Smart Leadership: Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Leadership
New Book Giveaway!
35 copies available!!
Leave a comment on this guest post by Mark Miller to become eligible for one of 35 complimentary copies of his new book, “Smart Leadership: Four Simple Choices to Scale Your Impact.”
Deadline for eligibility is 1/15/2022. International winners will receive electronic version.
Are you struggling with busyness, distractions, complexity, and any number of other challenges? Join the club! Leaders around the world are literally battling for their lives – trying to maintain their influence, improve their quality of life, and increase their impact. The impediments are too numerous to count!
I’ve chosen to label this toxic mix… quicksand.
Choices:
When we find ourselves in quicksand, we have only three options:
Sink:
This is what happens when we give up. Our hopes, dreams, aspirations, and influence are extinguished.
Swim:
The fundamental problem with swimming in quicksand is that it is not an effective nor sustainable strategy.
Escape:
This is the strategy of Smart Leaders. These women and men have figured out how to move to higher, solid ground.
Our team spent the last couple of years trying to figure out how Smart Leaders orchestrated their escape. The good news for all of us: the path to increased impact is paved with four simple choices.
Smart Leaders:
Confront Reality to stay grounded in truth and lead from a position of strength.
Grow Capacity to meet the demands of the moment and the challenges of the future.
Fuel Curiosity to maintain relevance and vitality in a changing world.
Create Change today to ensure a better tomorrow.
Imagine:
What specific tactics do Smart Leaders employ? This question is beyond the scope of this post. However, I encourage you to use your imagination!
If you make these choices and commit to freeing yourself from the quicksand limiting your influence, you will discover ample tangible ways to bring your choices to life. Start by confronting reality regarding your leadership.
Virtuous Cycle:
These four choices create a virtuous cycle, each choice enabling and propelling the next. These choices, made consistently, unleash tremendous power… the power to change your world.
Be smart!
What is your current reality? What is your quicksand?
Note: All Mark’s books are great reads. “Smart Leaders,” is my personal favorite!
Watch my interview with Mark Miller. We discuss a leader’s trajectory, the four choices, and much more. (If you would like to connect with Mark, he gives his cell number in the video.)
Mark Miller is a business leader, best-selling author, and communicator. He is currently serving as the Vice President of High Performance Leadership for Chick-fil-A, Inc. Beyond chicken, Mark’s global influence continues to grow. Today, there are over a million copies of his books in print, in twenty-five languages. Smart Leadership is his tenth title with more to come!
Thank you for inviting Mark to be a guest blogger and introducing me to this book. I have learned a lot from Mark’s previous books and from a few podcasts on which he has been interviewed. He always offers simple (and definitely difficult) and actionable steps.
My quicksand is made up of responsibilities. There are so many responsibilities of which their outcomes are dependent on me…or at least that’s what I tell myself. I often find myself struggling, holding on by a thread, trying to pull myself out. I need to do a better job of saying no, delegating, prioritizing, and just let go of certain issues. Some things are okay to set on the back burner and simmer for awhile….so I can read a new book authored by Mark Miller. 😊
Very important highlights. Makes me want to read the book in its entirety. I am a Kenyan leader and reader
Growing capacity is often incorrectly translated as “just do more”. When you have already “lean sigma’d” yourself to the bone, but there is no additional resource, it just increases pressure.
The issue with imagination and creating change is it comes out of your current, already overstretched energy, resource and brainpower budgets. You can’t do what you need to do today. Nothing can be cropped from the list. How do you do more? If your change is just “change”, not “improvement”, i.e. part of the percentage of ideas that don’t work, you’ve just sunk deeper.
I sometimes wonder if the rational choice in this kind of quicksand is let yourself sink and hope to die reasonably painlessly.
Great post! Our team has definitely struggled with swimming in quicksand and while it seems contrary what helped was stepping back in order to look at it strategically and do something different including self-care fir each team member. It’s hard to do when you’re in the thick of it! Thanks for sharing a great way to look at options.
I have just began a new leadership role in the same organization I work for. And with the new challenges, obstacles and failure I will inevitably face, I believe this book would be a really great help!
Thank you in advance and more power to both of you!
