Leadership Done Right Blog

10 Lessons Learned From Leadership Examples

By Brandon W. Jones on March 4, 2013 6

Several great leaders in the form of teachers, athletic coaches, mentors, peers, youth group leaders, friends, and others have touched my life through their leadership examples. They’ve shaped me into the person I am today. They’ve told me when I was doing something wrong and encouraged me when I was going through a challenge. In addition, they’ve taught me correct principles to help me avoid mistakes. Of all the great leaders I’ve had, there have been two that have taught me more than anyone else.

My Leadership Examples

Those two great leadership examples are my parents. My dad and mom have been great leadership examples throughout my life. They’ve taught me many important leadership principles throughout my life. They both understand that they are leadership examples to me so they teach leadership principles whenever possible. Their leadership examples are very powerful. They’ve taught me the following ten lessons.

1. Lead By Example

My dad and mom taught me the importance of leading by example. As the leader, you can set the example for those you lead. When you lead a diverse group, you may not fully understand everything your employees work on, but you can still set an example when it comes to values.

2. Have Faith

As I mentioned in my previous post, my mom and dad have always taught me to have faith in God, other people, and myself. They taught me through words and by their leadership examples. As a leader, faith allows you to get things done that you never thought possible. [Read more…] about 10 Lessons Learned From Leadership Examples

The Lighter Side Of Leadership Innovation

By Brandon W. Jones on March 3, 2013 0

What Have You Heard About Leadership Innovation?

Have you heard about the new leadership innovation? Are you aware of the leadership innovation happening all around you? I hear people saying leadership innovation all the time. There are new techniques to being a great leader, just read the top best selling books on the shelf. They will teach you the latest and greatest of leadership innovation.

In the world we live in, there’s a significant amount of leadership innovation occurring. Leaders all over the world are inspiring people to be more innovative than ever before. The leadership innovation is changing the world we live in.

Technological Innovation

In addition to the leadership innovation, there are many types of innovation in technology. Many things we now enjoy were completely unheard of ten to fifteen years ago. We now enjoy airplanes, cell phones, handheld computers, etc. Actually as I write this post, I am sitting on my nice comfy couch typing on my laptop computer watching something on my flatscreen T.V. That would have been unheard of 20 years ago. A laptop computer?! Who has one of those?! Now it seems like everyone has a laptop or better yet a tablet of some sort. [Read more…] about The Lighter Side Of Leadership Innovation

Learn To Control Life

By Brandon W. Jones on March 2, 2013 3

When you are a leader, everyday brings a multitude of problems, challenges, and opportunities. Each comes from a variety of sources with different people involved. As you face the problems, challenges, and opportunities, think about how to control life. You must realize what is within your control and what is not. As a leader, it is very easy to want to control life completely to the point that you forget that you can’t control certain things. When you try to control the uncontrollable it only leads to stress, frustration, burnout, and disappointment. As a leader, you must truly think about and understand how to control life.

Do You Understand How To Control Life?

So, when do you control life and when does someone else control life? This question is very important when approaching each day. You should ask this question when you set your priorities and determine how to spend your time and money. It is very easy to get caught up trying to control things outside your control, but that creates unneeded stress.

When deciding how to control life, you must grasp the controlled and let go of the uncontrollable. How can you grasp the controlled? How can you let go of the uncontrollable? To control life you must understand what is controllable and what is not. [Read more…] about Learn To Control Life

Avoid Derailing The Meeting

By Brandon W. Jones on March 1, 2013 0

Classic signs of someone derailing the meeting

A little while back, I received an email for an upcoming meeting. The email had an attached agenda that detailed the topics to be discussed, the attendees, and the desired outcome of the meeting. Sounds like the start to a great meeting, right? When I showed up to the meeting, the facilitator gave a brief review of the agenda to get everyone thinking about what we would talk about. Still on the right track! What a prepared facilitator! She did a great job getting everyone prepared for the meeting so it could be a success! Beware of the person derailing the meeting…

So the meeting should’ve gone perfect from there with every topic discussed and all points addressed within the time frame specified right? Well, not quite. We started into the first agenda item and one person asked a few questions about a point that wasn’t really related to the meeting. The classic start to someone derailing the meeting. From there, everyone in the meeting began talking about that topic and going into related details. It wasn’t long before the originally scheduled meeting wasn’t happening, probably no more than 10 minutes into the meeting. We were having a completely different meeting with the original agenda out the window.

Have you ever sat through a meeting like that? The meeting facilitator was well prepared with the agenda items. She also had everything lined out, so that everyone would stay on track. The problem, however, came down to the execution of the meeting.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, Meet The Meeting Killers, by Sue Shellenbarger that discussed five types of people that are always guilty of derailing the meeting. [Read more…] about Avoid Derailing The Meeting

Why Leaders Should Write Specialty Blogs

By Brandon W. Jones on February 28, 2013 10

The Impact Of Specialty Blogs

Have you heard about the impact of specialty blogs? Did you hear the story about the stay-at-home mom that became a millionaire? How did she do it? She did it by creating a specialty blog. She and her husband were struggling to make ends meet, so she started to blog about her situation. The purpose of her blog was to show everyone what she and her family were going through and how they were trying to save money, be more frugal, and overcome their situation.

