Leadership Quote of the week

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.  Theodore Roosevelt

Risk Taking

InTaking Smart Risks, Doug Sundheim argues that as leaders we need to make more risky decision. Not careless, but calculated, smart risks. He identifies five dangers faced by leaders who avoid risks on a long term basis:
his book

You don’t win.
You don’t grow.
You don’t create.
You lose confidence.
You don’t feel alive.

Lincoln on Negotiating

Jim Camp writes in Forbes about four lessons leaders can learn about negotiating from Steven Spielberg's new movie Lincoln. He suggests leaders can successfully negotiate with others by...

1. Having a mission and a purpose
2. Focusing and rising above the mental clutter
3. Creating a vision in those who lack it
4. Making your opponents feel comfortable

The Essence of Leadership

Leadership Failure

Tim Irwin has studied both what makes leaders succeed and what leads to their failure. In his recent book Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership  Irwin tells the story of six high profile leaders who suffered significant failures. From studying these and other failures, Irwin learned five key lessons about leadership failure.

1. Character trumps competence
2. Arrogance is the mother of all derailers
3. Lack of self/other awareness is a common denominator of all derailments
4. We are always who we are...especially under stress
5. Derailment is not inevitable, but without attention to development it is probable

Leadership Quote of the Week

The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born. 

Warren Bennis

Patton on Leadership

As a youngster I was fortunate to spend four years living in a small town in the Eifel Mountains of Germany. On numerous occasions I visited nearby Bastogne, Belgium where the Battle of the Bulge was fought during World War II. The battle was one of the defining moments that made General George S. Patton an icon of military leadership.

While Patton was ambitious, egotistical, self centered and loved attention, he also had a reputation as a leader who cared deeply about those he led. In turn, his troops loved and performed spectacularly for him.

In his Letter of Instruction Number 1, Patton shared important guidelines for leaders in his Third Army. While written for military officers in a wartime environment, Patton's advice is just as relevant for leaders in campground settings as it was in those difficult days on the battlefields of Europe.

1. Remember that praise is more valuable than blame.
2. Use every means before and after combat to tell troops what they are going to do and what they have done.
3. Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, on meticulous attention to detail, and on mutual respect and confidence.
4. Officers must assert themselves by example and voice.
5. General officers must be seen in the front line during action.
6. There is a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers by excessive requirements in the way of training and reports.

Hot Stoves...A Model for Discipline

A simple but effective way to think about effective disciple is by picturing a hot stove. Both the stove and effective discipline share four characteristics.

1. Advanced Warning - Like a red hot burner signals danger, it should be obvious to staff what behaviors will result in disciplinary action. 

2. Immediacy - Touching a hot stove immediately results in getting burned. Effective discipline deals with negative behavior as quickly as possible.

3. Impartiality - Regardless of who you are, touching the hot stove has the same negative results. The same should be true of effective discipline.

4. Consistency - The hot burner on a stove delivers the same results time after time. Good discipline is also consistent time after time.

GROW Model of Coaching

Being a Leader of Influence

Writing recently on LinkedIn, Dr. Travis Bradberry from TalentSmart identified nine habits found in leaders who are influential. They include:

1. They think for themselves - They form their opinions carefully using facts rather fads, what's trending or what's most popular.

2. They graciously interrupt - They regularly ask "Why?" and "Why not?"

3. They inspire conversation - They challenge others to explore new ideas and to think differently.

4. They leverage their networks - They add value to others by providing advice and know-how.

5. They focus only on what matters - They hone-in on the important and ignore the trivial.

6. They welcome disagreement - They are more about the end result rather than being right.

7. They are proactive - They don't wait, they anticipate and act.

8. They respond rather than react - They respond with a result in mind rather than being driven by emotion.

9. They believe - They believe in themselves and in the power of other people.

Leadership Quote of the Week

A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see and who sees before others see.  Leroy Eimes, author and leadership expert

Understand Who You Serve

Perhaps no organization is better at understanding those they serve than Disney. At Disney collecting and analyzing data to understand their guests is called Guestology.  Disney's Guestology data includes both demographics and psychographics. While demographic data like ages, family size, hometown, etc. are important, it's the psychographic data that really helps Disney create their magic.

Disney breaks it psychographic data in four parts, called compass points. They include needs, wants, stereotypes and emotions. Disney is constantly asking itself:

- What do guests need?
- What do guests want?
- What stereotypes or preconceived notions do they bring with them?
- What emotions do they experience?

What impact would it have on your campground if you asked these questions about your campers?  How could you use this type of psychographic data to better serve them?

The Vital Few

The Pareto Principle says that 80% of our results come from 20% of our activities. The principle, also known as 80/20 rule or "the law of the vital few" has proven remarkably accurate since economist Vilfredo Pareto first identified it in 1896.

As a leader 80% of our impact comes from a "vital few" 20% of our interactions with our staff.  The same goes for our interactions with campers. There are those few moments when what we do makes a big difference.

