Systems

First say to yourself what you would be; 
and then do what you have to do. 

 – Epictetus

Developing effective systems is crucial to leadership success. Know how to run an effective meeting.

Hugh’s rule #1 for Conducting Effective Meetings:
Purpose – Don’t hold a meeting if you do not have a defined purpose for the meeting. Know what you want to achieve and state those outcomes for the participants.

TIP: Define the meeting outcomes first, and then plan how to achieve those outcomes.

Relationships

Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success. 

 – Henry Ford

Leadership skills you employ in this area are important to the transformation of staff or volunteers into workers, critics into advocates, and detractors into supporters. Learn to define, recruit, delegate, support, nurture, and facilitate. The Transformational Leadership model enables leaders to get the right people, tell them what is needed, let people complete their tasks, and celebrate the results. After all, professional leaders lead. If we did everything, we would be called professional doers. Leaders lead. This means getting out of the way.

TIP: If you have lots of staff or volunteers, then learn to limit your time with those who are not as productive and give more to those who produce. Here’s a chance to use the 80/20 rule. Spend 80% of your volunteer support time with the 20% of the people who produce 80% of the results. Gather the remaining 80% of the volunteers who produce 20% of the results into groups. Support them as a group, not individually. This will give you a major bounce on your results and free up enormous amounts of time. (This is the “Pareto Principle” named after the nineteenth-century economist who developed the 80/20 rule for business.)

Foundation

Your goal should be out of reach 
but not out of sight. – Anita DeFrantz

Your foundation is first your values, then your goals. Goals are crucial to success. Goals in your mind are not goals, but only dreams.

Write your goal. Print out the goal. Punch the goal sheet. Put it into your planning notebook. Read your goal daily.

Develop a positive affirmation that will focus on the BENEFIT of accomplishing your goal.

TIP: The specificity of your goal is important. Write your goal describing the future accomplishment in present tense

1. Know The Score

You’ve got to think about “big things” while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction. – Alvin Toffler The hues of the opal, 
the light of the diamond, 
are not to be seen 
if the eye is too near. – Ralph Waldo Emerson A mind troubled by [...]

2. Hire The Best

The meeting of two personalities
is like the contact of two chemical substances: 
if there is any reaction, 
both are transformed. 
 – Carl Jung We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own.
 – Ben Sweetland When a choral conductor spends months on rehearsing music with a choir, they don’t want [...]

3. Rehearse For Success

To know what people really think, 
pay regard to what they do, 
rather than what they say. – Rene Descartes Anxiety is caused 
by a lack of control, 
organization, preparation, 
and action. – David Kekich Well done is better than well said. – Benjamin Franklin The value of rehearsing music correctly is an essential practice [...]

4. Value The Rests

We can be sure 
that the greatest hope 
for maintaining equilibrium 
in the face of any situation 
rests within ourselves. – Francis J. Braceland Patience is the companion of wisdom. – Saint Augustine Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop. – Ovid The hurrier I go, 
the behinder I get. – [...]

Balance

We can be sure 
that the greatest hope 
for maintaining equilibrium 
in the face of any situation 
rests within ourselves. 

 – Francis J. Braceland

Plan your work, and then work your plan. It might be a commonly repeated statement. It’s repeated because it is true.
Plan your work. Plan your planning and study time. Plan your recreation time. Plan ahead.
TIP: Plan tomorrow’s activities today. If you wait until tomorrow – the planning time will escape more times than not.