Tag Archives: caring about others

Turning the Spotlight on Others

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you reinforce management-employee relations. Reading time: 3:34.

The Chief Executive Officer is standing on a balcony overlooking the industry’s most comprehensive research facility. A photographer from The New York Times is setting up to take the CEO’s picture commemorating the $111 million facility’s official opening.

Setting up lighting for a photo

Setting up lighting for a photo

lighting1 reflectorsThe company’s Public Relations guy is thrilled with the national exposure, thrilled to have interested a significant media outlet to come half way across the country to cover this event.

But suddenly there’s a snag. There’s technical issue with the photographer’s lighting. The photographer asks for time to fix the lighting.

The PR guy finds himself in an awkward situation: alone with the CEO with no particular meeting agenda, no proposal to be made or decision to be approved. The taciturn CEO was at ease in the silence. However, the PR guy felt the eerie silence as if it were weight on his shoulders.

But then the PR guy’s own chest began to swell with great pride, thrusting that weight off his shoulders and throwing himself head first into a few minutes of rare face time with the CEO.

Here was his chance to impress the CEO with some gambit of pithy conversation, some insight into his expertise as the company’s spokesperson, or at least some other side of his personality that would crack the CEO’s wall of silence. But instead the CEO unveiled a more revealing side of his own personality. And in the process Continue reading →

Making Every Day Pay Day

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to leverage your leadership influence. Reading time: 3:11.

Robins in a nest

Leaders get stronger by lifting others up.

Maybe that’s why Albert Einstein said only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. And Winston Churchill said: “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what give.”

Leaders give of themselves to make every day pay day. The more they give, the more they get, as author Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

Championing others a leader invariably unearths hidden resources, leverages differences, fosters greater productivity and mines increased profitability.

But in championing others, leaders know only too well that their date book is as important as their checkbook; their time as valued as their money. Continue reading →

Relationship Building: Walking the Talk Step by Step

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your mentoring relationships. Reading time: 2:04.

Walking along the beach, I followed in the footprints of a previous beachcomber.

Those footprints got me to thinking about the Footprints poem of Margaret Fishback that Hallmark Cards acquired and popularized.

In addition to the obvious spiritual and religious connotation, the poem also sets the stage to salute the merits of developing, designing and nurturing an on-going meaningful and relevant mentoring relationship.

As you take your mentoring relationships to the next level of trust and understanding consider this adaptation of the Footprints poem:

Mentoring Footprints In the Sand

I had a dream that I was walking along the beach toward a major presentation I was supposed to make. I sensed my mentor was walking with me although I did not see him.

I only saw two sets of footprints in the sand. But as I got to my meeting to make this major presentation, I looked back at the footprints in the sand. There was only one set of footprints.

I felt abandoned at the very time I needed my mentor. I was forced to give my presentation without my mentor. I was frustrated, angry I’m not sure what I was feeling but it wasn’t good.

I confronted my mentor. I said: “You told me when I decided to follow you, you would walk and talk with me all the way. But when I needed you most, just at the time of my presentation you left me.”

The leader whispered: “When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

Effective leaders carry others into the limelight without getting carried away in their own spotlight. And in the process, effective leaders leave behind an imprint deeper than any footprint .

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