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If they hadn’t established the types of relationships they had with each other and with the other coaches and team members, but had only counted wins and losses, they would not have had the same level of positive influence on each other, and the season would not have been as successful.
Unity of purpose and a desire to make other people better must start at the top if these goals are going to ripple through an entire organization.
When a team wins or a business is successful, the families of the players or the workers may be excited for the moment; but when they count the cost, I wonder how many would say that the temporary accomplishment outweighs all the memories missed or the bonds not formed. Or, worse yet, maybe they have been programmed over time to believe that the all-encompassing sacrifice of family, community, time—or anything other than what it takes to win games, close sales, or build a business—is an accepted part of life, simply what is required to achieve the number one priority: winning.
Sadly, such “accomplishment” without significance will ultimately prove to be meaningless and without lasting value. Mentor leaders insist on more and define success in a much more robust and well-rounded way.
But when they become the primary focus of a business or a team, they inevitably result in an organization that is out of balance.
Leaders whose definition of success depends on such a short-term focus—and by short-term I mean temporal, noneternal—will one day wake up to discover they’ve missed out on what is truly important in life, namely, meaningful relationships.
Relationships are ultimately what matter—our relationships with God and with other people. The key to becoming a mentor leader is learning how to put other people first. You see, the question that burns in the heart of the mentor leader is simply this: What can I do to make other people better, to make them all that God created them to be?
A life spent focused on things of the world will not add value to the lives of others. Instead of asking, how can I lead my company, my team, or my family to a higher level of success? we should be asking ourselves, how do others around me flourish as a result of my leadership? Do they flourish at all? How does my leadership, my involvement in their lives—in whatever setting we’re in—have a positive and lasting influence and impact on them?
Simply stated, leadership is influence. By influencing another person, we lead that person. Leadership is not dependent on a formal position or role. We can find opportunities for leadership wherever we go. Likewise, leadership is not based on manipulation or prescription, though sometimes it may appear that way to an outside observer.
In my experience, some of the best examples of mentor leadership come from men and women whose influence extends to people who are not their subordinates.
Mentor leadership focuses on building people up, building significance into their lives, and building leaders for the next generation.
a leader must look into the distance, beyond the immediate return, where the rewards are more permanent, and where some rewards are eternal.
The difficulty for most people is that maintaining a long-term perspective requires faith. For me, my faith in God directs, sustains, and strengthens my perspective on life and other people because I know that my true reward is eternal. By faith, I’m able to approach the events and circumstances of my life with an eternal perspective. Even though I may not see the results of my efforts today or even in my lifetime, I’m confident that doing the right thing—the significant thing—will yield rewards for the organization and for others far beyond what I might otherwise achieve.
integrating new players into the system as quickly as possible.
In order for the vision to be compelling, however, it must encompass more than merely the leader’s best interests; it must include goals and benefits that resonate with the entire team. It must be something they can see and believe is possible to achieve with their collective efforts. In order to generate enthusiasm and excitement, the vision must be something larger than any one individual, larger even than the sum of the members of the team, and team members must see it as something worth achieving.
Joe’s story is ultimately a story of success, but it also illustrates one of the challenges of mentor leadership: Not everyone is going to embrace the vision or have the patience and belief in the vision to conclude the process. Sometimes, within an organization, the tide seems to be rolling the other way—especially when circumstances seem bleak. The apostle Paul must have felt that way at times. When he was imprisoned, whipped, shipwrecked, stoned, or told to leave a city, he must have thought, There is no way this new movement is going to end well. But guided by the vision imparted to him by
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Preserving the vision will sometimes depend entirely on faith—the hope of things not yet seen. At other times, we may have some objective evidence, no matter how small or incremental, that shows progress and thus keeps us moving forward. Leaders must use their best judgment to determine the best approach.
In our culture, what Jesus was doing would not be seen as a pathway to promotion or credit. Yet it’s the very path a mentor leader must take. Humble servant leadership demonstrates to those you lead that you see them as valuable, and it’s worth your time to serve them—not to have them serving you.
Evaluate your approach with your family, team, business, friends, and others: Mentoring is a lifestyle.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
In everything we do, our desire should be to honor God by actively seeking to become more like the people He wants us to be.
We are each uniquely and wonderfully made, different in so many ways. Yet we’re each the sum total of the way we were raised, our cumulative experiences, and the environments to which we have been exposed.
Acknowledging that life requires trade-offs at times and prioritizing the various aspects of our lives into the hours available each day provides us a road map to make decisions when those trade-offs become necessary. Doing this can also show us what we view as important at that particular time.
If my family was a priority, as I claimed, how could I justify using such large amounts of my free time each weekend to play golf?
If you start making excuses to cut out the things that are important because of urgent circumstances, it will become a habit, and you’ll start cutting them out regularly. You know as well as I do that, whether it’s a crisis or not, there always seems to be a reason why this time just isn’t the right time.
