Tag Archives: listening to others

Leadership Mints Sampler: COLLABORATING Like a Leader

Developing and growing a productive collaborating climate is a key theme in THINKING Like a Leader, one of three books in The Leadership Mints Series. Here is a quick peek at the 24 Leadership Mints (short stories on leadership principles) that focus on Collaborating in Part III.

This overview is excerpted from the 280-page book that is now available at Amazon.com. in both print and e-book versions.

COLLABORATING-Part III

In thinking like a leader, you depend on others (Mint 53).

You partner with others (Mints 54-55).

You adapt to others (Mint 56).

You conduct your meetings with a premise for and about others (Mint 57).

You wear your name tag the right way (Mint 58).

You slow down (Mint 60).

You take a time out (59).

You get a peace of the action (Mint 61).

You free others (Mint 62) to work better together (Mint 70).

You light the way (Mint 63).

You fill-in the gaps for others (Mint 64).

You consistently prepare (Mint 76).

You coach others (Mint 65) and rally your rivals (Mint 66).

You earn the permission of the public (Mint 67).

You guard against your own ego blinding you (Mint 68).

You project the face others expect of you (Mint 69).

You champion diversity (Mint 71).

You leverage diversity (Mint 77).

You praise thoughtfully (Mint 72).

You accept criticism responsibly (Mint 73).

And you maintain self control (Mint 74) especially in reprimanding others (Mint 75).

THINKING LIKE A Leader is the first book in The 3-book Leadership Mints Series designed to help leaders refresh their feeling for leading on-the-go with stories on leadership principles called Leadership Mints that like the candy are easily accessed, quickly digested and immediately refreshing.

The other two books in the Leadership Mints Series focus on leading with empathy (LOVING Like a Leader) featuring 77 more Leadership Mints (stories) and leading with civility featuring 52 Leadership Mints (stories) (SPEAKING Like a Leader)

Baton Exchange Anchors Leadership Mints Series

Exchanging the baton in a relay race — the front cover image on each of the three books in The Leadership Mints Series — celebrates the collaborative focus of leaders and followers.

Leaders and followers need — and heed—each other. On and off the track.

Leaders realize their success is dependent on their participating WITH their followers (a.k.a audiences). They learn from one other. They factor their mutual needs and interests with each other. And they speak WITH – not AT –each other. With civility. Time and again.

Their collaborative performance is an on-going pursuit.

Leaders realize there is no finish line. Just another starting line. And still another well-marked exchange zone on a track where they and their followers must perform collaboratively. On time (and under budget). One hand reaching out to the other’s hand. In full stride. With precision.

That’s why their on-going pursuit of interdependence between— leaders and followers, speakers and audiences, managers and their employees (and relay track team members) — is featured throughout The Leadership Mints Series in THINKING Like a Leader with clarity, in LOVING Like a Leader with empathy and in SPEAKING Like a Leader with civility.

To Bee or Not To Bee a Leader

By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to better focus on your key behavior as a leader. Reading time: 3:56.

You’re a leader. So, what do you do all day?

Walt Disney had an apt answer when a little boy posed that challenging question to the father of Mickey Mouse.

The creator of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi , Dumbo and so many more memorable cartoon characters said:

“Sometimes
I think of myself
as a little bee.

I go from one area of the studio
to another to gather pollen
and sort of stimulate everybody.”

Pollinating the growth of others is an instructive metaphor for the essence of leadership behavior.

No wonder the most effective leaders wing their way early and often among their staffs. Nothing planned. No meetings scheduled for at least the first hour “in the office.”

Instead they flap their proverbial wings 180 times a second -or an amazing 11,000 times per minute- and soar to a new higher, more developed, more productive level from their father’s version of managing-by-walking around.

Their series of impromptu interactions, always on their staff’s turf either in their workstations or in the hallways, are quick and pithy. It only seems like they’re trying to match a bee’s pollination proclivity in visiting up to 5,000 flowers a day. Continue reading →