Leadership Lessons from Tiger Woods

First let me say, my heart is very sadden by the public display of the dismantling of a public image and there in is the reason why I decided to write this post.  There are many lessons  here for professional success, professional credibility and leadership and management success. The grace of it?….we are learning from someone’s mistake, other than our own. I invite the readers of this post to do so humbly.

Usually I don’t use this blog to discuss sensationlized news, yet I felt compelled to comment on this particular occurrence and even more so after reading a thought-filled blog post that I found very instructive.  You can read the entire post from the other blog, Orin Woodward Leadership Team,  provided at the end of this post.  What I want to do is submit my thoughts in light of that post.

My Thoughts:

One of the guiding themes of my practice and any coaching and training I do is leading, managing, living from the inside out.  Who we are on the inside dictates the kind of person we’ll be on the outside. This truth proves itself out, time and time again.

That’s why it’s so important to work on our insides more than any other area.  There are many managers and leaders who want to fix the people around them rather than consider, “what about me has allowed these circumstances to occur.”

I do carry the belief that people of great talent, those in high levels of leadership and influence need to be especially attentive to what’s going on on the inside and have someone in their life they deeply trust to help them effectively deal with their own inner activity no matter how unpleasant it might be.

To stay grounded and truthful with the good and the bad about ourselves is essential to a successful life and complete health.

It’s very common to talk to a leader of an organization and discover they feel isolated and that there is no one in their life that they can talk with about deeply intimate issues, that in some cases they are embarrassed about.

Perhaps that was true in Tiger’s case.  Perhaps he has struggled with sexual addiction (if this is true) from an early age or it surfaced after his father’s death to fill a emotional hole left with his Dad’s profound absence.  These are all assumptions of course.

What is not…we all need to continually practice internal honesty as the first source of living a meaningful, productive, successful life. How we do that will be reflected in every activity and relationship we have in every context.

This post serves as my summary of the following points from the post referenced above…truly profound and worth a read.

Key Points:

I. Leaders need to build their lives upon the solid foundation of good character and morals, not on gifts and abilities.

II. Leaders must understand that having great career success does not cause us to experience or feel internal significance and satisfaction

III. Leaders need to develop good coping skills so they can courageously confront reality instead of escaping from it.

IV. Leaders must not feed an ego-driven lifestyle.

VI. Leaders must understand that money, material possessions and a beautiful spouse cannot fill the vast empty space of an unhealthy emotional soul.

VII. Leaders need to understand the underlining motivation behind what drives them.

VIII. Leaders often equate performance with acceptance.

Eight Lessons Leaders Can Learn from Tiger Wood’s Life

Please pass on to colleagues and friends.  To our personal and professional success! JoAnn

A Success Quote equals Bite-size Coaching

Ever considered it that way? This is cool management insight!

I love quotes!  I have since I was young. I would collect them, make collages of them, and put them on hand made cards for my friends.  Whether it’s a success saying or a success quotation – it’s a bite-size form of coaching. It’s powerful information and inspiration in a bite.

Here’s a Management Success Tip: Include quotes in your team culture.

Why? Consider what quotes do…

1. Inspire = motivate

2. Direct

3. Instruct

4. Feed our spirit

5. Stimulate our thinking

…just to name a few and I’m sure you can think of more.

How powerful is it to have just a few words carry so much weight and do so much good! And you know the funny thing?…a new social media phenomena creates a context for that to regularly occur – Twitter.

I am going to be sharing my favorite quotes there, so if you’re not following me…do so!  I promise I will not bother you with my personal, inane activities.  What I will do is pass on quotes and information that are worth your time and support you in developing the quality life you desire to have.  Twitter Web Site

To start, here are a few of my favorites and how they impact me:

Category: Wise & Instructive

Humphrey Bogart once said: “Enjoy the moments, kid, because in the end they add up to a life.”

Coaching point: Live in the moment.  Don’t waste your time dwelling on the past or too much anticipating the future.  Make the most of now…each now adds up to a life.

Category: Inspirational

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot…and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that’s precisely why I succeed.” Michael Jordan, American Basketball Player

Coaching point: go after it, plan on loosing a lot to be a winner.

Category: Motivational

“Go big or go home.” Donald Trump

Coaching point: give it all ya got!