Please hear what I’m saying: Your employer deserves your loyalty and whatever time it takes to perform your job. However, that job, that career, has to fit into your life in the appropriate place. It cannot be your life. It cannot be what defines you. It simply has to be one of the important priorities in your life. There may always be something else you can do to secure a client or land a sale, but you’ve got to learn to prepare to whatever level is appropriate and then walk away.
So, your employer may truly want the best for you in terms of health and family, and balance between your career and other priorities; but in the end, it may well be that sales figures will be your company’s measure of success, and how you perform according to that yardstick may determine the future of your career. In the end, you just need to understand that someone else’s agenda cannot determine how you will achieve balance and order the priorities in your own life.
And the people we are trying to influence and guide—our family, friends, team members, employees, and others—will measure our influence by the consistency of our actions and words. What story will your actions tell?
People respect a leader who doesn’t have all the answers as long as they can see that the leader is committed to personal growth.
Take a look inside: Mentor leaders know who they are, what motivates them, and why they do what they do and react the way they react; and they are always ready to change in order to become all that God intends.
Some traits, such as personality, are what they are, and that’s fine. Mentor leaders should simply be who they are. There’s no need to try to be someone else. However, other traits, attributes, and qualities that are central to mentor leadership can be identified, acquired, and improved.
As critically important as I believe a shared vision is for leadership in an organization, character is even more fundamental and essential. If people aren’t comfortable with their leaders—who they are and what they stand for—they won’t stick around long enough to hear about the vision. Vision matters, but character matters more.
The “as if” principle works. Act “as if” you were not afraid and you will become courageous, “as if” you could and you’ll find you can. Act “as if” you like a person and you’ll find a friendship.
Was that the right goal? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that they believed it was the right goal, and that they took the steps they believed necessary to achieve it, regardless of what people outside the organization said.
Do you have the courage to make—and stand by—decisions that will be criticized? Do you have the courage to make decisions that are in the best interests of those you lead, regardless of what others may think, even if they temporarily stall the short-term progress of the team?
Long-term success requires faith—faith that your efforts to plan and execute the process will lead to the desired outcome. Your team must see your faith and commitment lest they lose sight of the vision, lose faith in the process, and stop following.
Leading with faith requires a level of optimism that isn’t always easy to maintain. Hoping for a desirable outcome—much less having confidence and assurance that it will happen—requires some mental strength and fortitude. I tried to demonstrate that level of faith to my players and staff, even when times were bleak.
What a wonderful scene: She puts her boots on . . . and smiles. That says it all. She’s not going to check things out first. She could always come back for the boots, but no, they are already on and ready when she walks through the back wall of the wardrobe again . . . and into the winter wonderland she knew would be there. As leaders, we must lead with confidence in our shared vision and in the future. If we’re not optimistic about what awaits us in the future, no one else will be either.
In any event, leaders who are accountable earn the respect of those they lead. Without that respect, they cannot lead for long.
When you know the people who are following you, maybe some of the decisions get tougher. Maybe they are more painful. Maybe the additional information you have—about a person’s home life, family, finances, or personality—might make a particular decision more difficult. But you aren’t looking for easy, I hope.
First of all, as your relationships deepen, you will build trust, and your open-door policy will provide an environment in which even more mentoring can occur. Second, as the bonds of friendship grow, the people you lead will grow more committed to you—because it is clear that you care about them. And the goals that seem worthwhile to you will have value to them. They will go out of their way to help you and the rest of the team succeed.
Over time, he learned to put things behind him emotionally—both good and bad—and to stay focused on future performance. Thus, to “act medium” came to mean staying available emotionally—neither too high nor too low, avoiding either extreme.
Loyalty develops depth in a relationship, which then forges the bonds to hold the relationship firm and fast when storms and challenges come. And they will come. When mentor leaders demonstrate their loyalty time and time again to those they lead—in both their personal and professional lives, those relationships will be fortified to withstand whatever challenges they face. Adversity will come. It’s guaranteed. Life is not a matter of smooth sailing. Sometimes the sails are trimmed and the wind is at our backs, but that kind of sailing doesn’t last forever in this life. The storms will come,
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I realized that I needed to be more like the shepherd than the hired hand in protecting my team.
Do you push back, hiding behind the attitude that you are too busy to hear directly from those around you?
Are you loyal? When was the last time you went to bat for someone, especially against the tide of popular opinion? As a decision starts to gather momentum, do you shift to the winning side, or are you willing to stick to your guns? When your team is not in the room, do they believe that you will fight for them and their ideas? If not, look for small steps that will allow you to build up others’ faith in your loyalty.
Do you exhibit faith in what you’re asking others to believe in?
“Why would you let anything stop you from doing what you have the ability to do?”
No big deal? You never know what kind of impact you might have in someone’s life. And you may never know what God will do with those moments to achieve His purpose for the benefit of others. You just never know. Opportunities to make a difference—to have an impact—may come when least expected. Be ready for them. And never underestimate the difference you can make in someone’s life. It might even be a difference that lasts for eternity.
Tom Landry ultimately became one of my heroes in coaching—a true role model, who proved it was possible to live your life according to Christian principles and yet still be ultrasuccessful. He showed me that it was possible to lead and coach without compromising.
