4 Ways to Be a Happy Leader
“You don’t become happy by pursuing happiness. You become happy by living a life that means something.” Harold S. Kushner
Happiness is a by-product.
Happy Leadership:
#1. Elevate relationship-building.
Place relationship-building on par with delivering results.
If you want to increase your widget production by 3%:
- Develop competencies.
- Improve processes.
- Confront inconsistencies.
- Practice accountability.
- Invite feedback.
AND … strengthen relationships.
- Act respectfully.
- Practice candor with kindness.
- Show interest in people.
- Get dirty in the trench.
- Intentionally think about the qualities you admire in others. (Smile)
The neglect of relationship-building ultimately hinders productivity. Read, The Speed of Trust, by Stephen Covey. (Yes, there’s more to delivering results than sitting around getting to know each other.)
It’s not results OR relationships. It’s results THROUGH relationships.
#2. Elevate gratitude.
Write down three new things you’re grateful for everyday for three weeks. (See Shawn Achor)
#3. Elevate the value of others.
If you want to live a meaningful life today make others more important than yourself.
During team meetings and individual conversations, whisper this mantra to yourself, “You are more important than me.”
Servant leadership is serving others. It’s difficult to be a servant when you view yourself as better than others.
Making others more important than yourself doesn’t mean you should sacrifice the best interest of your team or organization. Just the opposite.
Sometimes the best way to serve another is to manage them out.
#4. Elevate team success over personal success.
One practical way to live for something bigger than yourself is by putting the best interests of your team ahead of personal interests. (If you can’t do this, find a team where you can.)
The only way servant leaders succeed is by helping others succeed.
Leaders succeed when their team succeeds.
What suggestions do you have for happy leadership?
This is so very true! The bottom line isn’t always about numbers, it’s about the people that help get you where you need to go.
Thanks Shelley. When numbers are all there is people become tools.
Wow!! There is so much in this post today!!
* It’s not results OR relationships. It’s results THROUGH relationships.
* Daily gratitude / so important!!
* Elevate the value of others: Sometimes the best way to serve another is to manage them out. In my experience, sometimes there is a team member who is dragging everyone else down, frustrating the high performers. Have seen instances where this person is managed out, only to find that this is actually the best thing ever that happened to them (new opportunities), and with a positive impact on the remaining team members. Was simply not a good fit for various reasons…
…and finally: Leaders succeed when their team succeeds… awesome!!
Thanks Dan!!
Thanks Susan. Your comment about the person who drags others down is so important. Perhaps there is some misplaced compassion. We think we are being compassionate, but we’re actually prolonging the pain. Cheers
Dan,
Take “Happy pills” so the “Doctor might say” in reality our happiness is overcome by the trials and tribulations that make us unhappy. Learn to work oneself with happy intentions and good vibrations with each process. Turn off the negative and work on the positive surely makes the day go better.
Thanks Tim. You remind me that happiness comes before success, not after. We falsely believe that if life is how we want it to be we will be happy. Actually, we’ll be bored. 🙂 … But a happy pill doesn’t sound half bad. 😉
First of all, happiness is only a strong function of monetary results, if your earnings are down. Comp. https://marius-a-schulz.de/2018/04/16/glueckslaender/ – there is a translation widget in the menu. So working for maximum profit may is a waste of time.
Second, monetary results don´t measure the wellbeing of people. People who aren´t well off, aren´t motivated, but frustrated. This hinders cowork and progress. It´s a nice style, to motivate people via their need for positive relationships. This does mean a lot, like values, trust, conflict solving, vision etc. . Comp. my Management-Philosophy as an example: https://marius-a-schulz.de/zur-person/management-philosophie/ – there is the translation widget.
So all in all, I think your Management-by-Relationships is a model that is important next to results – as you said. But what would you say, if the people and leaders would work for maximization of their own income via direct particpation instead of working to maximize investors income? Here is an article about the concept idea: https://marius-a-schulz.de/2018/08/19/nachhaltiger-kapitalmarkt/ – similar, there is a translation widget.
Regards and thanks for the article,
Marius.
Elevate the value of others. If you want to live a meaningful life today make others more important than yourself.
GREAT! I sum this up as #humility. To be a great leader and success you must adapt to the principles of humility adapting to your ego and activating your size to suit you.
But the funny part of this creativity is w,en you tend to practice humlity to create awareness in the team and helping someony achieve its goal, it went the wrong direction thereby lacking focus on the trail..
This was a good one, particularly enjoyed the observation that happiness is a byproduct or result, not an effective goal in and of itself. Not directly related, but I thought of you Dan yesterday, our pastor was talking about the difference in being NICE (fear-based, wanting to be seen as nice, fitting in, done for selfish reasons) and being KIND (focused on others, making a difference in their moment/day/life, regardless of what they think or don’t think about me).
I love this post! Great food for the soul. Thank you!
Thinking ahead of time about leadership response to happiness in the event of hard times.
How true! A leader is as good as his team. Unless the team rallies around the leader for which the leader needs to become one among them . Many a times the inhibitions which leaders suffer from become their Achilles heel.