Bridging Leadership Lessons from the Workplace and Those Experiences Shaping Today's Youth and Tomorrow's Leaders
![]() Reading has been something I have always enjoyed. As a child, I couldn't get enough books to read. I loved the books sharing the heroic stories of yesteryear, whether they be leaders, explorers, or athletes. As I moved into my teen years and college, the pull of science fiction and fantasy started to dominate my reading, but historical writings of military heroes or events would continue to find a spot at the table. But as I moved to adulthood, personal growth became more important as I worked to Be Better Today than I was yesterday. Early in my career, I traveled non-stop and all those hours on a plane flying around the globe allowed me the opportunity to get a lot of reading in whether the lessons from Covey, Ziglar, and Welch or the thrill of Clancy, Koontz, and Ludlum. But now, time is more precious and sitting down to read is difficult with the demands of life. Books have given way to iPhones and AirPods as I capitalize on my Audible subscription. Of the 22 books I read last year, only 3 were in written form with the rest being ones I listened to. I decided to share my reading list of the books I finished in 2023. I broke them into 3 categories: Personal Growth, Guilty Pleasure, Historical Non-Fiction. Personal Growth represented 68% of my reading focus. As someone who likes to take notes, using an audiobook can be challenging when you are trying to walk on the treadmill and type in notes on your phone... be careful, full athlete mode is required to accomplish this! Here is a list of the books I read. They are not ranked, merely listed out from the one I finished most recently to the one I finished at the start of the year. PERSONAL GROWTH
GUILTY PLEASURES (Okay, I love listening to these types of books because if you have a good narrator, they can really help capture the personality of the characters. Now, I doubt if many people would include Animal Farm as a guilty pleasure but where else do I put it? Honestly, I forgot how powerful of a book it was and could easily be a life lesson in personal development. Or I guess, you could stretch and say it is historical non-fiction / fiction because wow, such truth!)
HISTORICAL NON-FICTION
I hope to hear back from you on your thoughts on these books. If you have any questions, about them, let me know and I will share my opinion. If you have any recommendations, I would love to hear them. Taking the time for personal growth through reading (or listening) is essential to Being Better Today than you were yesterday. Because Leaders Lead and a growth mindset takes you Beyond Today.
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![]() My annual exploration to find my One Word for 2024 was a little different than in years past. I wasn’t spending hours of quiet time, alone with my thoughts and prayers. This year it seemed to be more about me stumbling over some things that were in my way and I finally decided to look and see what it was that kept tripping me up. I wasn’t going heavy into the searching because I felt I was already there and knew that I had narrowed down my words. But then, on the same morning roughly 20 minutes apart, I received two texts from two people who do not know each other. One was from my sister and the other was a friend and former co-worker. Both were asking me about whether or not I had chosen my One Word for the year. Those two people reaching out to me was the trigger I needed, so I turned my attention to the process of selecting my One Word that has been made famous by Jon Gordon. There were actually two words that jumped out at me; CLOSURE and BETTER. Closure was prominent in my thoughts because there are a lot of areas in my life where I have failed to finish as well as some aspects that I need to put to rest internally. But in the end, it was BETTER that was the loudest One Word. There are so many areas of my life where I want, no, I NEED to be BETTER. This approach at its most fundamental will help me to gain CLOSURE if I can simply Be Better Today than I was yesterday. I want to be a BETTER husband. I want to be a BETTER father. I want to be a BETTER sibling. I want to be a BETTER friend. I want to be a BETTER listener. I want to be BETTER at finishing. I want to be BETTER about reaching out to others. I want to be BETTER at showing gratitude. I want to be BETTER at showing and living empathy. I want to be BETTER at maintaining focus. I want to be BETTER about living a life of IMPACT. I want to Be Better Today than I was yesterday. As I was drafting this blog, I realized I wrote down a bunch of I WANTS but as I wrote in a previous blog, that means nothing without the I WILL. I WILL Be Better Today than yesterday, and that commitment is what brings value to my One Word and will help me be BETTER Beyond Today. Part of the continuing series on the The 3 Pillars of Impact: Varsity Edition where we focus on connecting the 3 Pillars to creating a culture of winning in the locker room. ![]() In my corporate version of the 1st Pillar of Impact, Courage to Challenge I focused on challenging the status quo and breaking down the silos of the business world. As we apply the 3 Pillars of Impact to the world of team sports, it goes beyond how you engage your teammates but also how you engage the person in the mirror. The challenge is having the courage to work both internally and externally at the same time. Building credibility and creating trust as you walk the walk and let your actions influence the behaviors and mindsets of others. It leads to the 2nd Pillar of Impact Expect Excellence, but it really connects to the application of expecting excellence in yourself and others. There is a reason that “yourself” is first and in team sports, the courage to challenge yourself is foundational to being in a position to challenge others. There are 4 components to the 1st Pillar of Impact, Courage to Challenge, in the Varsity Edition that will help lead to a Culture of Winning:
