LEADERSHIP NUGGETS, INSIGHTS, PRINCIPLES

* Leadership Pictogram

* Opening Leadership Thoughts at the Conclusion

* To Be a Leader – Remember to Lead

* What is Effective Leadership Today?

* Leadership Courage

* Leadership in Action

* Orchestra Conducting as Leadership – Observations

* Laws of Leaders Who Lead

* The Nine Faces of Leadership

* What to Do When Seeking Fresh Leadership

* Beware of the Do's and Don'ts of Sound Leadership

* Leadership is a Relationship

* Five Crucial Leadership Skills

* Further Thoughts on Responsibility Lies in Leadership

* The Seven Demands of Leadership

* Airplane Reading

* Customize Your Coat of Leadership

* A Reminder to Leaders on Optimization

* Vision

* Leadership Nuggets & Quotations

* Leadership is About the People for Whom We Are Responsible

* Ten Observations about "Managerial Behavior"

* Eight Keys to Leadership Greatness

* Leadership Reflections – Part On

* Leadership Reflections – Part Two

* Fifteen Ways Good Bosses Keep Their Best Employees

OPENING LEADERSHIP THOUGHTS AT THE CONCLUSION

This book is a sequel to my earlier book – Leadership Reflections: A Servant Leader's Personal Journey. This book was crafted at the conclusion of my active service as the chancellor of the Dallas County Community College District. Thus the title of the sequel – Leadership Thoughts at the Conclusion. The leadership journey and practice of the craft has not ended, just a major period in my life.

Key Leadership Attributes

• Know yourself

• Know your business well.

• Develop and care for your people.

• Communicate well.

The Hidden Work of Leadership

• Leaders create pain. Leaders also ameliorate pain.

• Pain is a facet of organizational life.

• Pay attention to distress.

• Always put people first.

• Leaders are the recipients of a wide range of emotions.

• Practice professional intimacy.

• Effective leaders bring disciplined compassion and intimacy to their work.

• Plant seeds.

• Acknowledge mistakes.

• Leaders help heal when they communicate honestly about mistakes the company has made.

When Ideas Lead, People Follow

• Great leaders understand that ideas rule when ideas are large enough for people to make them their own.

• Nine points that connect a leader's life are:

* Principles

* Purpose

* People

* Passion

* Performance

* Persistence

* Perspective

* Paranoia

* Practice

Great Leaders Understand These Points

• Great leaders have no prejudices.

• The great leader can be radical as well as thoughtful.

• For great leaders, the idea of perfection is always out there, a step ahead, leading others on.

• Trust is the lifeblood of leadership.

• Four magical words of the great leader are – Take care of it

• Reward your stars.

• Do not be afraid to assign extra homework.

• Lack of laughter is a sign of trouble.

• Leadership can be a heady experience. Learning about it, pursuing it, and encouraging it can take one on a dangerous power trip. Leaders must have a check on their ambition and their ego. In the leaders we admire, ambition is always balanced with competence and integrity.

This three-legged stool upon which true leadership sits – ambition, competence, and integrity – must remain in balance if the leader is to be a constructive force in the organization, rather than a destructive achiever of her or his own ends.

• Leadership can be learned.

• A true leader is someone who has the capacity to create a compelling vision that takes people to a new place, and to translate that vision into action.

• Trust, plus vision, plus meaning is an equation that should remain uppermost with the effective leader.

• The leader has to learn how to generate and sustain trust. The trust factor is critical.

• Effective leaders continually ask questions, probing all levels of the organization for information, testing their own perceptions, and rechecking the facts. They talk to their constituents. They want to know what is working and vice versa. They keep an open mind for serendipity to aid in bringing them the knowledge they need to what is true. An important source of information for this sort of leader is knowledge of the failures and mistakes that are being made in their organization.

• Effective leaders know themselves; they know what they are good at doing. They apply their skills and competencies. Part of their success secret is that they have a positive self-regard; they know their talents; they nurture them; and they are able to discern how what they are good at doing can help their organization.

• While leaders come in every size, shape and disposition, there is at least one ingredient that every leader shares – concern with a guiding purpose, an over-arching vision. They are more than goal-directed, they are vision-directed.

• Effective leaders manage the dream.

• Visions grab. A vision animates, inspires, and transform purpose into action. Visions seem to bring about confidence on the part of organization members; confidence that instills in them a belief that they are capable of performing to their full potential.

• In all we do as leaders, we must affirm an unyielding moral vision. If we believe in ourselves, we will find and create a vital and participatory community in which everyone is valued and respected, in which we recognize that we share common values as educated and ethical human beings, and in which the bonds of community are stronger than the habits of cultural governance. That should be our fervent goal as a leader.

Leadership Lessons Learned From Noah and the Ark

* Lesson #1 – Do not miss the boat.

* Lesson #2 – Remember that we are all in the same boat.

* Lesson #3 – Plan ahead. It was not raining when Noah built the ark.

* Lesson #4 – Stay fit. When you are 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.

* Lesson #5 – Do not listen to the critics; just get on with the job at hand.

* Lesson #6 – Build our future on the high ground.

* Lesson #7 – For safety's sake, travel in pairs.

* Lesson #8 – Speed is not always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.

* Lesson #9 – When you are stressed, float a while.

* Lesson #10 – Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.

* Lesson #11 – No...