These 3 hit me in so many ways….all in just a few words.  Join me on Twitter for a regular does of these Power Qutoes!

Access Twitter Here

Remember the success tip...Use quotes in your team culture and to coach yourself

To your success!  JoAnn

Work Success Tip – Think Beyond Goals – Think Potential

I was recently reading a great blog post that discusses the use of goals in improving performance.  This post stretched my thinking beyond the use of goal setting. In fact goal setting is also needed for something I believe is equally as important and that is developing potential.

In the work that I do in coaching professionals, it’s been clear to me for quite some time that we all have great amounts of potential that have not been tapped and therefore go unknown and obviously unused.

There is a philosophy in goal setting that goes like this  – create goals that feel like a stretch and some refer to them as “stretch goals.”

There is also a similar approach to goal setting with a bit of a more flowery description and that’s BHAGS!…big, hairy, audacious goals!  I love that. (Of course not too sure about the hairy part…:-), but you get the point.

I’d like to direct you to the post I read, it’s worth a read: Goal Setting and Performance Post.  As you do so, please keep in mind the concept of BHAGs.  This would be a good year end exercise and incorporate these questions when you do:

1. Did I make goals this year?

2. How did it go?….What did I learn about myself and what do I need to tweak?

3. Were they BHAGs?

4. How about next year?

If you’re a manager, please integrate this with your team as well.

Additionally, if you feel you need some coaching around this issue, feel free to contact me for a session or two.  Remember, I offer Laser Coaching in time increments of 15, 20, 25, and 30 minutes.  The cost? $1.00 a minute.

Contact: joann@joanncorley.com

A Key to Performance Success – Do This Unique Assessment

As the end of the year approaches, (which is hard to believe), it’s a ritual of many to take stock of the year that’s gone by. By the way if you don’t do that, that’s personal and professional success tip #1 – make it a habit to do an in depth assessment of how your year has gone.

Related to performance success, this is essential and I want to recommend a method that is a twist on the more traditional ways of approaching this.

To follow is a link to an assessment tool called – Annual Portfolio Evaluation.  What is unique about this assessment approach is the human part of the equation commonly known as our strengths and weaknesses is now reframed as an ASSEST OR LIABILITY, which is the language used on a company balance sheet and other company resources.

I think that this is the key advantage to using this approach.  You and those you use this with can feel a greater sense of responsibility to what you can contribute, in essence the value you and members of your team bring to an organization.  Framing it this way vs. “strength and weakness,” adds a whole new dimension to working in the context of human resource. In fact many use the word human capital vs. human resource.

This also can be used in developing a Personal Development Plan or integrating the information into any development program currently being used in any organization.

Conversely, there is something called a “liability.”  A liability is explained in Websters a follows:
3 : one that acts as a disadvantage : drawback.

This is a useful way of helping somone see that what would otherwise be considered a weakness is actually a cost.  The message is stronger – that behavior or lack of skill is costing you and the company.  There is a cost. As somone who runs my own firm, I am keenly aware of what weaknesses I have and how they tangibly translate into costing me money. Each employee needs to constructively feel that on some level.

This message and experience is much stronger than, “you’ve got a weakness.”

I recommend you download the free assessment sheet above and give it a whirl.  Got any questions? Don’t hesitate to contact me at joann@joanncorley.com

To your success! JoAnn

Management Success – The Power of Gratitude

There is nothing more powerful to impact employee motivation and employee retention than to say, “Thank You.”

It’s been consistently reported that many employees don’t feel valued and appreciated.  Please know that does impact their ability to really give their best. Only the unique few will do their best inspite of the absence of appropriate thank yous.  And I believe, at some point, that won’t go on forever.

One manager I met in one of my pubic seminars shared that she had written 100+ hand written notes to her whole department!  Wow….what does that say about her besides the fact that she has a strong writing hand?  I’m sure you could come up with a constructive list.

The irony?  Companies spend thousands and some millions on employee incentive, reward and recognition programs.  Yet a simple “thank you” cost absolutely nothing!

Coaching Questions: Does every member of your team feel appreicated?  When is the last time you gave a heart-felt thank you to members of your staff?

One cool idea: One company due to extended work hours, sent thank you gifts to the families of those working all those long hours.

Source: 1001 Ways to Reward Employees You can get a discounted version at Amazon by clicking the title link.
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