Wisdom

Today and every day that follows you will have the responsibility to make the right choices. It all starts when you wake up. Should I stay in bed a little longer or should I get up now? Then it comes to what you do when you get up. Should I look at my phone and read posts on Facebook or should I go have a shower and get ready for work? What should I eat for breakfast? What should I drink? What should I read? How should I drive when going to work? What route should I take? Do I speed or go at the speed limit?

When yo choices u get to work you are confronted with even more choices. Should I spend time talking to that person as the conversation is always fun? Should I get a coffee? Should I read my emails? Should I call some clients? What can I postpone for later? Where am I going to for lunch? What web pages should I look at? What should I eat? Who should I talk to?

The choices are all around us and in most cases we are totally oblivious to the fact that we even had a choice. The consequence of the choices we make could be devastating. We could be arriving late to work as a result of spending too much time on social media or sleeping too long. We could end up with a speeding ticket. Emails could be neglected and pile up as a result of wrong choices. Our physical bodies could become unhealthy as a result of choosing to eat the wrong types of food. If you find yourself in a place that you certainly do not want to be in just recheck the choices you made as it could quite easily be the consequence of those decisions.

The good news is that in the same way if you want to turn your life around start by making the right choices. Discipline your body by asking “is this a wise decision?” If it is then act on it. Initially it will be very difficult to do as your body will be in COMPLETE REBELLION to the choices you are making. No one finds making great decisions easy. The body wants you to feed it junk, it wants to have a social when it should be working, it wants to sleep later and it certainly does not want to go for a run.

Wise leaders make wise decisions with the greatest a resource that is forever depleting itself…..their TIME.

The reality is that every leader will need help at some point in their leadership journey. Where does one get this help? Leaders will speak to family members, friends, other leaders and some may even speak to complete strangers about their frustrations.

The reason they do this is that they are unable to crystallize their thoughts on the way forward and as such they verbalize their challenge in order to get help from a listening ear. In sharing they are hoping that they will get some sage advise that will change their situation.

Depending on the levels of experience and expertise of the one listening they may very well get the answer they are looking for or they may actually get some pretty bad advice. The key for the leader is to ask the question, “Is this the appropriate person to speak to and are they qualified enough to speak into my situation?”.

It amazes me at how easily people take advice from anyone. They may think it’s harmless however there is no guarantee that it is in fact harmless. There is the story of Solomon’s son Rehoboam who refused to listen to the advice of the elders who had much wisdom (1 Kings 12 verse 8) and rather chose to listen to the younger men. This backfired completely and he lost so many kingdoms as a result of taking the wrong persons advice.

How is this possible? How can the son of one of the wisest men to live make such a schoolboy error? Arrogance. It was complete arrogance that got in the way of making a wise decision. There are so many resources available to leaders today and so many wise leaders around that young leaders can learn from if only they humbled themselves and gave themselves the freedom to listen.

When I wrote the book “The New manager” it was birthed from a desire to help young leaders understand the fullness of the challenges they would face in their journey. I made it my mission to share stories “warts and all” and show them the mistakes as well as the successes in making wise decisions. It was a desire to help the young leader solidify their thoughts on how they would approach similar situations. I am confident that mine is not the only book that can help leaders as there are many leaders that have helped me through their fantastic books and I certainly hope that the culture of reading books and getting advice from the right people is reignited in this day and age where so many want quick fixes.

I do hope that young leaders think carefully who they are going to approach and what they are going to read in deciding how to take the next step in dealing with their own unique leadership challenges.

LEADER OF LEADERS

Make the right choices today!

Performance appraisal gong wrong

Why not get help as a leader?