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:

"Correction does much, but encouragement does more." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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

A LITTLE BIT DEEPER:

As we continue to look at quotes that talk about ENCOURAGEMENT this month, I want to give you von Goethe's quote and have you think about it.

The quote above talks a little bit about the value of CORRECTION, but it then tells us that ENCOURAGEMENT is better, or does more!

Think about the people that surround you, either in your work, in your community, your family, or just generally in life:

  • How do you bring CORRECTION into those relationships?

  • Are you known as someone who CORRECTS? Do people receive it well?

  • Are you known as an ENCOURAGER?

  • How do people respond when you ENCOURAGE them?

Personally, I respond well to both CORRECTION and ENCOURAGEMENT, if it's delivered in the correct way. Here are some things that make a difference to me:

  • Do I TRUST the person that is sharing with me?

  • Do they CARE about me and want the best for me?

  • Have they EARNED THE RIGHT to speak into my life?

  • Do we have a RELATIONSHIP? A history?

  • Are they focused on things that MATTER? Or just small trivial things?

What makes a difference for you when you're receiving CORRECTION or even ENCOURAGEMENT?

DEEPER STILL:

Take a minute and think about the last word of ENCOURAGEMENT you received: Who was it from? What did they say? How did it make you feel?

I had someone compliment me on something I said recently at an event. I had given some public praise to someone I cared about, and this person stopped me, and affirmed me for saying that publicly and he told me that I modeled this for others. It made me feel good! I wasn't doing it for that reason, and out of 200 people in the room, ONE person came up, but that meant a lot to me. I left the event thinking about that one comment. The power of affirmation!

Take a minute and think about the last word of CORRECTION you received: Who was it from? What did they say? How did it make you feel?

I had someone challenge me recently with a decision I made a number of months back, and they called me on it, pushed me a little bit, and basically told me I made the wrong decision. It caused me to be defensive. I wanted to justify my actions, and eventually I looked at the decision again and realized it really wasn't that big of a deal to me. I told them I understood how they felt, but owned the decision and we moved on. Not too bad, but I thought about it for days.

John Gottman tells us that there's a 5:1 Ratio Rule: For every 1 correction, you need 5 affirmations to balance that out.

We need correction in our lives... I need correction in my life, but encouragement and affirmation is so much more important! We need it constantly to balance the criticism we receive from a harsh world.

Think about the balance of CORRECTION you dish out and the amount of ENCOURAGEMENT you give away. Are you following the 5:1 Ratio Rule? If not, you should!

 

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

Source: www.leadermundial.org