What’s Your Sentence?

Accountability Contribution Kindness

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Key Point: An exceptional leader is a person who can bring ordinary people together to achieve extraordinary results. An even more effective one has a way of finding extraordinary people to achieve exponentially valuable results. This ties into leadership guru John Maxwell‘s belief that leaders have three primary responsibilities: Achieving results, building relationships and developing others. 

I recently read a blog by Bruce Kasanoff where he reflected on his desire to help and develop others in a meaningful way. To guide his daily actions, he came up with an intentional sentence. It reads as follows: 

Be generous and expert, trustworthy and clear, open-minded and adaptable, persistent and present.

Each word is vital to his mantra: 

Generous means to help others long before—and after—you need their help.

Expert means to be competent in one or more areas that others value and to use this expertise to benefit them.

Trustworthy means to be a person who stands behind others, especially in tough times.

Clear means to help people clarify what they want and also help them express this in a simple and straightforward manner.

Open-minded means never stop listening and learning and make it easier for others to do the same.

Adaptable means sharing one of the most valuable insights anyone can gain, which is that we all have a greater ability to change our situations than it often seems.

Persistent means to help people even when it is hard, and they don’t immediately succeed.

Present means to set your thoughts and agenda aside so that you can listen to others and prove that they are important to you.

Read his entry to see more specific examples of how these words translate into action.

Character Moves:

  1. What’s your sentence? Whether or not you adopt a sentence similar to the one above, one of our leadership obligations is to bring out talent in other people. How do you do it? What guides you? 
  1. Mine is: (Not surprisingly) By being relentlessly self-accountable, respectful and abundant, I will bring exceptional value to others and myself. Write yours. Live yours. Be intentional first, accept imperfection and persistently continue. You will connect with ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results. You might even bring together extraordinary people to do something profoundly great. 

Having a sentence in The Triangle,

Lorne 

One Millennial View: At this point, it’s easy for a millennial like me to be like, “you want me to have a sentence? Like what? ‘Yes sir, I can get that done right away.’” Seems accurate. But you know what? No, mine will be: “Keep grinding, stay challenged and continue ascending.” Even if it might not always feel like it’s applicable to every workday situation, maybe my sentence will help me be in the mindset to get there.

– Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis