by: Joyce Friel, Peak Performance Consulting
All too often in the news we hear only the events which cause our opinion of top business leaders to be diminished. Granted, leading any size corporation isn’t easy and the lives of those at the top of the largest organizations are extremely public. In many ways this only serves to heighten the responsibility these leaders have to not only themselves and their corporations, but to the public at-large.
I recently read a book full of wisdom which I highly recommend. It is about life and leadership lessons and my copy is now messy with underlines, notes in the margins and dog-eared pages. Tough Choices by Carly Fiorina is a memoir of her life including her very public departure from HP. Whether you personally approve of her actions or not, there is much to be learned from her experiences. While I strongly advise you read the entire book, below I am sharing with you some of what I believe are the highlights. Enjoy!
LEADERSHIP
- Character is made up of candor (speaking the truth and speaking up and out), integrity (preserving your principles and acting on them), and authenticity (knowing what you believe, being who you are and standing up for both).
- Life is about the journey, not the destination. The steps along the way are what make us who we are.
- People like to be asked about themselves. This is a great management tool. You get smart fast by listening.
- A boss’s confidence in an employee is a powerful motivator. When they see potential in you, you begin to look for it in yourself. Believing in someone else, so they can believe in themselves, is a small but hugely significant act of leadership.
- Each time I overcame my own fear, I was stronger. A leader’s job is to help people overcome their fear.
- Live your life in a way that makes you happy and proud. If you sell your soul, no one can pay you back.
- Strategy should be ennobling. An organization’s effort must be sustained through worthy purpose.
- Change can only begin if its force is greater than the weight of history and the power of the status quo.
ACCOUNTABILITY FOR CHOICES
- If we cannot choose our circumstances, we can always choose our response to them. If we cannot choose who we are, we can always choose to become something more. We cannot always choose the hurdles we must overcome, but we can choose how we overcome them. To stop choosing is to start dying.
- We can only be diminished if we choose to allow it.
- Value isn’t measured by title or position, but by what someone is made of and how they choose to use it.
OFFICE POLITICS
- Office politics is based on power – who has it, who lost it, who wants it. You have to learn to play the game and see it as a game to be successful.
- Like it or not, seniority and familiarity could and do sometimes trump results. Looking and acting the part sometimes wins.
- Gender alone sometimes denies the presumption of competence. I had to work harder and be better prepared than anyone else to gain credibility. To do so I had to convince people I knew what I was talking about in the first few minutes. Only then would they listen to what I had to say.
PLAYING TO WIN
- If you can’t play to win, you may as well not play.
- We did change goals because they turned out to be tougher than we anticipated. We did not think about how we might lose. We thought about how we could win. We won because we chose to.
- All triumphs are made of the same stuff: the right support, the right team, the determination to achieve the goal, lots of really hard work. Triumphs are much more about choices than about chance.
- People will always behave relationally based upon their own self-interest. They behave irrationally simply because they believe someone else is going to.
- If only one part or parameter of a complex problem is understood or acted upon, the problem cannot be solved. Only by comprehending the whole system – its interactions, dependencies, constraints and pressures – can a real, sustainable improvement be made.
http://www.peakperformancecorp.com
http://joycefriel.blogspot.com
