On this Memorial Day 2021, it’s time to pause and reflect on military heroes who have given the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.
I chose to highlight Mickey Addison’s book Leading Leaders: Inspiring, Empowering, and Motivating Teams because he describes it as a distillation of his experience leading people over a lifetime, in sports, Scouts, volunteer work, and 26 years as an Air Force officer.
Addison points out that only leaders who understand the relationship between them and their team, and then step up and lead, will ever be able to produce high performance in their organizations.
He points out that the foundation of any excellent organization is an excellent leader or leadership team. As the late Tom Landry, former Dallas Cowboys’ head coach, once put it, “The art of leadership is to get people to do what they don’t want to do to achieve what they want to achieve.”
Good leaders get all their people, resources, and partners moving in the same direction.
Character—or who a person truly is as a human being, what he values, and how he approaches life—is the foundation of a leader’s success. Character is composed of five elements, or “bricks,” that, assembled from that foundation, a leader can use to get his team to the next level. The “bricks” in this solid foundation are (1) Integrity, (2) Respect, (3) Leaders Lead, (4) Teamwork, and (5) Little Things Matter.
Click here to learn more from Mickey Addison on inspiring, empowering, and motivating teams
