Today’s Monday Morning Minute is longer than usual…but worth it.

Muhammad Ali once said:

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It’s a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”

If you agree with his quote I have two questions for you:

1.  What part of your personal or professional life have you told yourself “that’s impossible?”

2.  What would happen if you turned that area of your life into a dare instead of a declaration?

No matter what your answers are, just remember that impossible is temporary and is nothing!

I was asked yesterday by a CEO client to list what I thought were the essential characteristics of high performing leaders and team members. After giving a disclaimer about high levels of competency and a deep expertise in their respective areas, I provided my top ten list of suggested attributes for leadership and team effectiveness.

1.  Passion: Successful leaders and team members have one idea that has grabbed hold of them and won’t let go. They can genuinely, enthusiastically and readily talk about their idea and the linkage to an uplifting and desirable future. They are passionate communicators and use powerful language to infuse hope and optimism in others.

2.  Curiosity: Successful leaders and team members have a deep curiosity about people and what makes them tick. They are continuously looking at and discussing how to build greater effectiveness with and through people as well as technology. They are also curious about their brand and are committed to enhancing it. Their curiosity has them traveling to diverse places, reading broadly and being intellectually engaged both at work and at home.

3.  Courage: Successful leaders and team members have the courage to turn their back on what has made them successful in the past. They still experience fear but see courage as essential for accomplishing something noteworthy. They embrace their fears and move forward confidently knowing they are smart enough to learn and grow from whatever they experience.

4.  Credibility: Successful leaders and team members recognize that being able to make a contribution takes personal influence. They know that people will willingly follow them only if people believe them to be authentic, credible and believable. They agree with the admonition that people only believe the message if they first believe the messenger, and in turn they strive to be exceptional role models.

5.  Urgency: Successful leaders and team members have a healthy dissatisfaction with their current performance. They are continuously thinking bigger about their own personal leadership as well as their role in creating a culture of continuous learning, experimentation and risk taking. They also believe that speed coupled with passionate dedication can achieve something noteworthy.

6.  Ownership: High performing teams have members who take responsibility not only for the performance of the team, but they also take complete responsibility for the quality of their personal and professional lives. Simply put, there are no victims on high performing teams. The prevailing mindset is one of “what can I do to make a difference and if I can’t make a difference then I need to make an exit from the team.”

7.  Tenacity: Successful leaders and teams don’t give up. Once they have a clearly defined desired future (one they are passionate about and have the courage to pursue) they exhibit deep reserves of resolve and determination. They believe in progress not perfection and are tenacious in the face or adversity.

8.  Agility: The world of work demands that leaders and team members be comfortable with ambiguity and that they don’t expect all aspects of their work to be expressed in black and white terms. They have the ability focus intently while remaining open to recalibrating their course of action whenever they learn of a better course of action.

9.  Discernment: The ability to filter large amounts of information and determine the one or two most salient actionable points is essential for leaders and teams. Effective leaders listen to gain information, ask questions to understand diverse points of view, and act confidently even in the face of competing ideas and or demands.

10.  Results Focused: Successful leaders and team members recognize the difference between taking action and getting results. Their focus is on results and use all of the preceding traits and characteristics to drive their team, department or organization forward.

I hacve three questions for you:

1. Which of the ten attributes do you do best?

2. Which one challenges you the most?

3. If you could leverage your greatest strength more while also reducing the effects of the attribute you feel challenges you, what impact would that have on your performance?

The American author and sportswriter, Haywood Hale Broun, once said “Sports do not build character. They reveal it.” This quote and its sister “Adversity doesn’t build character. It reveals it” are quotes that warrant our attention on this first day of the week.

In almost every endeavor we undertake, we will experience adversity. We will work with people who don’t have the same level of commitment, passion, or possibly even care about our customers or our results. We will be told our resources are being cut, our timeline has been shortened, and that the scope of our work has changed.

In these situations an all important question is – how do you respond as a leader? Do you remain grounded and look at the adversity as a challenge and opportunity? Or, do you lose your footing and get angry that yet again someone has done something they shouldn’t have?

It is in these moments of adversity that our character is on display for all to see. Employees watch us to see how to respond; customers watch to see if we care about them and want to help; and, probably most importantly, we’ll watch ourselves to see if that which we’ve read in our leadership development books and articles has taken root and is showing up in our behavior.

In order for us to grow as leaders and to handle whatever adversity comes our way, we have to learn the following three strategies for handling adversity.

1. Resolve to take meaningful and intentional action to eliminate the challenge and produce a positive outcome
2. Resign yourself to the situation remaining the same – and do so without being a victim
3. Remove yourself from the situation

Which strategy do you use most often? Is there another strategy that might be beneficial?

I’m not very sociable first thing in the morning. If you ask my wife she says I’m not in the land of the living until I’m half way through my second cup of tea.

So when I arrived in the gym on Monday morning without my tea I was still half asleep. I was exercising all of my resolve simply to keep my eyes open and my body moving. At six o’clock in the morning, and without caffeine, I lack tolerance, especially for people who think exercising on the elliptical machine should include talking on their cell phone. I want to ask, are you here to exercise or to talk on the phone? I don’t ask because I wouldn’t be able to curtail the disdain in my voice.

I’ve come to the conclusion that some people, whether fully awake or not, are walking around asleep as to the impact their behavior has on others. They’re either clueless or indifferent, and on many days I’m convinced they’re simply indifferent.

While standing in line to board my flight home to Seattle Monday night, a man entered the boarding line while reading his boarding pass. What he didn’t see was the fact that he stood so close to a woman that she took a step back with a bewildered look on her face. He gave a tiny look as if to say “yea, so what.” Her face asked the question “is he clueless?” Since he was about six foot six and weighed about two hundred and fifty pounds I kept my thoughts to myself.

This post isn’t about my state of wakefulness in the morning, nor is it about the boarding process for those who are not flying in first class. It is about how all of us need to wake up as to how we interact and impact those around us. The woman on the treadmill and the man in the boarding line seemed completely unaware of how they were being perceived by others, and left me thinking that they lack the skills to pick up on the subtle clues of those around them. They can only see in bold broad brush strokes.

If you work with others (that means everyone) waking up as to how people respond to your ideas and your presence is essential, for in reality, almost every activity you engage in (especially exercising and boarding a plane) involves, impacts, and influences other people.

Do you know whether you are positively or negatively influencing others? Do you care if it’s negatively? If you don’t care, reading this post will end up being a waste of your time. If you just don’t know what your impact is and are curious and concerned, then consider this post your wake up call.

If you’d like to learn how to determine your impact and whether you are negatively or positively impacting those around you, drop me a line and I’ll share with you my 3-D Leadership Branding activity.

Now, where is my tea?