How does Your Garden Grow... Creating Goals for the Future

          We planted a garden in late April with everything that you need to have a wonderful home grown salad.  Tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and onions.  I watered it every day and kept vigilance over it to make sure that the plants were growing.  I watched and watched and watered and watered…. Nothing I thought…. But then the first tomatoes and then another and then 5, 10, 20 tomatoes.  The lettuce came up from seed and the peppers are incredible. When I planted the garden I took pictures and filed it away on my phone.   I looked back on the past picture of when I first planted the garden…. It was incredible the growth of the plants.  The fruits of my labors were and are paying off.  Growing slowly but expanding to give us the vegetables to make an incredible salad.

          I contemplated this and thought how ironic that a garden is just like so many things in life. ideas that I planted and started in my life have grown and matured just like the garden.  It is truly amazing what you can do by focusing and creating a vision of where you want to go in your life. One of the best tools that I have found to help me grow the “seeds” of my ideas is writing vision and goals down.  I review them daily so that I know the path that I’m creating in my life.  My daily review helps me to connect to the knowledge, people and things to realize these goals.   I'm still working the list but I know that what you think about comes about and creating the vision is the key.

          When writing your vision statement and goals think of you in the future and ask yourself some key questions.  Remember to give yourself time frames like I see myself writing a bestselling book and publishing it before the end of the year….

• What are your values?
• What is your purpose in life?
• How would you like to be described by your friends, relative, coworkers etc.?  What do you need to do to ensure this is true?
• What do you want to be doing?  How do you see your ideal day/week?
• Where are you living?  Whom do you see around you?
• What actions do you need to take to make it happen?
• What changes do you want to be a part of?  What is your legacy?
• What are the different roles in your life (parent, spouse, worker etc.) and how will you evolve in each of them? 

              
         The truth is it all starts with a "seed" that we plant in our mind and many times until we look back we don’t realize that goals we set were realized.   It really takes planting the idea of what we want into our subconscious and letting it grow.  We can create incredible things if we believe in ourselves and our vision for the future.

Don’t Put Your Vision on a Shelf

Now that you have created a personal vision statement. We can expand these into our goals an aspirations. We looked at our physical, spiritual, work or career, family, social relationships, financial security, mental improvement and attention, and fun things that we want to achieve in the next year and five years.  Now how do we expand these into goals and inspirations?  The next step that I want you to take, is to write each of your visions into sentences.  These sentences should be exactly what you will obtain and the sentence use emotional words. 

For example By this time next year I will have written and published an inspirational book on Motivational Business Leadership.  I will publish this book on Amazon.

Now that you have your goals for this coming year and the next five years, place the list next to your bed.  Every morning and every night pick up the list and read the list.  Feel these things as being a part of your life and existing now.  Before you know if this will become a part of your life and your vision will become your reality.  One last thing make this something that is a living list as you accomplish something add a new goal.  If you have additional goals add them to the list. 

Thoughts become reality…..

Leadership Styles and Adapting to the Situation

Leadership styles do need to be adjusted due to the circumstance.  Just as an artist changes their brush size or stroke a leader must also look at the situation and the group to determine the correct style for the environment. “Leadership is less about your needs, and more about the needs of the people and the organization you are leading. Leadership styles are not something to be tried on like so many suits, to see which fits. Rather, they should be adapted to the particular demands of the situation, the particular requirements of the people involved and the particular challenges facing the organization.” The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management” by Alan Murray, published by Harper Business.

Situational Leadership Theory Hersey and Blanchard (1977) is a contingency theory that states leaders should adapt their leadership style based in the subordinate.  “The theory states that instead of using just one style, successful leaders should change their leadership styles based on the maturity of the people they're leading and the details of the task. Using this theory, leaders should be able to place more or less emphasis on the task, and more or less emphasis on the relationships with the people they're leading, depending on what's needed to get the job done successfully.” Mind Tools Ltd, 1996-2013, The Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory Choosing the Right Leadership Style for the Right People

The early version of Charismatic Leadership Theory was developed by Max Weber (1947) his theory was based on a natural born leader emerges with a vision in the face of a crisis.  The theory holds that the follower sees the leader to be an innovator in the face of crisis.  Since Max Weber the theory has been formulated into a new version by various social researchers. “Attribution of charisma to leaders is believed to be dependent on 4 variables: 1. the extent of discrepancy between the status quo and the future goal or vision set forth by the leader, 2. the use of innovative and unconventional means for achieving the desired change, 3. a realistic evaluation of environmental resources and constraints for achieving such change, and 4. the nature of articulation and impression management used to inspire subordinates in pursuit of the vision.” Toward a Behavioral Theory of Charismatic Leadership in Organizational Settings Conger, (Oct 1987)

Transformational Leadership Theory McGregor Burns (1978) works to enhance motivation, morale and performance of the followers through different psychological tools.  This is achieved by helping the follower or sub ordinate identify with the project and organization.  The leader helps the follower to feel that they are a role model and a point of inspiration for other team members.  This helps to give ownership to the follower.  The leader uses the strengths and weaknesses of the followers to align them with the correct tasks to give the follower the best chance for success.

