Part Three of "PCD," Demonstration

The third and final piece of “PCD” is demonstrating your morals, values, ethics, and integrity. Merely talking about these is not sufficient. To be a great leader, we must live out loud. We need to be transparent and practice the age-old adage of, “Actions speak louder than words.”

Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them

Romans 2.15 NKJV

We may be able to hide things for a period of time, but as my awesome wife says, “What is in the dark, will always come to the light!”

Here are a few areas, which can demonstrate our effectiveness as leaders:
1. Never compromise your integrity
2. Treat everyone with respect whether they are present or not
3. Resist the temptation for short-cutting the process
4. Focus on what you do, instead of what happens
5. Understand the basic thought progression
a. Thoughts turn in to feelings
b. Feelings turn in to actions
c. Actions turn in to habits

The quickest way to lose credibility is to allow our actions to be inconsistent with our words. When we have these incongruities we can be labeled as a hypocrite. Needless to say, this will not help us establish effective leadership.

When we are properly prepared, establish excellent communication, and demonstrate our morals, values, ethics, and integrity; we can rise above the pack. And be an effective leader.

How do you demonstrate your leadership? Do you watch how others demonstrate theirs?

PCD-Communication

The second piece of “PCD” is communication. This subject is vital to success and arguably the area most leaders need help with.

I believe you cannot over communicate! You can beat a dead horse by not letting go, but there can never be enough good communication.

Excellent leaders are master communicators. They understand how to relate to others thereby getting their points across effectively. The three main forms of communicating are: verbal, written, and non-verbal. As leaders we must use of each these effectively.

Active listening is another area we must master. There is a large difference between listening and hearing. Understanding this can make the difference between being successful or failing as a VALID leader.

How can you tell if you are actively listening? Consider these points:
1. Are you able to repeat back what someone told you?
2. Are you formulating your response while someone is talking?
3. Are you interrupting the other person?
4. Are you looking right at the person who is speaking?
5. Are you taking notes to make sure you capture the most important items?

Effective two-way communication comes in the form of dialogue. Not monologue. In order to establish dialogue one has to send a message and one has to receive the message. They maintain dialogue by alternating between sender and receiver. Dialogue needs at least two parties equally engaged or it becomes monologue.

It can be easy to use our power and authority to ruin the dialogue and revert back into a monologue. We must guard against this. It will hamper our efforts of being effective with people, which is the main goal in communication.

We will dig deeper into this mid-week. For now focus on dialogue!

God Bless.

Personal Commitment Dynamic

As we discuss preparation in more detail, it is imperative that you decide for yourself how you will prepare. Everyone has differing goals, and personalities. Because of this each person will prepare in their own way. Here is what I do each morning.

1. Read my Bible or a devotional.
2. Record my affirmations, personal mission statement, goals, and daily priorities.
3. Check my planner to see my appointments for the day, and add new items.

These are fundamentals for me. I do them everyday even when on vacation.

Throughout the day I prepare for meetings by reviewing the subject matter ahead of time. I ask myself questions and try to anticipate what others will ask so I can be ready. As a side note I like to talk early in meetings. I find the longer I am silent, the harder it becomes to get fully involved.

At night I get ready for the next day by:

1. Reviewing my schedule and adding any new items.
2. Writing a new blog post, when needed.
3. Reading.
4. Praying.

These are fundamentals for me as well.

You can see there is not a tremendous amount of time or effort needed to prepare yourself. Develop your own system of preparation and reap the rewards.

Personal Commitment Dynamic

There is a cliché stating, “Behind every good man, there is a great woman.” Without a doubt this is true. Also, behind every successful leader there is a leadership concept. Behind every concept there is a system to make it work.

Dictionary.com defines system as: an ordered and comprehensive assemblage of facts, principles, doctrines, or the like in a particular field of knowledge or thought.
Concept is defined by dictionary.com as: an idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars.

My concept is Valid Leadership, which makes its debut in a few weeks. My system is Personal Commitment Dynamic, or PCD for short. PCD is comprised of preparation, communication and demonstration.

Art Williams, founder of A.L.Williams once said, “You will beat 50% of your competition just by showing up.” I believe you can do better than 50% if you show up well prepared. We covered preparation on this blog a few months ago and the subject is worth re-visiting!

Being prepared in its simplest form means having a routine to follow each day. My experience leads me to believe many people do not take this seriously. They roll out of bed at the last minute and scramble getting ready for their day. The rest of the day is chaotic and they wonder why. With a solid routine and the commitment to follow it everyday, these same people will find themselves in control of their day and their life.

Great examples of what a routine looks like can be seen at any sporting event. In particular, golf and baseball. A professional golfer performs a routine before he actually hits the ball. A baseball pitcher follows a set routine before he actually pitches the ball. This is how they maintain consistency and it works for us as well.

We’ll break down the Preparation portion of PCD throughout the week. Stay tuned and get involved in the discussion.