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Intentional Leadership — D1, W1, M11 — Initiative

Do it afraid!

This is something of a refrain within the John Maxwell Team…”Do it afraid!” Why would we say this? Because, often the scariest part of doing something new, something different, even something we long for with all our being, is taking the first step! And the truth is, you cannot know what the entire path to your destination will look like.

Think of it in terms of going hiking. When you get to the trailhead, you can see a little ways in front of you, but unless the trail is only a few yards, you typically cannot see the whole trail. There will be trees, rocks, curves, hills, valleys along the path, and you will see only what is immediately in front of you. And hikers willingly, with enthusiasm even, step onto these trails daily, all over the world, knowing full well they don’t know everything they will encounter on their adventure, yet excited about the trip and the amazing view they know they will discover at the end. And so, you embark upon your hike, taking a few steps, encountering a curve, a hill, what have you…and after a few steps, you see the next few steps, and so on and so on…and in this way the whole trail is revealed to you.

Life is much like this, if you think about it. It requires a bit of courage to step forward into the unknown. It requires us to take initiative and move forward, for we surely cannot just stay where we are…and certainly not if we are leaders! Our teams and organizations count on us to take that first step.

Are you familiar with the story of Jim Sinegal, the founder of Costco? When he was in college, he went to work with a friend for a day, which turned into a longer term stint at a company where he met one of his mentors, Sol Price, of Price Club. Sinegal stepped into and took advantage of a great opportunity, learning from Price and developing his entrepreneurial drive. He worked hard, paid attention, and notice a lot of opportunities for improvement as he rose through the ranks of the executive team at Price Club.

He shared idea upon idea, and better strategies for improving the organization in a number of ways. Many of his ideas were dismissed or passed over. Eventually, he stepped out of what he was doing; leaving Price Club, he founded Costco with the intent of filling the voids he saw in the Price Club model.

Was it scary? Surely! There was no guarantee he would be successful. He demonstrated his confidence in his strategies, the courage to stick to his convictions, and the initiative to try something new.

It wasn’t long before Costco’s success proved Sinegal’s instincts to be correct. He soon positioned Costco as the premier membership retailer, growing from zero to $3 billion in sales in less than six years; the first company to do this. Eventually, Costco even bought out Price Club, expanded globally, and recent sales have exceeded $64 billion! It’s quite a story. If you’re interested in learning more, click here.

As we begin this month’s focus on initiative, take some time to answer these questions:

When was the last time you delayed making a decision or taking action due to fear or lack of knowledge?

What was the situation, and what caused you to delay?

What were the consequences?

What decision or action are you contemplating today?

What steps can you take to avoid delay due to fear, lack of knowledge, insufficient courage?

Who do you need to become in order to see your goal to fruition?

What will the outcome be when you take the first step and propel yourself forward with this idea?

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Intentional Leadership — Month 11 — Initiative

What is Initiative?

The power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.

It is the drive to make things happen, and it is yet another crucial ingredient in the recipe for creating a strong leader. When leaders have initiative, they make things happen, they create momentum, and they propel their teams/organizations forward, even in the face of resistance and obstacles. Without initiative, one would achieve nothing. Yes, it’s important to have dreams, vision, strategies, action plans…yet, without taking the initiative, nothing would happen.

I find this to be a fairly common stumbling block with some of my coaching and mentoring clients. They know they are stuck. They recognize the need for change. Sometimes, they even know what they need to change…but often feel helpless or unmotivated to take action. The key is to have clarity around the “why” so you then can find your “way” and take intentional action.

Consider the story of Margo, a director in a high-tech company who was feeling somewhat discontent in her work and aware that it would be time for her to make some kind of move to a different position soon, as that was the culture within her company. We worked together for several months and over the course of that time, Margo chose to focus on several areas: improving communication with her team, improving communication with her manager, and understanding what next step she needed to take — within or outside the company — that would allow her to function in her strength zones, continue to grow as a leader, and express herself creatively.

Throughout the course of our engagement, I functioned sometimes as a coach, sometimes as a mentor, and sometimes simply as a sounding board. Margo defined the areas of focus, identified the challenges and obstacles, discovered her own answers, and took action to make the changes she needed to make to move herself and her team forward. She took the initiative and she was consistent in implementing the new practices that would allow her to move forward.

