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

Are You Equipped for 21st Century Leadership?

There has been a study released conducted by the well respected Center for Creative Leadership, where this question was posed, “Do the leaders within your organization have the skills they need to be successful in the future?”  Several thousand leaders participated in the study, the results of which produced a list of key skills necessary for leadership success.

Here they are:

1. Leading people: directing and motivating people.
2. Strategic planning: translating vision into realistic business strategies, including long-term objectives.
3. Managing change: using effective strategies to facilitate organizational change.
4. Inspiring commitment: recognizing and rewarding employees’ achievements.
5. Resourcefulness: working effectively with top management.
6. Doing whatever it takes: persevering under adverse conditions.
7. Being a quick learner: quickly learning new technical or business knowledge

I would say no matter what level of leadership and management you hold, the ability to do these things well will make a difference in your leadership success.

This is pretty cut and dry and I wanted to post the list for your self assessment and reference.  YET, the other critical and essential question that must be asked in conjunction to this question is this: “Do your leaders have the qualities (different than skills) to effectively lead your organization now and into the future?”

Revealed in the study referenced above are answers to this question, though the question was not posed in my way.  What was recorded were other qualities leaders felt that they had that were valuable, but  considered not as important though necessary.

• building and mending relationships,
• compassion and sensitivity,
• cultural adaptability,
• respecting individual differences,
• composure,
• and self-awareness.

WHAT!…not as important…ghez!  This study again reveals the great disconnect between qualities, functional skill and effective leadership.  In fact the very qualities listed about are EXACTLY what is needed to execute the original list with some measure of success.

We’ve got to begin to see that business IS behavior and the qualities that drive it.  To expand on this, please download my expanded article The Behavior of Business. For those who do get it, you will set yourself apart and help lead your company to greater profitability no matter what role you have!

This source of this blog post can be found here.