As she wrote, she gained more and more followers. She gained credibility as a money saving expert as she saved money and became financially stable. Once she gained her expert status, major television networks had her to speak on their shows to teach people how to overcome their financial instability. They paid her big money for the speaking arrangements. From there, she started her own in-home business that focused on helping people gain financial stability.

I learned about this story through reading the book ME 2.0 by Dan Schawbel. Many people write specialty blogs and each person has the ability to start their own specialty blog. If you start a specialty blog and post regularly, you will gain a following and could be the next millionaire!

The Nitty Gritty Of Specialty Blogs

Okay, okay, I am not going to promise you any financial gain, but there are many benefits that come from specialty blogs. Just for starters, the list below has four benefits of specialty blogs. Starting your own specialty blog will help you do the following:

[Read more…] about Why Leaders Should Write Specialty Blogs

Create Value Through Leadership

By Brandon W. Jones on February 27, 2013 0

Why is it that in today’s economy people are more afraid than ever of losing their jobs? People have a big fear that if they lose their job, they will be out of work and won’t be able to find a new job. If that happens, they fear they won’t be able to support their family. They fear they won’t have enough money to take care of their family. From there, the fear is that the whole world will come down. This is a very real fear because the current economy is still recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Do you create value for society?

So how do you overcome this fear? What is your answer to the following question, “Do you create value for society?” Overcoming your fear starts with knowing your own value. You must know that you create value for your employer, your family, and society as a whole. If you find yourself in the situation mentioned above, you must think of it as the company’s loss and not yours if you know that you create value. Just because the company doesn’t value you enough to keep you employed doesn’t mean you are not a valuable employee. As a leader, you possess unique talents. You probably have the ability to take a struggling team and make them productive. Or, you have the ability to get the most out of each individual on your team. Think of how you create value by what you bring to the table as you move on. Focus on that value and leverage it for your benefit and the benefit of others. [Read more…] about Create Value Through Leadership

How Can Leaders Change Daily?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 26, 2013 2

What Does it Mean To Change Daily?

Is it even possible for leaders to change daily? In leadership, business, politics, and many other aspects of life, people talk about making change happen very quickly. They talk about change in terms of something that needs to happen all at once. In reality, effective change causes people and processes to change daily and incrementally.

Change has become the buzz word people use to say they are making a difference. With the word change comes a wide range of feelings. For most people, hearing the word change either excites them or makes them cringe. Change has become a very polarizing word.

How Do Leaders Motivate Employees?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 24, 2013 24

Why Can’t You Motivate Employees?

One of the biggest leadership challenges is learning how to motivate employees. Motivated employees generally work harder with greater resolve to do a good job. Some employees always seem to be motivated while always lack motivation. They lack desire to do anything more than the bare minimum for one reason or another. All their reasons, however, are just excuses because they lack motivation.

In the leadership world, there are many theories about motivation. There is also constant discussion about what it takes to motivate employees and why you can or can’t motivate employees.

So what exactly is motivation?

Motivation is the process of arousing and sustaining goal-directed behavior.

As a leader, it is sometimes possible to motivate employees through creating incentives for good work because some people are motivated by outside sources. There are, however, others that are motivated from within. [Read more…] about How Do Leaders Motivate Employees?

Continue Learning And Be A Teachable Leader

By Brandon W. Jones on February 21, 2013 2

A Study On Learning

Recently, I read an article from the 1990’s era Harvard Business review titled Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris that focused on learning in a corporate environment. In the article, Chris explained that the smartest or most educated people within an organization are the hardest ones to teach within the corporate environment. He also explained that those same people, when put in the academic environment, are very teachable and are very good at learning.

Chris identified that, within the organizations, the leaders generally have the highest level of education. He found that many leaders, when asked to look within themselves for areas of improvement, were very reluctant. They, in turn, found faults and reasons for failure in others. Often, they stopped learning and began playing the blame game.

What Does The Study Mean Today?

Even though Chris Argyris wrote this article several years ago, there is still a lot that we can learn from it today. There are two reasons why educated leaders become less teachable in the corporate environment compared to the academic environment. [Read more…] about Continue Learning And Be A Teachable Leader

Are You Out Of Balance?

By Brandon W. Jones on February 20, 2013 0

As a leader, you are constantly being pushed and pulled in different directions. You probably have many responsibilities and everyone wants to give you more because you are dependable. That falls in line with the age old saying, “If you really want to get something done, you will give it to someone that is really busy.” With all the responsibilities and/or requests, it can be very easy to become so busy that you get out of balance as a leader.

The Challenge of Maintaining Balance

Several years ago, I was studying to earn my undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering. I was very focused on two things at the time. I wanted to earn my engineering degree and I wanted to get as close to straight A’s as possible. I knew that this would take a lot of dedication to accomplish because it is not an easy task.

With those two goals in mind, I went from semester to semester through the program. Each semester got progressively harder and the classes became more and more time consuming outside of class. I was very dedicated to the point that I didn’t go out with friends on the weekends on many occasions.

I spent long weeks (70-80 hours) doing nothing but completing assignments, studying for my exams, and doing lab-work. In the process I neglected many of my friends and colleagues that would’ve helped me through the program. I got to the point that my life was out of balance. [Read more…] about Are You Out Of Balance?