Leadership

6 Leadership Lessons from Dr.Seuss

    Many images enter you head when someone mentions Dr. Seuss.  You may think of your first book, green eggs and ham, or even that pesky Grinch who stole Christmas.  Below you will find a series of quotes from the collective works of Dr. Seuss and a brief explanation of how each relates to leadership. 

 “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

 Leaders should be bold, take risks, and move organizations forward.  One of my favorite sayings is that managers do things right and leaders do the right things.  That’s the difference between fitting in and standing out.  Dr. Seuss did not fit in and neither should you.

                  “The more that you read, the more things you will know. 
                      The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
  

 I believe that leaders have a responsibility to be the “Lead Learner”.  You set the tone for the rest of the organization through your actions.  The best leaders are typically learners first.  The great news is that you do not have to attend a conference or pay for an expensive workshop to get smarter.  Technology allows leaders to leverage the wisdom of the world.  You can even become smarter in a box with a fox or on a train in the rain.

 “With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.” 

 The not-so-good street that many leaders end up on has to do with actions not matching words.  A leader can have the best ideas and intentions yet go nowhere when the actions don’t match up.  A leader’s actions must always match even if your wardrobe does not match like many of the characters in Dr. Seuss’ imagination.

 “Be who you are and say what you feel, 

because those who mind don’t matter, 

and those who matter don’t mind” 

 If everyone is happy with the work you are doing then you probably aren’t leading much of anything.   Leadership is about change and relentlessly seeking a better way.  Somebody, somewhere will not be excited about change and a better way.  Make sure you take inventory of those who mind and those who matter.

                                              “You have brains in your head. 

You have feet in your shoes 

You can steer yourself 

any direction you choose.” 

Do not be afraid to abandon an initiative that isn’t working.  Leaders often ignore signs that an initiative or project should change direction.  Leaders can and should admit when a project has failed or an idea hasn’t panned out.  This type of transparency builds trust within an organization.

  “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

Everyone has a responsibility to lead.  You are the only one that brings your combination of skills to the table.  Nothing will get better without your leadership and today is the only day you are guaranteed.

Nichols, Brian, (n.d.), ASCD Edge, A Professional Networking Community for Educators, 6 Leadership Lessons from Dr. Seuss [Blog post]. Retrieved fromhttp://edge.ascd.org/blogpost/6-leadership-lessons-from-dr-seuss 

7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader

The qualities of skillful leadership

Jim Rohn

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. Jim Rohn calls leadership the great challenge of life.

What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here’s how:

1. Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It’s not even a good substitute.

2. Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn’t weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3. Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your group. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.

4. You’ve got to learn to be humble but not timid. You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue, but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.

5. Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact, I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It’s when you don’t know that you don’t know. Now that kind of arroganceis intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.

6. Develop humor without folly. That’s important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it’s OK to be witty, but not silly. It’s OK to be fun, but not foolish.

7. Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I’d like to think it’s unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It’s fascinating. And I’ve found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.