Is it possible to be a leader without having a dream

I spoke this mid-conversation with a business owner who was complaining about his team. Other CEOs were murmuring in sympathetic agreement with all the complaints. Every single time we have an issue with someone on our team I trace it back as far as I can go. I keep digging to find out if poor leadership is the root of the problem. I failed to provide the right leadership at the right time in the right way. You have a leadership issue, not a team performance issue.

The poor performance is the symptom, not the cause. That includes hundreds over the last year. Not only was I never compensated for the above-and-beyond-results I produced, but I was never even thanked—not once. I gave up. They see you as a threat and will sabotage you every chance they get. This went on for over 20 minutes. After the first handful of stories I heard like these, and after hiring several employees who came from these toxic environments, I started to feel like the Statue of Liberty:.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! It reminds me of the stale marriages I see, where one partner has completely domesticated the other. We want wildness that gives birth to genuine innovation, ingenuity, and absolute disruption. I make mistakes with our team.

Maybe the only difference is that I know it. Their honesty with me is stunning, and I value it deeply. We apologize. We talk it out, apologize, and make things right. But we care passionately, fiercely about our team, our work environment, and our culture. We want every person to know that they are deeply respected and valued. We want a culture where we encourage supporting each other, where mutual praise flows back and forth between departments and team members, and where we acknowledge the beautiful humanity we are privileged to work with.

I feel a state of wonder that I get to work such amazingly brilliant, talented people who out care any other team I know. Our team is so amazing, that I feel very protective of them. If we ever make a hiring error and bring someone on board who ends up making life miserable for the rest of the team, corrective action would be taken surely and swiftly.

I would never want to subject our team to a toxic co-worker. They deserve better than that. I say as much during almost every interview. Our team is happy, motivated — and most of all, excited to come to work every day. As a business owner, you want wild warriors working for you — and not the domesticated drones that so many other businesses settle for.

That means changing the culture of your business. The work, the humility, and the time it takes are more than worth it. Also, our team is super happy… even though we are far from perfect and are still learning and growing with every passing month. Here is a small sample of what members of our team have written to various leaders across all departments in our company.

Again, in Thomasville, Georgia, deep in the segregated south in the same town where Henry O. Flipper had been raised, another ten-year-old boy named Lloyd Austin had a dream of going to West Point, but at that time he could not even use the same toilets or drinking fountain as whites, simply due to the color of his skin. Lloyd Austin would enter West Point in , graduate in , and go on to become one of the most highly decorated Generals, and the First African-American to achieve many titles including First African-American to command an entire theater of war Iraq.

When General Lloyd Austin became the first African-American to command a theater of war in , a young African-American girl named Simone Askew in Fairfax, Virginia was only 12 years old, and she too had dreams of going to West Point. She not only was accepted into West Point, but this month she made history by becoming the first female African-American to be named Cadet First Captain. According to Gallup polls, our military is the most respected institution in the United States, far ahead of the Congress, Presidency, large and small business, and the church.

Our All-Volunteer military is one of the greatest meritocracies in our nation. Regardless of gender, race, religion, wealth, social status…. When you center vision as a leadership value, this means you keep the big picture at the forefront of your decision-making. It also means employing foresight to plan for obstacles. The message must be shared in a meaningful, actionable, and engaging way. Communication is the foundation of any relationship.

In a work setting, centering communication as a core leadership value manifests in many ways. It can take the form of conveying context to employees. Or it can be setting clear expectations for individuals and teams. Or even providing and seeking constructive feedback. A leader may have a clear vision, but unless communication is a driving value, others will not be able to share it.

Positive reinforcement and recognition to your team members are important forms of communication. However, positive reinforcement is a huge aspect of improving employee motivation and engagement.

Not only that but in lifting your influence as a business leader. Without recognition, the motivation of team members can lag, and their productivity will grind to a halt. By demonstrating appreciative behavior, you encourage others to reinforce each other too. This helps boost morale across the organization. Empathy is the ability to understand others, see from their point of view, and feel what they are feeling.

It is a value that is held in high regard by many senior executives and good business leaders. The importance of empathy as a leadership value is not simply to be nice or likable. It will help you build and sustain positive and productive relationships.

It will also help you recognize the core values of others on your team. This is the knowledge that you can harness for the betterment of each individual and the company.

Leaders must constantly be learning. To be in that receptive state of mind requires humility. The question is this: in an organization, is there a difference between a manager and a leader or are these synonymous?

Some companies regularly refer to their managers as leaders but are these terms always interchangeable. Managers are in charge of people and their responsibility is to get people to achieve some goal or target effectively. A bad manager can be very dangerous and can permanently damage team culture and morale. Managers have certain powers and influence that come attached to their position and their subordinates have to dance to their tunes to varying degrees, but some degree.

They are the ones who get to decide who gets the bonus or the promotion. In fact, management is a set of well-known processes, like planning, budgeting, structuring jobs, staffing jobs, measuring performance and problem-solving, which help an organization to predictably do what it knows how to do well.

Management helps you to produce products and services as you have promised, of consistent quality, on budget, day after day, week after week.

In organizations of any size and complexity, this is an enormously difficult task. We constantly underestimate how complex this task really is, especially if we are not in senior management jobs.