Photo Credit: Centresource

Today…I got nothing.

Late nights watching the Olympic Games (#Rio2016), friends visiting from out of town, and new moms in my life…I got nothing on leadership today…

However…

These three leaders, writers and leadership observers never disappoint – Brian Dodd, Carey Nieuwhof, and Vala Afshar.

Brian Dodd is a prolific thinker and writer on leadership themes – mainly to a Christian audience, but much of what he writes is wisdom for anyone who wants to lead well. Photo Credit: Brian Dodd on Leadership

His blog on leadership quotes by Bill Purvis, who spoke recently at the GO Conference, includes the following bits for all of us.

• Clarify your vision.
• You get a vision by walking around.
• You make insiders by giving them inside information.
• Betrayal will kill your vision.
• Devise a strategy to create a pipeline of leaders. If you want to go a long distance, you have to have a bench.
• If you try to do it all you will burn out.
• We can only grow to the level that we have leaders in place to train, retain people, and release people into using their gifts.
• I’ve never known what it’s like to be jealous. I want people to win.
• You equip other people.
• If you don’t train leaders, you’re limited in how far you can go.
• Our C-Level players become A-Level players wherever they go.
• We want Ritz-Carlton to one day come to us.

Carey Nieuwhof is my favorite Canadian. He went from law school to the pulpit. His writing and podcasts on leadership are regular feasts for thought. Photo Credit: Carey Nieuwhof

Here’s a recent cautionary blog on 10 Signs You’re Just a Jerk…Not a Leader. I’ll just list his points, but you want to read the whole piece.

1. You’ve made the organization all about you.
2. You think that people work for you.
3. You never say thank you.
4. You’re demanding.
5. You keep the perks of leadership to yourself.
6. You keep yourself front and center.
7. You take the credit and assign the blame.
8. You never have your team’s back.
9. You make all the decisions.
10. You act like a martyr.

Nieuwhof closes with asking the question, “How do I know jerk leadership so well? Because I have a jerk inside of me I need to suppress every day. My guess is you might too.

Fortunately, Jesus introduces a completely different paradigm for leadership. If you want to be a Christ-like leader, just do the opposite of these ten things. You’ll be well on your way.”

Finally, I’ve been following Vala Afshar on Twitter for a long time.Photo Credit: YouTube

His blog 20 Entrepreneurship Lessons From World’s top Business Thinkers, CEOs, and VCs is a brilliant collection. Below are just 6 of the 20 lessons.

• Doing well, and doing good, are not mutually exclusive, but mutually reinforcing. If you are not doing well, you don’t have the money to keep doing good. Is your company doing the work for the right reasons – can it create meaning and money, purpose and profit? – Deb Mills-Scofield
• Customers want meaning, value and purpose for them. If you don’t have your value proposition done, you don’t need to worry about the business model. This means deliver value in the context and constraints of the customer, not what you would like it to be. This means understanding your customer’s customer needs from their perspective. – Deb Mills-Scofield
• Humble confidence is key to success. Humble companies ask for help and they give their employees the freedom to fail and try stuff. Companies that trust their employees will be more innovative. Business leaders must walk the talk and give their employees the freedom to experiment. Good leaders take all of the blame and none of the credit. Good leaders also promote and celebrate cross-collaboration across the lines-of-business. – Deb Mills-Scofield
• When you don’t ask, the answer is no. Consider asking for help or well-deserved promotions or pay raises. Also ask for forgiveness, not permission. – Deb Mills-Scofield
• We live in a permission economy. So how does a business lead in the permission economy. Permission is the privilege of talking to people who want to talk to you, and not because it’s important to you. It is about being missed if you don’t show up. Are you doing something worth following? If you’re not, then you’re not leading. – Seth Godin

• The world is changing. What does it mean to live in a world that is changing? The key element to being a CIO or a CMO is to be a chief learning officer (CLO). To be an artisan – not a craftsman, because a craftsman does the something again and again – is to learn to do it different the next time, to do it better the next time. To be an artisan, you have to be willing to listen and learn. What it means to learn is to fail. – Seth Godin

  Hope your Monday is profitable and that you’re encouraged as a leader today. Not a leader? Oh, no….you are. We all are…in some fashion or another. Wisdom is to learn leadership from those closest to us…and those whom we can follow online and at the occasional conference…like Dodd, Nieuwhof, and Afshar.