I’m known as the Fast-Forward Leadership guy. Each year I speak to audiences over 100 times…many on the topic of the Principles of Principled Leadership. Below are three critical considerations for any of us who presume to lead others.
1) FACT: Most people focus on their weaknesses. Successful people play to their strengths. This doesn’t mean we ignore those weaknesses forever. Quite the contrary. Instead it has more to do with the order in which we approach things. Find the things you do well. Get increasingly better at doing those things. Then, with those successes under your belt, put that new positive energy into improving the things you aren’t yet good at doing.

2) Successful people are those people who do what they know is right…despite ridicule, criticism, and people who misunderstand their motives. They do the right thing because it is the right thing to do, and they put value in that. Great leaders are those people who determine to do what is right even though it’s hard, instead of what’s wrong because it’s easy.

3) Allow time. In our instant world, there’s a lot of pressure for immediate results. In fact, most results that come quickly do not last the test of time. We’ve all known people (maybe the person you see in the mirror each morning) who have gone on crash diets and dropped 20 pounds overnight, only to regain those pounds overnight. Instead, regroup, reframe, and reconstruct your new skill sets so they will lead to real and permanent change.

Here’s the good news: You’re not done…until you’re dead!

And here is my challenge to you: Find your highest and best use. Don’t be dazzled by all the “stuff of success.” Instead, look to the eternal. Ask yourself these questions. “Is what I am doing today something I will be happy I did…when I’m on my deathbed?” “Will what I’m doing today be something for which my kids will remember me fondly?” “One day, when I meet the One who made me, will He smile and say, ‘Well done good and faithful servant?’”