Today, she has a new sense of purpose, greater clarity around her role and future plans with her company, and has discovered a creative outlet that allows her to continue on her path of self-discovery and personal expression.

It’s a process; getting to that point took a few months. Growing into her potential will be a life-long journey, but the point here is that she recognized some needs and took the initiative to learn, think, grow, and move herself — and as a result, her team and organization — forward on a new path.

This month we will focus on initiative and how it plays out in our lives as leaders. It’s one thing to have an idea, it’s an entirely different thing to make it a reality. Without initiative, nothing would happen.

So, before we get started on this month’s study and exercises, I encourage you to spend some time pondering these questions:

Do I proactively take the initiative to get things started, or do I wait until circumstances force me to do something?

If I wait for external forces to move me forward, what is the basis of my hesitation: Fear, lack of knowledge, laziness…?

How have I overcome fear, lack of knowledge, laziness, etc…in the past to enable myself to move forward?

How have I gained momentum by harnessing the power of taking initiative?

Who do I know who frequently, proactively takes initiative to get things moving and what can I learn from them?

I look forward to exploring this month’s topic with you, and hope you will share your thoughts, insights, and feedback as we continue on our Intentional Leadership journey.

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Intentional Leadership — M10 Strategy — Wrap-up

For the past four weeks, we’ve been focused on Strategy, and now it’s time for this month’s wrap-up. Hard to believe! And we have only two months left on this Intentional Leadership Journey.

In an early blog post, I shared the story of my encounter with a young man working at the MAC counter in a mall I was shopping in. We got to talking and I shared that I had moved to the mid-west from Washington State and he talked about how he hoped to live in Seattle one day, soon. My response was that “hope is not a strategy,” which startled him back to reality, I think. He said he’d never thought about it that way. I asked how he thought he would get to Seattle — realize his dream — if he didn’t have a plan and take some action. We talked for a while longer, and as I left the store I could see the gears in his mind turning and turning…

Without a plan, our dreams will vanish. As a leader, we must be able to develop an actionable strategy for our team’s/organization’s vision to become a reality. And while it’s certainly crucial to your future success, having a strategy isn’t enough. Once you’ve cast the vision and engaged your followers, you must develop the strategy and then move forward to the next step: Execution. Great leaders don’t simply have a plan, they make it happen!*

So what does a sound strategy entail? It needs to be clear enough to give direction and flexible enough so you can adapt to changing conditions and unforeseeable events along your journey. As we’ve discussed, the only constant is change. If you aren’t moving forward — and I mean intentionally moving forward with a destination in mind — you are falling behind; in today’s world, that will result in the demise of your organization.

My mentors have told me — and I share it with my clients, as well — that leaders must deliberately and consistently set aside time to work ON their business, not just stay mired in the daily effort of working IN their business. I encourage my clients to schedule in “think time” as often as they need it — some do it daily, some weekly. Whatever the cadence you need, you need to do it and you need to make it a priority. In fact, I have some clients who have told me that when our coaching or mentoring engagement has concluded, they have maintained what they’ve referred to as the “Sacred Laura Time” (meaning our coaching/mentoring sessions were high priority and not to be messed with) as their thinking time, as they were already in the habit and had trained their colleagues and staff that they were engaged in important work during that time.

Be mindful, as you develop your strategies, to take into account the strengths of your team/organization, and work that knowledge into your plans, which will give you and even stronger chance of success down the road. The best strategies exploit an organization’s finest qualities.* In this way, you can prioritize your limited resources and use them to the most advantage for your organization.

As we conclude this month’s focus on strategy, spend a little time with your journal and reflect on what you’ve learned.

How are you thinking about strategy differently?

What steps do you need to take now to fully engage your organization, leverage their strengths, and propel yourself forward?

Are you disciplined enough to develop and stick to your strategy, even in the face of inconvenient circumstances and conditions?

Your answers to these questions will dictate the nature of your influence in the years ahead.

“See” you tomorrow, when I’ll introduce next month’s topic. In the meantime, have an intentional day.

 

*From the Intentional Leadership book by Giant Impact. 

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