Unavailing Logic

Robert K. Greenleaf is credited as the father of Servant Leadership. While Greenleaf certainly brought the concept of servant leadership to the forefront with his 1970 essay The Servant as Leader , he did not create the concept of servant leadership. There have been several historically significant servant leaders over the years. Two that come to mind are Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. To understand what made them servant leaders, let's take a look at the traits of a servant leader: Listening Empathy Healing Awareness Persuasion Conceptualization Foresight Stewardship Commitment to the growth of people Building community If you have even a modest knowledge of history, you can see how the two men were servant leaders. While this blog does not have a religious focus, my Christian faith is built on servant leadership. Jesus was the epitome of a servant leader. So concerned with the well being of others that he allowed himself to be crucified for them. I suspect some of yo...

Back in 2009 I traveled to New York City to study at the American Management Association. It was fairly early in my management career and I thought I was a "big shot" getting to go to NYC and learn management. My class was mostly entry level managers who had never held a leadership role or taken any other leadership training. The instructor had us introduce ourselves and when it came to me, I mentioned that I'd had Six Sigma Team Leader and Total Quality Management training and that I had become a trainer on those subjects for my company. At break the instructor pulled me aside and told me that I was probably in the wrong class as it was for people with no previous management experience. As any great leader does, he recognized my knowledge and skill and put me to use as a sort of co-instructor. We had a great week of class, and the instructor took extra time with me to give me instruction he wasn't giving the rest of the class. One of the things he told me was, ...

Over the past 15 years of my career I have focused on leadership, team building, business acumen, and emotional intelligence. I made this decision after being in primarily technical roles for the previous 15 years. It was spurred by a conversation with a respected peer. The conversation was about how information technology was changing and that soon the "technology generalist" would become obsolete as technology would advance so far that no one could fully grasp every aspect of it. We chatted about how eventually there will be technology workers who support daily operations to "keep the lights on" and IT strategists who support the business by achieving goals and objectives using technology. I've been in the field long enough to remember the days when the "IT Guy" was the go to do it all guy for anything technology related. Need a phone...IT Guy. Need a power strip...IT Guy. Need printer paper...IT Guy. The IT Guy did everything related to just abo...

It's a new year, a new decade, and I'm sure many people are making those annual resolutions to better themselves in one way or another. Why people wait until a new year to make these changes has always been a bit of a mystery to me. We all have shortcomings. We all fail from time to time. We all experience seasons in our lives where things aren't going the way we would like them to go. Why wait to change these things? One of the things I adopted years ago was a continuous improvement strategy. I'm always looking for ways to better myself. Improvement comes in may forms. It may be in the form of education, health, wealth, career advancement, or helping others (which is HIGHLY beneficial both people). So what drives my desire to be a better person? What makes me want to be successful in all that I do? That's easy....fear. Now...it's not the sort of fear you're thinking of. It's not like a fear of heights, or a fear of the dark, or a fear of being hurt. N...

If you have read my other blog posts, you know that I'm a huge proponent of servant leadership. The days of top down authoritative leadership are quickly becoming bygone. We live in the information age, where knowledge of anything is a few clicks away. I remember back in 1987 when I started my IT career there was two ways of learning new technology. You either read a book about 3" thick and memorized as much of it as you could (keeping it on a shelf for reference), or you installed the hardware or software and figured things out through trial and error. This was in the days before everything was GUI driven. You got a blinking prompt, and you had to know what to type. The beauty thing is, nearly every operating system performed similarly, so you simply had to look up the equivalent command from an OS you were familiar with. Logic skills were paramount. Tenacity, patience, and a strong desire to succeed were mandatory traits. There were many times I worked on something for...

When I was in 5th grade we had a talent show. My talent at that age was more or less the same as it is today...being a ham. I signed up and listed my talent as "stand up comedian". Over the next few weeks we had rehearsal for everyone performing in the talent show. Some danced, some sang, some played guitar, etc. One girl recited a poem. We all performed our acts in front of each other multiple times and that poem stuck with me and I have applied its wisdom throughout my career. That poem was called Don't Quit by John Greenleaf Whittier. She only recited the first verse, but what a verse it was. John Greenleaf Whittier Don't Quit When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems all up hill, When the funds are low and the debts are high And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don't you quit. Life is strange with its twists and turns As e...

Besides my love of business, leadership, motivation, and mentoring....I am also an avid music lover. So much so that 9 years ago I decided to learn to play bass guitar. Over the years I have learned that it's not just the notes you play, but how you play the notes, when you play the notes, and how those notes sound. This wasn't something foreign to me as this is the same lesson I learned as a communication major when I was in college. It's not just the words you say, but how you say them, when you say them, who says them, and how they sound. In the music industry, we call this "tone". Musicians spend untold time and money on developing their signature sound or mimicking the sound of their favorite artists. One of the effects often used in music is called compression. Compression is a complicated subject that unless you are a music geek or recording engineer you won't care much about. Basically, compression sets a threshold and any notes you play louder than t...