Thankful for Marks teaching over the past decade!
My current reality is to swim in the quicksand of my to-do list. Definitely interested in the technique of creating change to lead in a sustainable way.
Great post. Demand is my quicksand, too many moving parts in a huge machine to feel I can strongly influence outcomes as I’m so involved in detail. My commitment is to change my own approach to becoming more strategic but old habits die HARD!
Positive and truth-filled insights on some of the issues that all leaders face at some point in their career. Key take aways–lead from a position of strength and grow capacity. For me, developing leaders and leadership and supporting the same with the means to develop resilience is of great importance and has helped our leaders find more success and balance within their personal and professional lives. I am looking forward to reading this book.
QUICKSAND – brilliant visual. And I’m there. Thanks for the thoughtful, NEW YEAR solution…implimenting this today. Thank you
This is an important thing to remind yourself in such a fast paced/demanding environment that we all seem to be drowning in. Often the small, tumultuous problems that add up are caused by being stuck in the weeds and not seeing the big picture. Reminding yourself that there is always an ‘escape up to higher ground’ lets you look at the root cause of these problems instead of constantly applying band-aid solutions that never last. Are all of these tasks necessary? What is driving them? Can we change the procedure? Why are we responsible, can/should someone else own this? How do we make it easier for our team and our clients to complete while staying compliant? These are all questions my leadership team likes to ask when things start to feel overwhelming.
Great stuff! Thank you for sharing this. I plan to forward on to others.
I’m looking forward to devouring (active reading) this new book!
Quicksand has hit in numerous stages of my career and escape can be hard!
Thank you!
Is escape the right term here? It seems like the term “escape” is trying to find a way out without addressing the situation… i.e. “run away”. The ideas you presented:
Confront Reality to stay grounded in truth and lead from a position of strength.
Grow Capacity to meet the demands of the moment and the challenges of the future.
Fuel Curiosity to maintain relevance and vitality in a changing world.
Create Change today to ensure a better tomorrow.
Are addressing the issues head on! I guess I’d like to read the book. 🙂
Sounds like a book I need to read!
Love that he starts with confronting reality – so easy to dance around that while in quicksand as a leader.
That is extraordinary! Thank you so much Dan for this inspirational conversation with Mark Miller. Leading change is challenging for many reasons, from external environment to organisational politics and individual team members opinion. We struggle with “using yesterday’s answer for today’s questions” and swimming in quicksand. Listening to you and reading your blog is really great. Keep inspiring millions!
Looking forward to reading the book. Sometimes our momentum is negative and we need to stop, drop and roll. 😉
Thanks for bringing Mark in Dan. I love his approach because it’s so obvious that his expertise in leadership was cut with “boots on the ground”. I don’t know anything about Chic-fila, but just having a guy like Mark on the leadership team makes me want to work there.
I needed this post today! I find myself trying to be the catalyst for change in my organization where historically the leadership team took the “swim” model, which seems like an endless, ongoing, non-sustainable way to lead a business! Thank you for this post.
Thanks for the post Mark. This feels all too familiar and I’d like to explore the concepts further in your book.
Thanks for sharing this valuable post with insight that will help me and my team move forward!
Great post! The “urgent” need is my quicksand.
Great Post! The urgent is my quicksand.
Thanks so much for sharing the interview Dan! I have learned so much from your posts and feel better equipped to serve the needs of my team! Reading Mark’s new book will definitely help propel my leadership journey even that much further!!
The analogy of quicksand is so fitting! Sometimes what feels like the right thing is swimming, that you will eventually get to solid ground. Maybe you will, but you’ll be exhausted. I feel exhausted most days, not quite sure what the next right step will be. I have been helped by the blog each day so I am excited to check our Mark’s books!
It certainly does seem the events of the past few years feel like quicksand. The pandemic has the same impact as quicksand on leadership – we just cannot seem to move forward. It is taking constant ingenuity to escape from it and it is exhausting. However, to survive we must continue to pull ourselves up and out, moving further from the edge of catastrophe each time. Thanks for the visual insight.
Thanks much! Talking with my team about our “quicksand” today! This will help and I look forward to reading the book. Thanks!
