Today is Day 6 in our 7 Day Series on Personality Traits of a Great Leader. At the end of the article is new Blog information just in case you are in a hurry and read the article yesterday. For those that missed yesterday thanks for joining me this morning.
Let me begin by saying I do not know Jim Rohn personally but he has had a huge impact on my life. I have learned a great deal from him and Michael Hyatt who he mentored. I wanted to post this article he wrote and teach further on each trait he mentions in this article. Please continue to research his materials and glean from his rich wisdom and vast knowledge.
7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader by Jim Rohn
The qualities of skillful leadership
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. Jim Rohn calls leadership the great challenge of life.
What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here’s how:
1. Learn to be strong but not impolite. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.
2. Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell someone the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3. Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, and discover the first sign of trouble. Like the farmer, if you want any rewards at harvest time, you have got to be bold and face the weeds and the rain and the bugs straight on. You've got to seize the moment.
4. Learn to be humble but not timid. You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It's an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem. Humility is almost a God-like word—a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, an awareness of the human soul and spirit, an understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars.
5. Learn to be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to build your ambitions. It takes pride in your community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is to be proud without being arrogant. Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It's intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.
6. Learn to develop humor without folly. In leadership, we learn that it's OK to be witty but not silly; fun but not foolish.
7. Learn to deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony of delusion. Just accept life as it is—the whole drama of life. It's fascinating.
Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. However, the fundamental skills of leadership can be adopted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community and at home.
I pray you learned from this article and will stay with me for the more day after today as we look at these leadership characteristics closer from a Bible prospective. Today we look at #6 Learn to develop humor without folly.
The definition of folly is lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight.
The definition of humor is the ability to be funny or to be amused by things that are funny.
I love to laugh and often say things that others find funny even when at times I never planned to do so. Much like Joel Olsten or John Hagee I like to open my sermons with a joke.
Here is an excerpt from Doris Donnelly:
"Jesus, for one, was witty, unpredictable, fully alive, and a person who delighted in, celebrated with, and was open to surprise.... [I]t is safe to say that divorcing humor from religion is potentially destructive of true religion. Even when the separation is done with the best of motives, or in ignorance, the results are disastrous because we rob ourselves of the lightness and freedom necessary to notice and then to adore God."
"Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness. "* G. Κ Chesterton
“A curious custom in the Greek Orthodox tradition gathers believers on Easter Monday for the purpose of trading jokes. Since the most extravagant "joke" of all took place on Easter Sunday—the victory, against all odds, of Jesus over death—the community of the faithful enters into the spirit of the season by sharing stories with unexpected endings, surprise flourishes, and a sense of humor. A similar practice occurs among the Slavs, who recognize in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth a joy that it is Jesus who has the last laugh.
The response of the Greeks and the Slavs seems to be most appropriate, and it is disappointing that these practices strike our contemporary mindsets as a little odd. Most mainline Christian congregations, after all, do not celebrate Easter quite this way.”
My mother use to say, “A little honey helps the medicine go down.” Another person once said, “When giving someone correction tell them something they do well, then bring the correction and then tell them something they do well again.” The beginning and end of the correction take the sting out of the correction so that they receive it rather than become hurt over it. I admit I intend to do this as a practice but fail miserably when it comes to those closest to me. In reality I need to practice this with those I love and care for the most.
Action step for today is to find the humor in life and circumstances but never to bring damage or hurt to others or to oneself. Laugh often but love always.
1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV) “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
Let me begin by saying I do not know Jim Rohn personally but he has had a huge impact on my life. I have learned a great deal from him and Michael Hyatt who he mentored. I wanted to post this article he wrote and teach further on each trait he mentions in this article. Please continue to research his materials and glean from his rich wisdom and vast knowledge.
7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader by Jim Rohn
The qualities of skillful leadership
If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. Jim Rohn calls leadership the great challenge of life.
What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here’s how:
1. Learn to be strong but not impolite. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.
2. Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell someone the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.
3. Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, and discover the first sign of trouble. Like the farmer, if you want any rewards at harvest time, you have got to be bold and face the weeds and the rain and the bugs straight on. You've got to seize the moment.
4. Learn to be humble but not timid. You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue; timidity is a disease. It's an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem. Humility is almost a God-like word—a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, an awareness of the human soul and spirit, an understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars.
5. Learn to be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to build your ambitions. It takes pride in your community. It takes pride in a cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is to be proud without being arrogant. Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It's intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.
6. Learn to develop humor without folly. In leadership, we learn that it's OK to be witty but not silly; fun but not foolish.
7. Learn to deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony of delusion. Just accept life as it is—the whole drama of life. It's fascinating.
Life is unique. Leadership is unique. The skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. However, the fundamental skills of leadership can be adopted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community and at home.
I pray you learned from this article and will stay with me for the more day after today as we look at these leadership characteristics closer from a Bible prospective. Today we look at #6 Learn to develop humor without folly.
The definition of folly is lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight.
The definition of humor is the ability to be funny or to be amused by things that are funny.
I love to laugh and often say things that others find funny even when at times I never planned to do so. Much like Joel Olsten or John Hagee I like to open my sermons with a joke.
Here is an excerpt from Doris Donnelly:
"Jesus, for one, was witty, unpredictable, fully alive, and a person who delighted in, celebrated with, and was open to surprise.... [I]t is safe to say that divorcing humor from religion is potentially destructive of true religion. Even when the separation is done with the best of motives, or in ignorance, the results are disastrous because we rob ourselves of the lightness and freedom necessary to notice and then to adore God."
"Life is serious all the time, but living cannot be. You may have all the solemnity you wish in your neckties, but in anything important (such as sex, death, and religion), you must have mirth or you will have madness. "* G. Κ Chesterton
“A curious custom in the Greek Orthodox tradition gathers believers on Easter Monday for the purpose of trading jokes. Since the most extravagant "joke" of all took place on Easter Sunday—the victory, against all odds, of Jesus over death—the community of the faithful enters into the spirit of the season by sharing stories with unexpected endings, surprise flourishes, and a sense of humor. A similar practice occurs among the Slavs, who recognize in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth a joy that it is Jesus who has the last laugh.
The response of the Greeks and the Slavs seems to be most appropriate, and it is disappointing that these practices strike our contemporary mindsets as a little odd. Most mainline Christian congregations, after all, do not celebrate Easter quite this way.”
My mother use to say, “A little honey helps the medicine go down.” Another person once said, “When giving someone correction tell them something they do well, then bring the correction and then tell them something they do well again.” The beginning and end of the correction take the sting out of the correction so that they receive it rather than become hurt over it. I admit I intend to do this as a practice but fail miserably when it comes to those closest to me. In reality I need to practice this with those I love and care for the most.
Action step for today is to find the humor in life and circumstances but never to bring damage or hurt to others or to oneself. Laugh often but love always.
1 Corinthians 13:8 (NIV) “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
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