"On Bad teams no one leads. Average teams, coaches lead. But elite teams, players lead." - P.J. Fleck PLAYER LED TEAM
When players can accept their role and understand the value of their role, silos can be broken and players can focus on winning and being a star in their role. Players can focus on their own improvement as an individual player to in turn help the improvement of the team. When a player leads, it doesn’t have to always be vocal. Behaviors and actions are what stand out and they can be mirrored and fostered in others. The player led team is always the goal but the chance of this happening is greatly increased when the environment exists that encourages and supports such behavior. That environment begins when your Coach or CEO of the team helps to paint the picture of what a Culture of Winning looks like through expectations, communication, and living out the culture. A grassroots approach can be successful but is much more challenging. Ideally, the players take over leadership of the team through a natural progression built upon trust. BUILDER NOT BLAMER When you challenge someone, you must ask yourself, is what you are saying helpful or harmful? You may have the best intentions, but if what you are saying when you challenge comes across as blaming, then you will lose your team's trust. You see this when emotions are high, the game gets tight, and very often, when a player is frustrated with their own performance. They lash out at their teammate(s): “You need to block out!” “Whose man is this?” “Pass the ball!” It’s easy to think this is leadership and that you are displaying the courage to challenge. Sadly, this doesn’t just happen with teenagers, sports, or new managers. Often you will see leaders and coaches do the same thing. Blame a player for not perfecting a skill that they either have not taught or have not adequately trained on in practice. You see coaches get mad because a player missed a shot as if the kid wanted to miss. Lashing out at a kid for not getting a rebound when the fault was from a teammate who didn’t block out his man. The point being, is if you focus on the fault, you are not focusing on what you want. We must focus on ‘what we need’ NOT ‘what we did’. A builder has a different focus than a blamer. The builder focuses on the outcome and not the problem. They know to build someone up you need to change the tone and change the direction. CHANGE THE TONE One of the key aspects of building trust is creating a positive environment. As we talked previously and in the original Courage to Challenge, it is about how you challenge and the environment you create to challenge. The Merriam-Webster definition of “improve” is
So, as you move from Blamer to Builder, you learn to focus less on what needs to be improved and more on what improvement looks like. To be successful in aiding in improvement, you need them to listen which is all about your delivery and the trust you have built over time. Too often we provide “constructive criticism” thinking we are helping when in reality, it is only coming across in a negative manner that works opposite. Be encouraging to help find their potential instead of criticizing what they did. CHANGE THE DIRECTION In stressful situations, it’s easy to lash out but also very easy for people to defend and even attack the messenger. People already feel vulnerable without piling on. So, change the direction of your challenge. Not on the person, but on the team. Again, focusing on the outcome and not the problem. Focus on what you need NOT on what you did. What We Need VS What We Did ‘Let’s keep the ball moving’ VS ‘You need to pass the ball!' ‘Keep moving and I will find you for the open look’ VS ‘Stop standing and watching.’ ‘Keep talking on defense.’ VS ‘Dude, why didn’t you call out the screen?’ “Good look, I will try to seal my man better.’ VS ‘Why did you pass it then? I wasn’t ready.’ Ultimately, do you like to be called out? It is as simple as that. The Golden Rule of Do unto Others… People will receive your input and feedback when they know it is thoughtful and that you care. It doesn’t mean it is always desired and will be well received. There is also a time and place to provide such feedback. But as you build trust and invest in your teammates it will be much better received and possibly even sought out. Having the Courage to Challenge means nothing if you don’t manage the tone and the direction of your challenge. If you really want to build a culture of winning, then the real challenge is having the courage to challenge yourself to Be Better Today so you can impact the culture of winning Beyond Today. |
AuthorTom Brown - a husband and a father who is simply trying to make a difference. Using my experience as a Manufacturing Executive to connect leadership from the boardroom to the hardwood to help teams grow and develop to make a difference in the lives of others. Archives
February 2025
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