Wow, what is my quicksand? I literally do feel like trying to swim in quicksand at times. Those four steps seem both easier and harder than they sound.
Outstanding analogy with the utilization of quicksand. Over the past 2 years, my quicksand continues to expand its reach due to current industry volatility. Appreciate the wisdom and knowledge.
Thank you Dan. I’m really enjoying your daily posts and look forward to an opportunity to read Mark’s most recent work. Thank you for your continued contributions to the world of leadership.
I’ve been struggling lately with trying to identify that paralysis that can come from the overwhelming responsibilities of being a leader. Quicksand hits it! Too many of us try to swim out of it and away from it, or just sit still waiting for someone to come to the rescue. I love the four action steps. Look forward to reading this book.
We all must think about scaping in the best way for us and for the team when in a moving sand situation. The difficult part is figuring out a way, that comes with experience. Thanks for sharing
Thanks Dan and Mark. Dan you always interview the great thought leaders! Both of you are amazing! I tune it daily. Thank you for helping me and on my journey. We can find ourselves in quicksand in our personal and professional areas of our lives and it can be so hard to find a way to escape, but is necessary as staying afloat is only a temporary solution and is not sustainable. Now that you can stay afloat, what’s next? Now that you have reached that step on the stairway, how to do you get to the next step and so on? Specific successes are short-term. If you do not continually challenge and brainstorm, you will sink. Never stop! Even when you find a solution to escape the quicksand, if you do not continue the journey, you will eventually end right back up in quicksand.
This is great information!
Always looking for opportunity to learn. As someone that is working my way into a leadership role, I look for little tidbits where I can find them. This daily post being one of my first stops every day, thank you Dan!
I appreciate this post! It resonates and is timely. As we continue to persevere through Covid, the work-life balance scales keep tipping and the ‘status quo’ doesn’t keep up anymore. It’s been challenging leading through these times, and I’d love to hear more about how to escape the quicksand!
Thanks for sharing! As I continue to develop my career, I always find myself looking for opportunities to continually learn and grow. This book sounds like one of those opportunities to help shape my way of thinking as I prepare for the next steps in my current role.
Great post. Need to remind myself that sometimes I am just swimming and not escaping.
Linking CHANGE and LEADERSHIP along with the shared decision process is right on point. Thank you for the thoughtful discussion. Leaders have to have the “why” in focus as the environment moves, sometimes there is a small amount of quicksand and sometimes it is like the deep end of the pool. If the focus shifts to the short term and loses the “why” the organization is going to struggle. Thank you again for the great topic.
Thanks for the information! Your posts are always helpful!
I’m particularly interested in Miller’s work because it sounds great for leaders who have ADHD and Executive Function Disorder.
Thank you for this post! I often tell team members (and personal relationships) to acknowledge what’s happening right now but don’t live there. You’ll most certainly drown in the quicksand if you do. I look forward to researching Mark more to discover how to escape when you feel yourself drowning.
My quicksand is to introspect and review the facts before making a decision. Also, I am in a habit of consulting a core team to know their views keeping an organization’s interest in mind.
So good. Thank you. This book will help so many of us face the challenges of the day and the future, grow/develop, and innovate to overcome and lead through the future.
Love the quicksand metaphor! I’m a master at creating my own, escaping? Not so much… very interested in this book; sounds very helpful
Thank you for this post. Interesting parallel….quick sand….Effective leadership calls for leaders to take themselves and their team(s) beyond the present, to higher, more solid foundations in their professional, and, most often, personal lives. A monumental privilege and responsibility in every way.
Great thoughts here. I also encourage not trying to face reality and escape the quicksand by yourself! Surround yourself with great advisors and other business owners who have faced similar challenges.
My current reality is attempting to conduct business under the many constraints of this pandemic affected environment.
My quicksand is attempting to remain competitive from a timing and cost perspective, at the same time setting realistic expectations that will stand true, all while competing with the seduction of false promises.
