishes and hopes and then does!

Download PDF Version

[Click on the label below to see all posts for that Essential...]

General: Understanding the Pitfalls of Missing Links

[Click on the image to view a larger version. Print the larger version for best read.]

The Personal Leadership Insight Blog is built around our ten PLI Essentials. As you peruse through the posts, you will find each post discusses one of the ten. For deeper study into each Essential, click on an Essential in the PLI Tags list in the right-hand sidebar.

[Click on a label below to see all posts for that Essential...

General: Ten Mission Critical Traits of a Leader

The Personal Leadership Insight curriculum is structured into ten PLI Essentials: Vision, Integrity, Innovative, Wise Judgment, Service Minded, Goal Processing, Emotional Maturity, Skill Assessment, Fostering Relationships, and Masterful Communication.

When we set down to figure out what makes great leaders great, we knew it would be almost historically and statistically impossible to shave that list down a workable/teachable number. However, we did our best (and recruited the help of our network of hundreds of peers, mentors, friends, family members, random people standing in line at the post office, etc.) to create an inclusive list of the general development and skill related areas that effective leaders must work on. Today we look at the PLI Essentials within the context of their connection to a specific mission critical trait...

Vision - Extraordinary leaders see opportunities... average leaders see threats.

Integrity - Extraordinary leaders admit mistakes... average leaders admit nothing.

Innovative - Extraordinary leaders discuss solutions... average leaders discuss problems.

Wise Judgment - Extraordinary leaders ask for help... average leaders make isolated decisions.

Service Minded - Extraordinary leaders seek to be significant... average leaders seek to be successful.

Goal Processing - Extraordinary leaders act on purpose... average leaders act accidentally.

Skill Assessment - Extraordinary leaders leverage their strengths... average leaders defend their weaknesses.

Emotional Maturity - Extraordinary leaders think then do... average leaders do then think.

Fostering Relationships - Extraordinary leaders put relationships before results... average leaders put results before relationships.

Masterful Communication - Extraordinary leaders listen for the sake of others... average leaders listen for the sake of self.

[Click on the label below to see all posts for that Essential...]

General: PLI Essentials Primer

I had the cool opportunity to present back at my alma mater tonight, Oklahoma State University. I only had 20 minutes at a banquet so I couldn't get through as much content as I wanted to, but the following is what I would have said if I had a full 60-minutes.

If you are new to the PLI Blog, this will also serve as a primer for the structure of Personal Leadership Insight - the ten PLI Essentials...

[The following is structured like this... PLI Essential -> Why your team needs it from you -> Small piece of advice on how to improve your effectiveness in that Essential area.]

• Vision... Clarity... Examine your morning routine
• Integrity... Inspiration... Be Honest
• Innovative... Have a Voice... Have a mechanism to capture ideas
• Wise Judgment... Authenticity... Stay in contact and in spirit with a mentor
• Service Minded... Appreciation... Do something for someone that they can't do on their own
• Goal Processing... Final Scores... If you can do something in under 2 minutes, take care of it now!
• Skill Assessemnt... Placement... Hire people for their strengths, not their experience.
• Emotional Maturty... Optimism... Practice Intelligent Optimism - Recognize challenges, work on solutions. Understand weaknesses, capitalize on strengths. Have many reasons to complain, simply choose not to.
• Fostering Relationships... Belonging... Nurture all three layers of your relationships. Layer 1 is your family and friends. Layer 2 is your peers and casual acquaintances. Layer 3 is people who you know of, but who don't know you.
• Masterful Communication... Clarity... Actively listen to others and give them the gift of your attention.

[Click on the label below to see all posts for that category..]

General: Oklahoma wins Miss America Back-to-Back!

Congratulations to Lauren Nelson on becoming Miss America 2007! Lauren is from Lawton, Oklahoma and attends college at the University of Central Oklahoma in my hometown of Edmond, Oklahoma.

Also, congratulations to my business partner Jonathan Smith. Jon coached Miss America 2006, Jennifer Berry (also from Oklahoma), and he coached Lauren.

Learn more about Jon's communication coaching business...

Books to Develop Your PLI

This blog will periodically contain books I am reading, have read, and/or utilized in our leadership trainings.

Season of Life, Jeffrey Marx
This book is for men to develop their Emotional Maturity. It is about how to be a man built for others, instead of a man built for self.

Winning with People, John Maxwell
First of all, if you don't read Maxwell, you are short-circuiting your depth of leadership understanding. Winning With People provides simple tactics for Fostering Relationships. You should also get his 25 Ways to Win With People.

How to Say it for Women, Phyllis Mindell
I encourage any woman who desires to increase her leadership potential to study this book. Every woman I have told about this book thanks me for showing them a great tool for developing their Masterful Communication.

What are you reading to develop your leadership skills?

[Click on the labels below to see all posts for that Essential...]

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The PLI Structure

The Personal Leadership Insight curriculum stucture provides a look into the areas of concern for leadership development. There are 10 PLI Essentials...

1. Vision
2. Integrity
3. Innovative
4. Wise Judgment
5. Service Minded
6. Goal Processing
7. Skill Assessment
8. Emotional Maturity
9. Fostering Relationships
10. Masterful Communication

[Click on the label below to see all posts for that PLI Essential...]