Tuesday at 2:00pm with Russ

It's Tuesday at 2:00pm! (PST Time: I live and work from Southern California)

Greetings to you!

Each week I send out a short leadership blog that's called "Tuesday at 2:00pm". The purpose of this is simply to provide a brief thought on leadership that you can read and think about in just a few minutes. I send it out every week at 2:00pm (PST) and encourage you to make an appointment with yourself to pause and think about the thing I'm writing about.

Russ...

LEADERSHIP QUOTE:

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou


What does this stir up? Either write me HERE or comment at the end of the blog post HERE.

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

This month we're going to do a dive into SERVANT LEADERSHIP. You can see past blog posts on leadership and a variety of topics HERE.

What a great thought from Maya Angelou. This connects to the Servant Leadership Theme because when you serve someone, genuinely serve someone, they remember it. It makes them feel valued, appreciated and loved.

Ottawa University shares "5 Proven Characteristics of a Servant Leader".

1) Listening: Listen receptively and nonjudgmentally

2) Appreciation: Value people and appreciate them for who they are.

3) Humility: Put other people first.

4) Trust: Give trust to others.

5) Caring: Have people and purpose in their hearts.

That's a pretty good list of where we all need to focus, but as I was looking at different articles around Servant Leadership, they all seemed to start with LISTENING.

Maybe this is where you need to start.

Ryan Arshad writes on Forbes.com and article entitled: The Importance of Listening For Organizational Success and in this article he summarizes:

"Listening is really about empowering employees. Leaders who focus on listening build an organization focused on inclusivity and wisdom while creating a more open, trusting relationship between themselves, their employees and the company."

How are you using your listening skills to communicate to your team that you value them, you hear them and you want to empower them?

DEEPER STILL:

I shared a couple of weeks ago about a book that was sent to me by a friend, Unreasonable Hospitality. The tagline on the book is simply, "The remarkable power of giving people more than the expect."

I've shared this book with a couple of people and have had multiple conversations around it. The idea of hospitality and servant leadership are really connected.

The book talks about the power of making people feel something and creating a service experience that they'll remember. Guidara talks about "listening" to what's going on and responding to that, and he challenges people to go above and beyond to take care of people. Read the book and it will challenge you.

I think the biggest takeaway for me is the idea that there are opportunities around me everyday where I can serve people, but often times I miss them because of many reasons:

  • I'm too busy

  • I'm focused on my own stuff

  • I'm selfish with my time and resources

  • I don't want to change my schedule

  • I'm afraid of how they'll respond or react to me

  • I talk myself out of listening to the "prompting" by God

  • I just don't want to!

Have you used any of these reasons before?

Listen to this advice from Matthew 7:12 (MSG):

"Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's law and Prophets and this is what you get."

We all want to experience this kind of servant leadership, this kind of hospitality. Jesus says that whatever we want, we should do that for others. That's his model. Go.

 

Things I'm Reading, Listening To and Watching This Week:

Source: www.leadermundial.org