Hi Dan,
Facing reality, being real with ourselves. That is I think the biggest challenge that we face. Almost any other thing can be delegated away, and we can easily walk in Integrity with others, yet being honest with ourselves in a constructive manner is often one of the hardest things to do. I think the challenge is being honest with yourself, without berating yourself and fending off a sense of inadequacy for the task. Conversely if the task wasn’t bigger than us we wouldn’t find it a challenge and would be complacent. Learning to strike that balance is hard but rewarding when you can. I have found that just because I did it once doesn’t mean I wont be doing it again. We are all growing, all the time.
Sometimes struggle with all of the identified – and know my coaching clients do as well. Always hungry to learn and apply strategies that work for others. My personal key strategy is to have clarity if desired results….and consistently holds me in a great place.
I’m curious to see ideas from other leaders on how to escape the quicksand! Working for a government entity that is technologically challenged, during a pandemic, has doubled everyone’s responsibilities and I often feel I am drowning just trying to keep up.
Great post Mark
I like this “escape” strategy. Good stuff.
I continue to Love to Learn. There have been some really good lessons that have come from the pandemic. Would love to have a copy of your book!
It was great listening to the interview. Since Covid I have see my purpose shift from something small to something big. With that purpose change my energy level has been on level 10 instead of 4 or 5.
Thanks for pertinent guidance. Truth has to be the foundation, no matter how ugly or undesired it may be. Building on pride mixed with what we wish was the case only leads to failure and shame. As with escaping quicksand, too, sometimes the best way to solve a dilemma is to stop thrashing about aimlessly
My current reality is a high level of turnover in an already small company. As a result the remaining leadership is stretched thin. I started with my company 7 months ago and was just promoted to Director, Change Management. I am going to have oversight over multiple new teams and implementation oversight but it was determined I would still perform the same functions as my prior leadership position on top of new responsibilities.
That job description appears (to me!) to actually be a prescription for failure instead of an actual job. Am thinking:
1. You were stretched thin with responsibilities in your job.
2. You just accepted a new full-time job with the same company while continuing with the “old job” that you have only held long enough to begin to succeed.
3. Ouch!
Best of luck and successes for you, but far more than “luck” is required, I am sure!
Craig
Dan, I’ve been reading your Leadership Freak posts for over 10 years, so much wisdom from you and your guests for greater healthy relational influence for leadership teams. Thank you! This one with Mark MILLER is exemplary! My wife and I were just talking about her current experience on a somewhat frenetic lead team. We would love a copy of the book; Smart Leader. From your post, there is much to glean from Miller’s experience and insight to apply to her situation.
Nice documentary 👍
Love the concept of “escaping” quick sand.
“These women and men have figured out how to move to higher, solid ground…”
Great post thank you! short and to the point. I love the references of sink swim or escape. I tend to swim and try to make everything work instead of saying no and having more structure boundaries. Thank you for introducing me to Mark Miller. I’d love to learn more and read one of his books 🙂
Anything you recommend is worth the read!
Very pertinent for the current issues/challenges in education. I definitely felt “direction” and steps towards being more productive and positive.
There a million distractions and small rocks that take time from the big rocks when you are not careful. Big rocks must take most of our time.
I’m a building principal at a small rural school in Ohio. Obviously, my quicksand right now is Covid and all the protocols that go with it.
What I’ve done this year that has helped me escape this quick sand is to delegate some of the tasks associated with Covid. I have people help me with contact tracing, phone calls, letters and emails. Last year, I took it all on myself. This has grown my capacity as a leader AND developed the leadership capacity of other potential leaders in my school.
I look forward to reading this book. Although I don’t currently have an identifiable “quicksand,” (or maybe not seeing one IS the quicksand) I know I have struggled with them in the past. Realizing that trying to swim in the quicksand is just a delayed sinking, one must move on to escaping. I am hoping this book will help me help others.
I love the analogy of quicksand! Great way to look at the things that distract us as leaders.
I would love a copy.
Thank you again Dan for a great way to start the day. In these crazy times we need to be reminded of the importance in “change” and climbing out, to the side or just being open to a different direction. thank you for keeping me in the mindset to just keep climbing and focus ahead.
If Mark Miller writes on leadership or culture, I want to read it! Hope to read this one soon too.
