Author Chris Brady's Leadership Blog

Time for Another Caption Contest

Team Play

An often overlooked leadership skill is the ability to play on a team.  Cooperation, teamwork, and unity sound easy enough, but there are people that struggle mightily with these concepts.  They can't seem to get along for long with groups of people in a productive way.  These people end up complaining about their teammates, getting frustrated, leaving the group, or some combination of all of these.  Then later, in a new situation, they begin the cycle again!

Real leaders are good at getting along with people.  Period.  This means that they can function productively in a group environment where their ideas may not only not get implemented, but sometimes won't even be heard.  That's okay for the mature leader, however, because the mature leader knows that there is power in a group working together to find the best answer that works for the largest number of them, and then becomes something they can all do in unison.  The power of shared goals and combined effort is hard to describe. 

I have had the privelege of working on some excellend teams.  First and foremost in that experience has been my time on the Team.  We have had so many great master-mind sessions, massive changes to be made and reacted to, "jam sessions," and just overall good team play that I feel blessed to have played a part.  What great synergy.  Seeing leaders like Orrin Woodward, Tim Marks, and Bob Dickie in motion in a group dynamic is truly a great experience! 

Leaders learn to foster collaboration.  They learn to succumb some of their wishes to the good of the team.  They learn to search for common ground and win-win scenarios, and they are selfless and respectful as the team dynamic ebbs and flows.  Sometimes they play a prominent role, other times their role is more passive but just as important!  Learn to foster this set of skillsets as you grow as a leader.  Become a teammate others can count on.  Contribute, share, and be an enthusiastic and engaged partner, but don't dominate or sulk.  Find out the uniqueness you bring to the table and contribute it!  See if you can harmoniously add to the overall output so that the team is better because of your participation.  When things go a little awry; take the blame and accept responsibility.  When things go really well; give credit away.  This all sounds so easy!  But let me assure you that it is rare.  So strive to be a great teammate and let your leadership grow in a collaborative way.

I dare you.

Thank You to All in Columbus and Phoenix!

Terri and I just returned from the second of two phenomenal leadership weekends in which we met many, many incredible people!  We flew back on a Hawker 1000 with Orrin and Laurie Woodward and had a great time talking about the future and laughing until we cried. 

My heart is so warm and my head is so full with all the great shared experiences of these two weekends.  What an incredible bunch of people we met and spent time with! We are so blessed!  Thanks to all of you who stood in line to have your book signed, thanks to all of you who worked so hard to make these events so successful, and thanks to all of you who participated and made lasting memories with us.  North America is filled with winners who are striving to grow and change and lead and make a difference for the future.  We salute you and thank you for being on this journey with us!

Lead on!   

Leadership Hunger

The core of becoming a leader is hunger.  This could be hunger for success, hunger for significance, hunger for change, hunger for the rescue of people in harm's way.  Whatever the nature of the hunger, and there are certainly healthy and unhealthy hungers, hunger is the foundational spark that leads to the influence of others.

It is interesting to me as I observe people growing in leadership that it is always true that their ability to gain influence and have an affect on the conditions around them is always proportional to their passion for the vision.  A leader simply cannot stand to leave things as he or she found them.  There is a burning feeling that something must be done, accomplished or achieved, and set aright. 

It is my personal belief that the proper sources of hunger are God-given.  As an interesting point of reflection, author Ravi Zachariasis recently wrote that "Christ's salvation transforms a person's hungers."  This is extremely interesting to contemplate and understand.  Many leaders are perhaps driven by unhealthy hungers: the desire to be pre-eminent, the desire for fame, the desire for wealth and comfort and self-aggrandizement.  This hunger can actually lead to good things, as the leader achieves and accomplishes.  But this type of hunger is short-lived and can only lead to emptiness in the least and destruction in the greatest.  Legitimate, God-given hunger produces a drive that transcends pride of person and establishes itself as a monument to God's grace.  It produces good fruit in the lives of others and fulfills the God-following leader.  This is the type of hunger I speak of when I refer to the hunger of a leader.

We should all fight to find our God-given calling, and then stoke the flames of the hunger of that vision as hard as we can.  We should feel driven by that inner desire to do what God built us to do while we still have the time.  Our days are numbered, but we have been given enough to accomplish what God will lead us to do for his kingdom and glory, in his infinite wisdom and plan. 

Don't waste your life in a comfortable passage of the time you've been given.  Don't set yourself up for that chief regret of looking backward over a life filled with blessings but devoid of service to a cause greater than yourself.  Find your purpose and calling, and plug in to the true source of healthy hunger.  Give yourself to that cause, and do all to the glory of God.  As one of my favorite verses states, "Let your light so shine that others will see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven."   

A Good Year

I felt like doing a little something off the beaten path on this blog. I want to give some thoughts and comments on movies from time to time.  I have always loved cinema, and think it is the representative art form of our generation.  Like it or not, the cinema provides much of the cultural guidance to our society and even teaches its version of history to an otherwise uninformed population.

Someday, and mark my words on this, I am going to make movies.  One in particular that should be fascinating will depict in accurate and dramatic fashion the whistleblower adventures of Orrin Woodward, myself, and several members of the IBOAI board against a corporate Goliath.  That should be a hoot!

Anyway, and lest I get ahead of myself and spill all my dreams in public to be trampled upon, allow me to get on with the intent of this posting.  One of my favorite, all-time movies is "A Good Year" starring Russell Crowe.  I am a fan of Crowe anyway, but liked this particular movie for reasons not even mentioned by the critics.  It is the story of a man in his prime who has lost his way.  He has given in to the trappings and corruptions of success, and cares for little else.  As a result he is alone and villified, and has somehow convinced himself that that is exactly how he wants it.  Then he gets word that a long-forgotten uncle has bequethed him his vineyard in the Provence area of southern France (where I am about to visit)!  A trip there stirs the memories of that uncle and, to quote Crowe's main character, the "grand" memories of the summers spent there as a boy.  Flashbacks throughout the movie enlighten the viewer to the inputs of wisdom and love the uncle instilled into the boy, making a man out of a boy like he made wine out of his grapes.  As the movie progresses, and with the help of five fascinating female leads, the main character remembers who he really was meant to be.  The seeds planted by the uncle several decades prior have finally germinated into healthy fruit. 

In addition to the often light-heartedness of the movie, and the romantic interest that must be requisite to such a film, the movie resonated with me because of the efforts of an uncle to love a child and the latent effect of that love.  It is a beautiful reminder to all of us to make little deposits of love into the lives of others every chance we get, knowing that those deposits may or may not bear fruit, and if the fruit should grow, it could well occur long after we are gone.  It is also a great picture of the prodigal son coming to his senses and rediscovering what is good and beautiful within, and all through the love of others and the resultant softening of his heart.

An interesting side note that also serves to instruct: Russel Crowe was heavily criticized by the "experts" for this film!  Apparently they'd seen it all before or didn't think he should do a movie that wasn't all swords and sandals.  Further, attached to the DVD are a couple of music videos featuring Crowe as lead singer, which I also enjoyed, but (of course) for which he has also received criticism. It just goes to show you that no matter what you strive to create, how hard you work to accomplish something, how much talent you bring to the table, or how beautiful the masterpiece, there will always be someone lining up to throw stones.  Learn that lesson well.  Who cares what the critics think?  Do what you do.  Create what God put inside of you to create.  Let your music ring out.  Critics are always trampled beneath the weight of genius anyway.