Change—Becoming a Champion

You may be disappointed if you fail; trust you are doomed if you don't try.
BEVERLY SILLS

In life, always tell yourself that things are fine as they are, but
would be even better if they were different.
JEAN-PAUL FILION

Change is a fact of life in the new millennium. Those who are waiting for the dust to settle are living in a world of fantasy. Change will continue, with one difference — it will happen more often and it will take place in bigger increments. You must adapt or die like the dinosaur. Here are some strategies to help you become the master, not the slave.

AVOID BEING JUDGEMENTAL
1. Keep an open mind about situations and events around you. Don't allow personal prejudices to cloud your vision. Don't rush to judgement. Listen and let yourself be influenced rather than clouding your mind with rebuttals. Give others the benefit of the doubt. Ask yourself if your resistance is based on fact or on a personal bias.

KEEP ON LEARNING
2. You're never too old to learn. In fact, we can learn something every day. Don't wait for the classroom — learn from your mistakes. Maintain an attitude of inquisitiveness. Find out everything there is to know from those willing to share. Read voraciously — books, magazines, the Internet. Jot down key points of interest and keep them in a file to review regularly.

LOOK FOR THE NEXT TREND
3. Trends and fads are not the same, nor are they necessarily bad. The fact is that organizations, like people, follow trends. By observing and learning about what is new, you can position yourself as an expert and take a leadership role in making changes. This will give you greater control of the changes.

FOSTER A RESOURCE NETWORK
4. Continually expand your sources of help and information. Keep in touch with people whose careers are taking off. Find out what they are doing, that perhaps you are not. Subscribe to magazines that stay on the leading edge. Look for key articles each month.

BE A PROBLEM-SOLVER, NOT A PROBLEM-CREATOR
5. Anyone can spend his life identifying problems. There are more than enough to go around. Pointing these out can become tiresome to the people around you, particularly if they respond with "It's not my job." Be willing to identify solutions if there is a problem, and consider making time to solve it. This will earn you a reputation as a "fixer" — the kind of person chosen for promotions.
ENJOY YOURSELF
6. Have fun. Laugh a lot. It's contagious. Life's too short not to have fun. People work better when they are enjoying themselves. And humour enables everyone to relax and open themselves to change.

KEEP A POSITIVE ATTITUDE
7. Every new situation can be looked at in one of two ways: as a problem or as an opportunity. Choose the highway, not the byway. Make each challenge an opportunity to test your intellect and resilience.

SHOW INDEPENDENCE
8. Some people are dependent and others independent. Dependent people point to others when they are challenged. They say, "You screwed up," "It's not my responsibility," "You decide." Independent people say, "I'll fix it," "I'll take responsibility," or "I'll make the time." Be willing to step up to the plate. No one ever learned to play the game from the bleachers.

Source: The Portable Mentor: Your Anywhere, Anytime Career Coach and Problem Solver
by Cy Charney

Leader Basic Tools

Leaders come in every size, shape, and disposition—short, tall,
neat, sloppy, young, old, male, and female. Nevertheless, they
all seem to share some, if not all, of the following ingredients:
• The first basic ingredient of leadership is a guiding vision.
The leader has a clear idea of what he or she wants to
do—professionally and personally—and the strength to
persist in the face of setbacks, even failures. Unless you

know where you’re going, and why, you cannot possibly
get there. That guiding purpose, that vision, was well illustrated
by Norman Lear.
• The second basic ingredient of leadership is passion—the
underlying passion for the promises of life, combined with
a very particular passion for a vocation, a profession, a
course of action. The leader loves what he or she does and
loves doing it. Tolstoy said that hopes are the dreams of
the waking man. Without hope, we cannot survive, much
less progress. The leader who communicates passion gives
hope and inspiration to other people. This ingredient
tends to come up with different spins on it—sometimes it
appears as enthusiasm, especially in chapter eight, “Getting
People on Your Side.”
• The next basic ingredient of leadership is integrity. I think
there are three essential parts of integrity: self-knowledge,
candor, and maturity.
“Know thyself,” was the inscription over the Oracle at
Delphi. And it is still the most difficult task any of us
faces. But until you truly know yourself, strengths and
weaknesses, know what you want to do and why you want
to do it, you cannot succeed in any but the most super -
ficial sense of the word. Leaders never lie to themselves,
especially about themselves, know their faults as well as
their assets, and deal with them directly. You are your own
raw material. When you know what you consist of and
what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
Candor is the key to self-knowledge. Candor is based in
honesty of thought and action, a steadfast devotion to
principle, and a fundamental soundness and wholeness. An
architect who designs a Bauhaus glass box with a Victorian

cupola lacks professional integrity, as does any person who
trims his or her principles—or even ideas—to please. Like
Lillian Hellman, the leader cannot cut his or her conscience
to fit this year’s fashions.
Maturity is important to a leader because leading is not
simply showing the way or issuing orders. Every leader
needs to have experienced and grown through following—
learning to be dedicated, observant, capable of working
with and learning from others, never servile, always truthful.
Having located these qualities in themselves, leaders
can encourage them in others.
• Integrity is the basis of trust, which is not as much an ingredient
of leadership as it is a product. It is the one quality
that cannot be acquired, but must be earned. It is given by
co-workers and followers, and without it, the leader can’t
function. I’ll talk about trust in greater detail in chapter
eight, “Getting People on Your Side.”
• Two more basic ingredients of leadership are curiosity and
daring. Leaders wonder about everything, want to learn as
much as they can, are willing to take risks, experiment, try
new things. They do not worry about failure, but embrace
errors, knowing they will learn from them. Learning from
adversity is another theme that comes up again and again
in this book, often with different spins. In fact, that could
be said of each of the basic ingredients.

On Becoming
a Leader by
Warren Bennis