Randy A Brown

Author: Randy A Brown

  • Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character

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    810970: Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character Leadership Essentials: Shaping Vision, Multiplying Influence, Defining Character

    By Greg Ogden & Daniel Meyer / InterVarsity Press

    Prepare well to lead well! Ideal for individual use, with a partner or mentor, or in a training group, this 12-session interactive workbook helps you develop your own unique leadership gifts. Learn to cultivate the godly leader’s character, posture, vision, and skill with Bible studies, insightful readings, memory verses, and practical exercises. 168 pages, softcover from InterVarsity.

  • Synergy

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    Synergy is an interesting concept. Synergy is when people can do more together than they can apart. Synergy is as much art as science. This is why production lines work better than individuals trying to build the same number of products on their own. Synergy is why teamwork is so important.

    I first learned about synergy by accident. I became a manager long before I got my bachelors in management. I managed a molding department of a figurine manufacturing company. Since it was a small company, I also molded the figurines. I would hand pour around 60 molds and hand the molded parts to the cleanup table where we had five workers. I noticed several things.

    First, my molds were empty more often than they were full because I had to empty all of them before I could start filling them again. Second, it was difficult to keep the five workers busy. I decided to pull one of the workers to the molding table. As I emptied the mold, my helper would fill it. This way, all of the molds stayed filled almost constantly. We produced four times the products than I could have done by myself. This was enough work in just a few hours to keep the cleanup table busy all day, so my helper could then go back to cleanup, while I tended the woodshop, packing, or made new molds.

    Good leaders should always look for opportunities for synergy in all areas of life, whether at work, home, or Church. Synergy can strengthen a marriage as well as a business. Synergy strengthens. Look for it. Build with it.

  • Principle-Centered Leadership

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    Principle-Centered Leadership by Stephen Covey is insightful. Covey is diligent in providing motivation to become a life-long learner (something I can greatly appreciate). Covey provides the keys to unlocking personal fulfillment and life-long professional success.
     

  • Credibility

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    One of the most important values we can have as leaders, whether we are leaders at work, at Church, or in the home, is credibility. Credibility is our trustworthiness. Credibility adds to our value- this includes our decisions, suggestions, claims, teachings, etc. A decision-maker is more likely to make a difficult decision based on our information if the decision-maker can trust our information. We gain credibility through hard work, education, being thorough in our research, giving trust-worthy and timely information, being dependable, and even treating others with respect. We lose credibility by giving bad information, not coming through when needed, not being a man (or woman) of our word, and not being trust-worthy or dependable. Credibility is one of those things that is difficult to obtain and easy to lose. We should strive to build credibility and strive even harder to keep it.

  • Values-Based Leadership

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    Here is an excellent video on values-based leadership from MIT:

  • Think Positive

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    In today’s business world, companies hold workers to high demands. These high demands tend to make us negative and overwhelmed. Negativity is bad for the soul, and for those around us. I used to mold figurines for a living. We had a product that had a nine-piece accessory set. It was a very difficult and time-consuming piece to make. Some customers would order 1000 sets at a time. That’s 10,000 pieces. That made a very long week and it could easily make the entire week a negative experience. In order to see this in a positive way I started thinking about the two ways I could view molding just one set. I could look at the one set and say that I’ve ONLY molded one set and I have 9999 to go, or I could say I’ve molded one set and I ONLY have 9999 sets to go. It’s the same number, but it had a different result. One was negative, which made the work even more difficult, and the other was positive, which made the work more enjoyable a lifted my mood for the week. If the end result is the same, look at it in a positive light. Everyone around you will appreciate it.

     

  • Qualities of a Good Leader

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    There are many qualities that make a good leader. Some qualities are more important that others; some qualities are more difficult see or develop; other qualities are more defined and expected. In general, people have an ideal set of qualities they expect a leader to have. Here is a short list of those qualities.

    • Honest
    • Patient
    • Decisive
    • Intentional
    • Responsible
    • Confident
    • Educated
    • Enthusiastic
    • Reliable
    • Trustworthy
    • Loyal
    • Focused

    This skill-set can be summed up in many ways, using words such as vision and competence. Of course this list is no where near complete, but this is the basic list I feel is important to focus on when developing your leadership skill-set.
     

     

  • Jesus – The Ultimate Leader

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    Jesus is the ultimate leader. His leadership strategy was much different than most leaders we see today because he had a very different purpose. His goal wasn’t to be popular. His goal was to train a few, rather than many. Jesus focused on depth and long-term results. He taught thousands at a time, but he didn’t focus on telling them what they wanted to hear. He didn’t focus on telling them how great they are, or how they can achieve anything they wanted. He usually left them confused at his teachings. His goal wasn’t to give them the answers to all of the questions.

    Although he taught thousands, he narrowed his focus down to seventy disciples. From the seventy, he chose twelve to be Apostles. He taught and trained these twelve more deeply than he taught the seventy. From the twelve, Jesus was closer to three. He made these three his ‘inner circle’ and taught them even deeper than he did the other nine.

    What was his purpose? Jesus wasn’t just training leaders. He was training leaders of leaders. These leaders changed the modern world. Jesus was teaching a complete paradigm shift and he knew what it would take to make this paradigm work. He knew he didn’t just need disciples. He needed disciples that could make disciples. Jesus had more foresight than any leader before or after. Jesus truly is the ultimate leader.

  • Free Video Online Leadership Course

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    Wise Jargon offers a free online video lesson series titled Ten Principles of Being a Godly Leader. The series is based on the book Think Like Jesus Lead Like Moses. You can see the series here:

     

    Ten Principles of Being a Godly Leader

  • Failure

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    Is it OK to fail? I was recently asked this question. My first thought was ‘failure is not an option”. Then I was reminded of Thomas Edison who, when asked about how many failed attempts he had while inventing the light bulb, said that he didn’t fail- he learned how not to make a light bulb (paraphrased- the actual number changes). The point is Thomas Edison saw the failures as something positive. Failure is an opportunity to learn. Failure can be costly, but not learning from failure is even more costly. Don’t hope for or expect failure, but when it happens use it to your advantage. Learn from it and you’ll have an advantage over those that don’t.