Leading Brilliantly

The Fine Art of Personal and Organizational Effectiveness

Roger Corea

• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781644162231
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

Why Should You Buy This Book?As you weigh the pros and cons of buying this book, you are probably asking yourself, "Why should I buy it? What do I hope to gain from reading it?" The answer might be, "Perhaps I may gain some new insights into myself, my organization, or on how I can lead others more effectively. Our hope is that you gain so much more! Through this learning experience, we hope you will achieve a positive transformation in your life. Why? Because transformation is so much greater than simple change. Transformation is life altering. That's a tall order for a book, but one we know is possible. We know because we have seen it happen with the many people we have led and trained. Helping others transform their lives is our mission. We define that transformation as significant positive change that leads to greater success, fulfillment and happiness. Yes, change is difficult for most people. Sadly, for most people, it rarely happens, and when it does, it is usually driven by pain or fear. Think about it. 62 percent of Americans stay in jobs with bosses they hate until the pain of staying exceeds the pain of leaving. Most never leave. How tragic. Fear is the other punishing motivator. If I can't pay my mortgage, I may have to take on a second job. Or my boss may place me on a performance improvement plan (also known as a keep your job or else plan). He knows full well that over half of all action plans result in termination. Or how about the person who quits smoking after a close friend dies of cancer. Or the person who finally decides to eat right after their heart attack. This is not the kind of motivation that leads to a better life and is often too little too late. There is a better way. Significant change is driven by clarifying what you really want and developing the right mindset and habits to get there. It is understanding the obstacles to change and how to manage them as well as learning how to leverage your strengths and overcome your weaknesses. It means discovering new more effective ways to interact with subordinates, colleagues, and management. We are not proposing hypothetical ideas but teaching proven systems for enhancing personal effectiveness. We will drill down to the details with clear instruction and exercises. Yes, there is a better way to live your life. There is a better way to affect significant positive change in your life as well as those around you. We want nothing less than to support you as you discover new behaviors and habits that will transform your life. We are excited about the journey ahead of you and hope you will use this book for years to come. Our best to you, Roger CoreaMichael Keys

Chapter 1

Developing Personal Effectiveness

Taking Care of the Goose

One of the best definitions of effectiveness I have heard came from Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Effective People. He utilized the powerful example of Aesop’s fable of The Goose and the Golden Egg to illustrate his point. If you remember, the story is about a farmer who, having come upon a goose that lays golden eggs, becomes fabulously wealthy. With his increasing fortune, the farmer grows impatient and greedy and decides to kill the goose and get all the eggs out at once. When he opens the goose, he discovers the golden eggs are gone. In destroying the goose, the farmer also destroyed his stream of wealth.

The story of the goose and the farmer is a powerful allegory of the dangers of excess in our society today and what can happen when we don’t take care of the producer—that is, the one who responsible for generating the productivity. For the farmer, it was the goose. For a family, it is each other. For a business or organization, it is employees and team members. The stream of effectiveness, once achieved, needs to be nurtured and protected against excessive wear and tear. The “goose” needs to be well-fed, have plenty of exercise, and enjoy satisfying relationships with other “geese.” Given the human fallibilities of “geese,” this is much more difficult than it sounds. Suffice it to say, at this point in our book, it takes one heck of a skillful farmer to pull it off!

Do you really think humanity should be satisfied with its historical effectiveness?

At its core, effectiveness has a wide spectrum of reference today in our society. Of course, we know continued ineffectiveness breeds stagnation, retrogression, and sooner or later, failure and disappointment. Yet humanity’s quest for effectiveness, has often produced a less than stellar result.

Ponder, if you will, the following question: what if we accomplished all the significant advancements of the present day in mathematics, physics, and medicine, and even business, 500 years ago? What if automobiles, paved roads, commercial airliners, cures for polio, malaria, tuberculosis, bubonic plague, AIDS, and cancer existed before the middle ages? What if we placed a man on the moon in 1469 instead of 1969? Which planets do you think we’d be inhabiting today? What about Disney World on Jupiter? How long do you think it would take to visit your in-laws on Mars? Have you ever asked “why not”?

Recent discoveries in Africa have proven that, anatomically, modern humans—Homo sapiens—have existed for about 200,000 years. Since most industrial and medical advancement has transpired during the last 200 years, where have we been for the last 199,800 years? Terminal illnesses remain. The mosquito is still the mostly deadly animal in the world, killing 725,000 people every year. And what about the “human condition”? Are not our emotional fallibilities as pervasive as they were with our archaic ancestors? The consequences of jealousy, vanity, envy, greed, not to mention religious discord and violence, still confound our lives causing grief, unhappiness, and pain. Substance abuse is the coping mechanism of choice for many of our young people. War and crime still make daily headlines. While our political leaders squabble, time marches on and we fear future generations will suffer the consequences of their inaction. We pride ourselves on innovation but our historical record looks more like Johnny-come-lately than Johnny-on the-spot.

Did you ever wonder why a society so focused in the cerebral realm is so frail in the emotional one? In my mind, a definite fallacy exists when we believe intellect is the sole criterion for effectiveness. I believe our educational institutions need to step up and recognize the need to teach stronger coping skills. In addition to traditional courses like math, science, and the humanities, academia should also focus on courses that teach life management skills and emotional competencies. As students become adults and progress through the various stages of their lives, it won’t be their understanding of E=mc2 that will get them through the adversities of life. With an IQ of 160, even Einstein warned us of a disproportionate emphasis on intellect.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

—Albert Einstein

Psychologist Robert Sternberg has discussed the concept of “successful intelligence.” Having a high IQ is not enough, he says. He believes successful people need to recognize and capitalize on their strengths, but also have to correct or compensate for their weaknesses. For example, he continues, brilliant leaders have failed because of their inability to admit to a mistake and change a course of action, or because they are unable to trust others and ask for help or delegate tasks to others. But there is something missing in the significance we attach to intelligence as being such an essential criterion for effective governance as well as success in business. If we believe effective leadership depends solely on high intellect, why have we seen so many seemingly smart politicians and business executives crash and burn?

Emotional Competence—Tightening the Gap

We begin with emotional competence, because it is here that we find the greatest challenges, and it is here that we find the greatest opportunity for growth. The best preparation for becoming and remaining an effective person and leader is developing emotional competence, with emphasis on the word developing. Good leaders know that there is always work to do, especially in this area. Emotional Competence is always a journey and never a destination. A leader’s own self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-evaluation are central components of his own bearing as a leader. He must be receptive to feedback, at times be totally vulnerable, and strive to achieve a steadfast composure during challenging moments. Even if he is doing these things well, there is always room for improvement. James MacGregor Burns of the Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland and a well-known authority on leadership asserts that human need, moral purpose, empathy, and the desire to grow and get better are the most prominent manifestations of leadership.

Employers are beginning to value Emotional Competence (EQ) as more important than academic achievement. A recent study concluded that employers consider the following criteria as most important when filling leadership positions.

1. Remaining calm under pressure
2. Resolving conflict effectively
3. Being empathic to employees
4. Ability to lead by example
5. Placing more consideration into business decisions

When L’Oréal started hiring people based on emotional competency, the high EQ reps outsold the traditionally chosen ones by $90,000. Another company found their EQ reps outsold others by $45,000. Study after study has linked much higher success rates to emotional competence.

All leadership development should be based on this one important principle: A person can never lead others to a higher level of effectiveness than he is currently leading himself.

There is always a gap to close. Tightening that gap—making it narrower—is the purpose of this book. Actually, we are all somewhat emotionally incompetent unless of course we happen to be Yogi Berra who said:

I believe people should admit their faults; I’d admit mine if I had any.

Developing Your Emotional Competence

We have all seen it: the person who blows up their career, their marriage, their relationship with their kids—sometimes all the above. We ask ourselves, “Why did this happen? He had so much going for him. They seemed so happy.” The interesting thing is, many of us are not far from this same “blow up,” and we know it. We live in fear that the coping strategies we have built into our lives will not sustain us. The good news is that most of us won’t blow ourselves up. Yet we end up living our lives in a manner that is less than what we expected and far less than our true poten...

Table of contents

• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Chapter 10
• About the Authors