I took a bit of time this busy weekend to listen to an interview with Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson. I personally try to limit the number of blogs I read and I am constantly culling my list. His blog is the best leadership blog of the ones I follow. I find him to be an excellent source of advice on leadership and management. His posts are reasonable and just makes sense to me. I pay attention to him because amongst other things what he says and his reasoning behind what he says is very similar to leaders I have worked for in the past. These are people I respect and who have helped me become a better leader and person. My leadership skills have improved immensely over the last years because of these individuals. But I am not great at it, not even close to his level. As with all things, there is always room for improvement and change for the better.
I found the entire interview with Michael interesting and useful. Some key statements that stood out for me were:
I think I am pretty successful at delegation. Really figure out what I am good at, what I am not good at, where do I add the most value, where don’t I add value and stay out of the stuff where I don’t add value. And that is tough I think particularly as a young leader because you want to look like you are good at everything and you are nervous about your weaknesses showing. But the truth is I am not good at everything, I am good at a few things.
But there is absolutely nothing in my view more annoying than sitting with a person you are trying to have a conversation with while they keep checking their email or their Twitter account. And honestly in meetings like that I just stop.
Idea that the content has to be vetted to the delivery format particularly the format that we’ve grown very accustomed to … I love books, I love the smell of them, I love the tactile feel of them. You know I like candles too. I love burning candles, I love the smell of them, I love the ambiance they create, but I light my home with electricity.
One of the things you have to do as a leader is create an environment that is safe for creativity and the only way you do that is create an environment where it is safe for dissent. People got to feel like they can disagree with a leader, they can have their own ideas, that they can fight and collaborate and struggle and wrestle. Because it is out of that process that you are going to get the best ideas. I think as a leader you have to invite people into that process.
For anyone interested with 30 minutes to spare, the interview can be found here.