Shaping your leadership style to face the challenge of the current situation is important. 

After looking at the three leadership theories the leadership style that is the most difficult style to achieve is situational leadership theory.  Adapting to the situation that you are currently in and the people that you are leading can be difficult but if obtained can be highly successful.  With this in mind I would say that transformational leadership is the most adaptable for many situations and many people can identify with the values that this theory creates in both the leader and the follower.  We can see that charismatic leaders have been around us and have lead people through a troubled time like great leaders such as Muhammad Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa or Nelson Mandela. These leaders have used techniques that incorporate the transformational leadership skills and abilities.  Leading with empathy can transform the field of Management and industry.

 

 

Success or Failure of a Leader Are Based on Attitude of the Leader

The success or failure of a leader is based on attitude of the leader.  I am a firm believer in the law of attraction in that attitude can influence the outcome of any situation.  Great leaders need to be motivational to be successful today.  They must create a sense of following and trust in the direction that they are leading their followers. 

The strategy of attention through vision creates an overall focus for the organization, particularly in times of socioeconomic change.  Such managerial leaders are continually looking for challenges (opportunities) that need solving rather than merely solving the ones that come their way. J. Darling, Organization Development in an Era of Socioeconomic Change: A Focus on The Key to Successful Management Leadership.  Leaders are the directional compass for the organization and are always looking ahead for the path of the organization to follow.  Transactional leaders predetermine what their followers should do to realize their personal and organizational aims; they classify these aims and help their followers to become more self-confident in order to achieve their goals with the minimum effort. I. Simić, Transformational Leadership-The Key to Successful Management of Transformational Organizational Changes Today Leaders must communicate and articulate their vision of the organization.  Effective communication is invaluable today to be a successful leader.  “Think about it, how do the best leaders motivate and inspire their people? Through clear communication. How do the best organizations promote discipline, accountability and strategic alignment? With clear communication. And, how do market leaders sell their products and services? With compelling ads and marketing campaigns, in sum, by clear communication.”

Communication: The most important key to leadership success. Trust is an extremely important factor and quality in a leader.  Trust is in fact something that a leader must have in his followers and followers must have in their leader.   It must thereby be a two-way enactor that helps to enable the managerial leader to make it possible for organizational development to occur effectively; two-way because trust must reside as a very valuable thought in the mind of the managerial leader, thus being vibrated to the universe which returns it to the leader via the law of attraction (Hanson, 2004)

Respect through confidence is essential to the success of a leader.  The respect of the followers in the leader is an important part of evoking confidence in that leader and their ability to lead.  “Respect is a choice made by personnel in an organization, and in virtually all cases it is based upon the confidence they first have in a managerial leader's thoughts, and reflected in his knowledge and ability to make appropriate decisions regarding organizational development. “J. Darling, Organization Development in an Era of Socioeconomic Change: A Focus on The Key to Successful Management Leadership

Writing a Winning Vision Statement

A visionary is defined in the dictionary as thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom: "a visionary leader", a person with original ideas about what the future will or could be like. When writing a vision statement for company think big and motivate through the vision of where the company is headed.  A clear vision of what your organization could accomplish or become helps with the understanding of the purpose, objectives and priorities in a given time span. 

Here are five things to remember when writing a vision statement

1. Articulate a clear and appealing vision (Stay Positive and Keep it Simple)
2. Explain how the vision can be attained (Usually 5 year Plan)
3. Show confidence and optimistic (Inspire)
5. Use dramatic, symbolic actions to emphasize key values (Emotions)

Remember that this message is meant to inspire, transform and lead an effort to obtain the ultimate goal.  When leading an organization a vision statement is essential and should communicate the vision of the company.  This vision should be repeated and reinforced as many times as possible within the organization.  It is meant to lead and inspire the organization to be the best that they can become.  It is essential as a leader that you lead by example and live by example.  This is the way to inspire an organization to obtain greatness. 

Studies have shown that the way to invoke a sense of following is to create an emotional bond within people.  When writing the vision create a positive emotional feeling that will inspire the company to work towards one common vision.