By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to help you stay mentally ready to exercise your leadership skills. Reading time: 4:56.

Take a ride into small town America and you will find water towers dotting the landscape like huge golf balls sitting on top of 150-foot tall tees in a land of giants.

These tall structures have a tall order : maintain the water pressure especially at high peak times so that when you turn your faucet to take a bath or to make a cup of coffee, the water flows.

Preparation is the key to making that water tower work. Nothing happens without FIRST doing the necessary work to pump the equivalent of some 50 swimming pools of water up to the top of that huge golf-ball shaped tank before it’s needed. Water Towers are Semper Paratus -Always Ready-the motto of the United States Coast Guard.

Likewise leaders are Semper Paratus. They are always ready to do their duty. Like the water in those towers, their leadership principles have been pumped, prepped and placed BEFORE they are needed.

Always Ready for Prime Time

Now these primed leaders are ready for prime time. Ready on demand. Ready to be tapped to lead in times of change and crisis. As Benjamin Disraeli said: “The secret of success in life is for a person to be ready for their opportunity when it comes.”

Primed leaders are ready more than simply prepared to lead. Leaders understand that readiness demands a more urgent and more deliberate focus than simply being prepared. The Boy Scouts motto “Be Prepared” is necessary but not sufficient to lead.

To attain and retain a state of readiness leaders must seemingly simmer in their own juices of integrity and conviction for extended periods of time. The greater the state of their readiness the more significant their performance. Continue reading →