Are your insecurities holding you back?

According the John Maxwell's book, "21 Qualities" Security is a foundation for strong leadership. In discussing security he also states 6 common symptoms of Insecurity and how they can effect you. Let's take a look.

• Comparison - You are always watching your peers, keeping score if you will. Seeing if your doing more or better then them. I think that healthy competition is good in the workplace. You just have to be careful not to let it get out of hand and allow it to lead to in-fighting or cliques in the workplace. Comparing yourself to others is negative when you are using it for self-promotion. 

• Compensation - You are "Owed" You feel that everyone and everything around you owes you because of your past.The universe has dealt you a bad hand and it's everyone else's fault and they need to compensate you for it. This, "What have you done for me lately" attitude will get you no where in life and annoy most everyone. Everyone has a story, everyone has had bad times. It's life, get used to it and move on. 

• Competition - As mentioned in comparison, competition is bad when it's done with the intent of gaining approval or attention to yourself. As I've said, healthy competition is good. It's just very hard to harness as a leader.

• Compulsion - You feel driven to perform in order to gain others approval. If you read my post, "Man in the mirror" You know that I struggled with this one for most of my adult life. I still have to make a conscious effort daily to not allow myself to fall into this vicious cycle.

• Condemnation - You judge others or yourself, which results in conceit or self-pity. I've had a few pity parties in my lifetime. Thankfully though I have made an effort to overcome this negative attribute and attitude. Life is going to throw you curve balls and bad hands. How it effects you and your attitude is completely up to you. No one can make you feel a certain way, you have total control over that. You just have to know it and stand in the truth. 

• Control - Your a control freak. You have to have your hands in any and every decision. You feel that you must take control, protect self and manipulate others to do your bidding. Embarrassed to admit it, but I've been known to fall into this symptom as well. It's very tiring and not efficient at all. You expend so much energy that you wear out quickly and do not empower those around you. You use them for what they can do for you, not what you can do for them. You rationalize this behavior as a "Self-defense" mechanism. The truth is, it is a selfish attitude and show's your lack of caring for anyone else. 

To be really honest, I have fallen into one or more of these categories throughout my adult life. I have been a insecure person who allowed it to destroy friendships and those that I love. I'm not proud of this fact, but it has taught me much about myself. I want to take my negatives and turn them into positives by helping others. I want you to know that you can change, you can make a positive change. Start today, make the effort. Leadership is about changing, growing and challenging yourself. When you stop making the effort for positive change, that's when you have truly failed. 

I hope that you have found this helpful. What are some of the things you have struggled with? Please share your experiences, It is truly appreciated and is helpful not only to me, but to others. 

10%

Following up on my article from the other day, I want to talk about the top 10% of your employees. You know,  The Go-getters, "Golden Boy/girl", top performers and your future leaders. I know that I talked about patience and mentoring of your people and not to have the same expectations for them that you have of yourself. There are exceptions to every rule.

3 Words

 #cb3words This was the Hashtag that I saw on Twitter this morning. So, I looked it up and saw that a lot of people where posting links to their posts about the 3 words that they were embracing for the New Year and why. I didn't have time this morning to post this. So, here it goes

Putting the lid on Creative Juice

Mclelun

I got inspiration for this post from  Seth Godin's post. His post was short and sweet, to the point, just like most of his thought provoking content. That's probably why so many people follow him. Here's my expanded thoughts on it.

Serving in the Military for over 20 years I've encountered, "That's not how we do things here" comment more then once. It always left me feeling like my opinion or expertise was not wanted nor desired. On a few occasions, the statement was actually backed up by real reasons or data that supported why it wasn't a good idea. Usually, it was stated because people and organizations do not like change. It's uncomfortable, it knocks people and processes out of rhythm and at first, looks like it's not going to work due to the awkwardness that is associated with change. Let' examine ways we can say, "That's not how we do things here" less and avoid turning off our people's creative juices.

The puzzle pieces

As I mentioned in yesterdays Post, I am talking about mentor leadership. Up until now, I have spoken more about groups and teams vice individuals. Yes, the groups and teams make up the whole picture, but we have to get the individual pieces in place for our teams to shine. How do we get the pieces to fit, so the picture is clear?

People or Raw Material?

Photoexpress

As we approach this new year, there is talk that the economy is slowly rising. The employer market is slowly shifting to an employee market. I'm willing to bet that there are a lot of people out there holding positions at jobs they can't wait to get out of. What do you see when you look at your employees? Are they raw material or are they people?