The ‘Don’t Quit’ Poem
September 22, 2023
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must; but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow;
You might succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit;
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.
Don’t Quit by Anonymous
Today’s Phone Conversation with Dr. John C. Maxwell.
September 21, 2023
Dr. John Maxwell is an amazing individual who lives his life to teach and grow leaders. He has sold over 13 million books on leadership and has written over 50 books total. He speaks to thousands of people a year in seminars and with keynote speeches. And in August, he was voted the number one ranked leadership guru in the world, by Leadership Gurus International. He was ranked ahead of Tom Peters, Stephen Covey, and Marshall Goldsmith among 30 total ranked.
The list on that page is like the Who’s Who of leadership training and development. If you want to learn about this subject, to become the best you that you can be… Read from these authors.
Dr. Maxwell and I had planned a podcast for this afternoon, but the service that I use for conference call’s was not recording properly. So, I had a few minutes with him and he gave me some great personal advice, which I truly appreciate. Also, he offered his articles and book excerpts to Cultivate Greatness. What an honor to be able to have articles on Leadership by John Maxwell, on CultivateGreatness.com! Wow.
Dr. Maxwell had Revisited and Updated his best seller, “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership”, the 10th Anniversary Edition and “Talent is Never Enough”. His books are great and his wisdom is timeless. If you are not familiar with his work, you really should be.
I’m so happy and grateful for the blessing of doing interviews with authors and leaders. Hopefully, you are able to pull from the interviews as much as I am. Good stuff. Because I am definitely having a great time learning from all these brilliant minds.
Successfully,
Travis Wright
The Seven Demands of Leadership - What Separates Great Leaders from all the Rest?
September 20, 2023
Who wants to follow someone who’s going nowhere? Or someone who’s unreliable or untrustworthy? Organizations wrestle with these questions and many others as they confront the elusive challenge of defining effective leadership.
The Seven Demands
Most people are certain that leadership is about direction, about giving people a sense of purpose that inspires and motivates them to commit and achieve. Leadership is also about a relationship between people — leaders and followers — that is built on firm ground; enduring values build trust. Few would disagree with these views.
Not everyone, however, offers the same answer to this question: What’s the best way to develop talented leaders to achieve sustained high performance? Indeed, Gallup Organization researchers have long been intrigued with this question. Having studied leadership talent for more than 40 years, Gallup set out to discover the demands that leaders must meet to be successful. We also wanted to uncover the developmental framework that would enhance leadership performance.
Our research confirmed the importance of two rather obvious demands — visioning and maximizing values. What was surprising was the presence of five other important demands that are essential to the development of all great leaders.
The research
First, a few words about how we arrived at these demands. Our study drew from a wide cross section of leaders who had a proven track record of success; we had evidence that they all delivered the goods. They were measurably the best when compared to others in similar roles. Their performance could be tracked to significant improvements to the bottom line. They enjoyed the endorsement of their bosses, peers, and direct reports. And they sustained high performance, often through adverse times.
For our initial leadership-development research, we identified and studied 100 leaders. They were drawn from general management, human resources, marketing, sales, manufacturing, research and development, and finance. They represented distinct levels of hierarchy, from managers to directors to vice presidents and senior executives. They had all faced significant demands that built and developed their leadership talent. Indeed, it was in researching this group that we uncovered the seven key demands that every leader must meet to achieve high performance.
We then expanded our study to include Read more
CG.com Podcast #017: Jim Kouzes - CoAuthor of “The Leadership Challenge” 25 year Study on Leadership
September 20, 2023
On January 20, 2024 Jim Kouzes was first inspired to dedicate himself to leadership. That was the day he was one of only a dozen Eagle Scouts who served in John F. Kennedy’s Honor Guard at the Presidential Inauguration.
CG.com #017 Podcast - Jim Kouzes
I was very honored to interview with Mr. Kouzes. For over 25 years, they have interviewed countless leaders and developed the widely used and highly acclaimed Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360° questionnaire assessing leadership behavior to over 250,000 individuals.
He talks about some of the key traits for leaders to explore new ideas and to dive into helping their members grow as people.
He talks about The Five Practices of leadership, which are:
- Challenging the process
- Inspiring a shared vision
- Enabling others to act
- Modeling the way
- Encouraging the heart
And he answers questions such as:
- What is the one thing you have done this week to make you better than last week?
- What are some of your productivity tricks?
- What advice would you give a CEO of a startup company?
- What are the most troubling aspects of leadership today. What are people encountering problems with?
Jim Kouzes is the coauthor with Barry Posner of the award-winning and best-selling book, The Leadership Challenge, with over one million copies sold. He’s also an executive fellow, Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University. Pick it up and absorb the wisdom.
Books that Jim Kouzes Recommends:
Anything by Warren Bennis
The Change Masters- by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Leadership - James McGregor Burns
