Positive Leadership: Joe Montana's Winning Wisdom

Joe Montana reckons his real secret was simply being able to remember that “football is just a stupid game” while at the same time never losing his almost pathological detestation of defeat.

“You have to believe that, when it comes down to it, there’s nobody better than you. And that if it comes to that one final pass, you have to make sure you’re that guy. And you have to relish it.”

Montana is self-effacing but press him on which quarterback he would want to throw a ball to save his life and you get the true gauge of his self-confidence. “I’d pick myself first!” he smiles.

Positive Leadership: Joe Montana's Winning Wisdom

Positive Leadership: Getting to Self Mastery

Here are some reasons why you may not be managing yourself well:

·         You are comfortable and we all tend to stay with what is comfortable

·         You don’t know what else is possible

·         You don’t know that there are other ways to do what you are doing

·         You may be getting energy (and possibly identity!) from being stressed and overworked.

Now let’s put you on the path to better self-management.

1. Clarify your personal goals. Many of us lose sight of these as we get immersed in rush of day-to-day life. Do your personal goals complement your business goals? Asking yourself this question will root out any dissonance between these two areas of your life. And remember, you do have two areas; professional and personal. If they are not in harmony, determine whether the business goals can be re-oriented or modified to support what you would like to achieve personally.

2. What role do you want to have? Imagine yourself three or four years from now. Think about who you want to be. What role do you want to have in the business? Thinking about what you want in the future can give you great insights into what strategies you may need to put in place now.

3. Look at how you are actually spending your time. This is where the rubber meets the road. If you really are true to yourself when you do this exercise you will learn a lot about where the potential lies for making changes. How are you really spending your time?

Break your day down into at least half hour slots and write down exactly what you do in each 30 minutes. Imagine that you are on a diet and your doctor has asked you to keep an honest food journal, to reveal your major calorie intake times of the day. This is what you want for your time journal.

This is your life. Be conscious of how you are living it.

There is never a better time than right now for planning to do things differently. Take charge of yourself and your business by choosing a direction that allows you to meet both your personal and business goals, and still retain your sanity!

Positive Leadership: Getting to Self Mastery

Positive Leadership: The Qualities of the Most Successful US Presidents

Knowing the traits that forged the best U.S. presidents could have helped US voters grasp what's necessary to succeed in the Oval Office. Here are some interesting historical perspectives on the key qualities needed for success:

• Show vision. The best-rated presidents conveyed the direction they wanted to take the nation. Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, fixtures at the top of historical rankings, exuded that quality of setting a futuristic tone. Thus Washington shaped the presidency, and Lincoln reshaped the nation. Ronald) Reagan had it too. His concept that it was possible to win the Cold War was visionary. Almost no one else, in or out of government, thought there was any prospect of that.

• Have self-confidence.  Washington was secure enough to recruit the greatest minds ever assembled in a Cabinet: future high-ranking Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, plus Alexander Hamilton. The first president knew he needed their help to shape the nation. Lincoln, a one-term congressman, had no problem deferring to or overruling his secretary of state, William Seward, who many thought was more qualified to be president.

• Be humble. It's not just that Lincoln had the ability to reject advice from more qualified people. It's that sometimes he listened to the advice, took it seriously and changed his mind. The 16th president could acknowledge that he very well might be wrong on issues. That attribute prevented Lincoln from making the catastrophic mistakes that someone who lacked humility might make. Washington and Lincoln were secure enough that they didn't feel they were the smartest people in the room. The same could be said of Harry Truman. The 33rd president called George Marshall the greatest man in the country and that if the former Army chief of staff could take the presidency, he'd resign in a minute.

• Character does matter. The top-ranked presidents who were most upstanding were Lincoln, Washington, Reagan, Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.

• Be diverse. Career politicians were less capable as president when rated against men who entered office with varied backgrounds. Some soldier-presidents — such as Washington, Eisenhower, U.S. Grant and Truman, with their sense of management were highly capable presidents. The ones who didn't plan on being president from the time they were little tended to excel! For example, political ambition came to Ronald Reagan late in life and Washington thought he'd die a soldier. As it turned out, the general won the Revolution and became the father of the USA.

Positive Leadership: The Qualities of the Most Successful US Presidents