Stephen Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Successful People suggests we need to focus on "putting first things first."  These are the 20% activities that have significant leverage in impacting those we lead and our organizations. They are the "Not Urgent But Important" tasks that Covey suggests are critical to being effective as a leader.

How do we identify these critical activities that lead to big results?  Covey suggests the following types of activities are the "vital few" that offer a high payoff for the investment of our time.

• Planning
• Prevention 
• Relationship building
• Recognizing new opportunities
• Planning 
• Personal rest & recreation 

According to Covey, investing in these types of activities results in vision, perspective, balance, control and few crises. 

Ten Common Mistakes in Giving Feedback

Where's Your Leadership Spot?

Max Levchin who cofounded what became PayPal takes an interesting approach to leading his current organization. Like most of us who lead organizations he spends several hours a day in his office doing very focused work. Each day, however, he also tries to spend several hours sitting on a bench across from the bathrooms his staff use. Why this location?

Levchin believes his job as CEO is to "get other people to do their best work in service of a shared goal." In order to do this he needs to connect with people, not just through e-mails and in meetings, but on-on-one. From his bench outside the restroom, Levchin can connect with virtually of of his staff who at some point in time pass by. For some it is a quick "how are you doing" while in other cases there are longer conversations with a staff member who joins him on the bench. By being on the bench, Levchin makes himself accessible to everyone regardless of position. Anyone who works in his company can have a "I wanted to tell you" or "I wanted to ask you" moment with the CEO.

Is there a place at campground that can be your leadership spot? Where can you hangout where you're accessible to everyone at campground, both campers and staff?  How can you set up our schedule to spend some time each day in this spot connecting with those that pass by?

Leadership Quote of the Week

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it." Henry Ford

Don't Ignore the MIddle

In most organizations, including campgrounds, outstanding performers make up about 25% of the staff while poor performers account for another 25%. In the middle are the other 50%. These are the staff members who day after day diligently go about their work and consistently meet the campground's expectation. Occasionally they excel and occasionally they disappoint but for the most part they do what is asked of them.

As a leader it's easy to get caught up in focusing on the top and bottom 25% and to ignore the middle 50%. The top 25% stand out and are easy to notice. The bottom 25% demand our attention as we repeatedly are forced to deal with the consequences of their poor performance. Those who quietly do what needs to be done, day in and day out, are easy to forget.

Why do we as campground leaders need to focus on the folks in the middle?

1. They are the people who make the campground run.

2. They have the greatest potential for growth.

3. Investing in the middle produces more top performers and what campground couldn't use more great staff.

4. Raising the level of performance in the middle has the most leverage in raising the overall performance of the campground.

Do the Worst First

On most of our daily to-do lists there is a task or two we dread. It may be an uncomfortable conversation or phone call that needs to happen. It may be a boring task that we just can't get excited about.

Unfortunately the mental fatigue and unneeded stress of procrastinating take a toll. It has a negative emotional and physical impact. It reduces our effectiveness in doing the tasks we choose to do instead. In addition, as time passes, the task may become harder as the situation goes unresolved.

We can increase our effectiveness as leaders if we choose each day to do what's hardest first. Look over your to do list and make what you're dreading the first thing you tackle. Reduce your stress by doing what you're avoiding. Get it over with and move on.

It's Always the Leader

Becoming a Better Leader

Jack Zenger, CEO of one of the world's largest leadership development organizations, recently reported the results of research on leaders who made dramatic improvements in their leadership. Here are the behaviors these leaders used to turn around their performance.

• They improved their communication effectiveness.
• They made an effort to share their knowledge and expertise more widely. 
• They began to encourage others to do more and to be better. 
• They developed a broader perspective. 
• They recognized they were role models and needed to set a good example. 
• They began to champion their team's new ideas. 
• They learned to recognize when change was needed. 
• They improved their ability to inspire and motivate others. 
• They began to encourage cooperation rather than competition.

Leadership Quote of the Week

There is only one way to avoid criticism;

do nothing, 

say nothing, 

and be nothing. 

Aristotle

Culture Trumps Strategy

"Culture trumps strategy" has become a popular axiom in today's management literature. The belief is that having a strong, intentional organizational culture is more important to success than pursuing the right strategy.  The best organizations are not those who always make the right strategic decisions. The best organizations are those that are made up of staff who share a commitment to a common set of goals and embrace the same core values.

How do you create a strong organizational culture in your campground?

1. Identify and articulate what your organizations believes. Have a clear, written mission and core values.

2. Hire staff who buy into your mission and embrace your core values. Make values an important component of your selection process. If one of your values is putting the needs of guests first, hire staff members who value serving others and are willing to put the needs of others before their own.

3. Integrate teaching your mission and values into every aspect of staff training. Every topic in staff training should be linked to your mission and values. Teach not only what to do, but why it's done a particular way at your campground.

4. Lead by modeling your mission and values. If you want it to be part of your organizational culture, it must be part of how you and your leadership team lead your staff.