Dan,
I couldn’t agree more. The only way we have been able to stay productive thru these last few years was to confront our reality and find a way to serve our community. There was a lot a stake but we pushed the limits and we definitely met the challenges in the moment. Wow you and Mark touched some great points and once again gave me positive food for thought!!!
Thank you
Marvin Yeager
My quicksand is the endless to do list and commitment to getting through it without always prioritizing to see which fires can burn themselves out . Sometimes my need to be everything for everybody stands in the way of the reality of what I actually need to do and where my attention needs to be. In implementing change, I want to both inspire and attend to the minutia in the details which, too, can impact my ability to be grounded in reality.
Curiosity is the key to smart leadership – always looking to, and help others learn and grow
Yes I would like to have a copy of Smart Leadership.
Love this
Love this man
Can’t wait
So thankful you did this
Hope I can win a copy of that book.
His books have really helped myself and my team
Thanks for continuing to bring significant thought leaders, authors, and leaders to your blog. Love the insights they share!
Thank you for sharing your insights! This content is incredibly valuable.
Excellent post and speaks the truth. Seeing many challenges in healthcare and leaders are feeling the strain big time.
Thank you for sharing. I recently joined the Leadership Freak Blog. Love the content.
Thought inducing post, thank you. The concept of being in quicksand, instead of the overused “sink or swim” which implies an ocean/water, is something to contemplate and seems to fill that gap in describing the environment I sometime find myself in.
Great post – another one that hits to the point nicely and quickly! This caught my eye particularly because I am currently scaling my organization and leadership team and I can see that my potential quicksand is still feeling compelled to be in the details. I trust my team whole-heartedly. I just need to remain focused on imagining and strategizing the future for my team and not make up responsibilities (quicksand of tasks) that they are well positioned to do.
This was a very thoughtful post. And I am looking forward to reading more from Mark Miller.
As a new leader, it’s can easily seem like it’s ALL quicksand.
All of those three options might even lead to more disaster.
Great stuff here! Thank you!
I’m in education, and the last couple of years have definitely felt like quicksand. I love the points this post made- while we didn’t feel like we had a lot of options, it has been so empowering to work with leaders who confront reality (because giving up is NOT an option), help us to learn new techniques, and create a new way of educating our students. I can’t wait to read this book and share the knowledge with other leaders in my profession. Thank you so much!
Love this blog and look forward to the opportunity to read the book.
I am interested to read the book . Thanks
Sounds like a solid read!
I feel like I oscillate between swimming and escaping with no real consistency. I will read the book to learn how to escape permanently. Thank you for analogies that make us think.
Getting to that higher ground can be a real struggle, in some instances, I have found. I love that analogy. Building capacity – that strong foundation that comes with adding great people to your team – is definitely key! Thank you.
Amazing. I lead a small professional firm and am going through some quicksand now. It has been so frustrating as I can not seem to find a way out – and my team is following me into it – YIKES. Thank you and looking forward to reading the book.
More often I find myself having so many goals to pursue but having to focus on one at a time is of great accomplish.
Crisp and spot on! One needs to take a break and breathe and understand that they are in a QUICKSAND.
I remind people that we slow down on a bumpy road. Moving forward swiftly only adds to bumpiness. Only slowing down and understanding the road, the patch of the path enables us to go not smoothly, but with less bumps.
Agree with most of you… And it seems to me one thing will eventually emerge: How to catch the choice points precisely.
Thanks Mark for the insightful and transformational thoughts. I would add “Threading” as one of the choices to get out of the quicksand. Very often leaders make hasty decisions when faced with challenges. When troubled, our ability to be rational and sensible is often clouded. We need to “be still” and know God is part of the equation of deliverance.
I think a smart leader also needs to build a team. To go fast, one works alone. But to go far, one works with others. Lone rangers can never be smart leaders. Together, Everyone Achieves More – this is the DNA for effective smart leadership.
Looking forward to reading Mark’s new book. He does such a great job teaching important leadership principles in a very relatable way so that they stick with you longer. Excited about the launch party via Zoom this afternoon. Thanks!
Sounds great! Anxious to eventually read this book!
Leadership books (especially the ones that Dan recommends!) are always on the top of my to-read list 😀