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As a leader you need to cultivate and build your team’s confidence. Your team should have confidence in them self as well as confidence in your leadership skills. In general people will judge the probability of future success based on past performance. As you work with your team you will build a consistent history based on past successes and failures. If you maintain a good track record of success you will create a sense of optimism that future projects will also be successful. If you have a record of disappointment, your team will probably view any new projects as having a high chance of failing.

It is the job of the leader to select projects that will contribute to an overall sense of success within his team. By starting with projects that the team all believes will be successful a leader is able to raise the level of confidence for the next project. Over time the confidence of a team can be built to a point that it can complete a project that would have been a failure previously. A series of projects can be completed easily and successfully when they are ordered in such a way to build confidence while the same projects can all be complete failures when done in a different order.

The first project should very easy. Historically nations have built monuments to remind them of their success. While it might not be appropriate to create a sculpture or triumphal arch for every project, some projects serve as trophies themselves. Once a team has had some success, the difficulty of their projects can increase drastically. When leadership attempts to paint a failure as if it was really a success or just hide it completely it often amplifies the failure instead of minimizing it.

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Soccer matches are all about scoring goals and being winners. As a result, soccer can hold up a mirror to life since many humans also want to achieve goals and to be winners in the game of life. There is much to be learned about life in general from soccer players, managers and commentators.

When you listen to commentators on soccer matches, the key words they use again and again when teams are winning are words about character and attitude like belief, excitement, confidence, effort and so on. Soccer skills and strategies are important but mean little without the right attitude.

Team managers urge their players to show focus, determination and maximum effort. They tell them they should expect to win and not to show too much respect for their opponents no matter how famous they are.

I love listening to the comments of the great soccer managers. They have all been to hell and back. They are praised and popular when their teams win. They are criticised and even sacked when their teams fail to win. They know the heights of elation and the depths of despair. They have to find ways to deal with both and to keep motivating their teams to win.

Gordon Strachan took over as manager of Celtic, one of the top two clubs in Scotland, in 2005. It was not long before he experienced “the worst night of my life”

Bratislava beat Celtic 5-0 in the Champions league, the top European competition. His watch stopped after the match and he still wears it to remind himself that it was the worst night of his life. Celtic, the pride of Scotland, had been humiliated by a less famous team.

Other failures seemed small to him by comparison. We can all learn to deal with difficult situations by reminding ourselves of worst situations in our past or by imagining how much worse our lives could be than they actually are.

None of us knows for sure what will happen to us tomorrow. We could be seriously ill or even dead. Gordon has faced this possibility already. He told the media that on his gravestone he would like these words carved:

“This is better than that night in Bratislava.”

He uses the humour of exaggeration to deal with the criticisms of the media when things go wrong. A reporter commented when his team lost a match in Scotland:

“Bang, there goes your unbeaten run. Can you take it? “

“No,” said Strachan. “I’m just going to crumble like a wreck. I’ll go home,
become an alcoholic and maybe jump off a bridge. Hmmm….I think I can
take it, yeah.”

He knows the importance of positive thinking if you wish to achieve success.
One reporter foolishly asked: “There’s no negative vibes or negative feelings here?”

Strachan replied: “Apart from yourself, we’re all quite positive round here.
I’m going to whack you over the head with a big stick; down negative man,
down.”

Strachan often speaks with disarming honesty and schoolboy cheek. He is ready to admit that he and his players are not always at their best. He is ready to face reality. Facing up to reality is a key characteristic of the successful.

When he managed a team in England, a reporter asked him: “So, Gordon, in what areas do you think Middlesbrough were better than you today?”

Strachan replied: “What areas? Mainly that big green one out there….”

Strachan has had his defeats but recently he has led his latest team, Celtic, to undisputed victory in the Scottish Premier League. He is widely accepted as a great manager.

Another great manager now works in the English Premier League. He is Jose Mourihno, the manager of Chelsea. He came to England in June 2004 and soon showed his confidence in himself and his players. He wants only to be judged by the results. A good manager wins. A bad one loses:

“I’m not a defender of old or new football managers. I believe in good ones and bad ones; those that achieve success and those that don’t. Please don’t call me arrogant, but I’m European champion and I think I’m a special one”

He soon proved himself to be a ’special one’ in England as well as in Portugal, his native country. As the name ‘the special one’ suggests he believes in himself in a big way. A key factor in his success in England is his self-belief and a rich Russian backer who allows him to buy the best players in Europe. You can safely bet money that Chelsea will win almost all their matches.

The odds are not great but you could put £100 on Chelsea to win and make an easy £26 from your bet. Of course, this does not always work out. No team is perfect!

Mourinho is passionate about soccer but retains his sense of perspective and humour. Recently he was asked in London if he was concerned about losing the championship to his main rivals, Manchester United. His reply was typical of him:

“No, I’m more concerned about bird ‘flu.” The assembled press started laughing.

“Seriously; it’s that swan in Scotland that concerns me. It’s not that far from here!” (The swan was the first creature with bird ‘flu in the UK in 2006)

Over the last few weeks, his team, Chelsea, have been criticised for having players sent off for breaking the rules. When Jose was asked about his success away from home against West Brom, he commented ironically:

“Maybe we won because we played with ten men. That is our best tactic at the moment.”

However, he realises that the main reason Chelsea win so often is as follows:”We have top players and, sorry if I’m arrogant, we have a top manager.”

Public confidence is so rare in the UK that it is often mistaken for arrogance.

Jose does not believe in having favourites; he believes in the power of the team rather than the individual:

“I don’t want special relations with one of them (his players). I hate to speak about individuals. Players don’t win you trophies, teams win trophies, squads win trophies.”

Another great manager is Harry Redknapp of Portsmouth. He commented about his players in a match with Burnley which ended in a 2-2 draw:

“When the crowd was on their backs no one wanted to try anything in case they got booed. They were defensive and wanted to avoid mistakes.”

Harry understands human psychology. If we are too worried about appearing foolish or making mistakes we will fail to make things happen and we will not make full use of our abilities. We go into our shells and play safe.

I remember feeling like this when I played cricket at school. I tried to avoid being anywhere near the ball in case I dropped a catch. It was many years before I realised that I was quite good at catching!

A commentator remarked: “Harry knows how to get his teams going and how to restore their confidence. Now they expect to win at Fratton Park (the Portsmouth ground). They firmly believe they will win.” Recently they have won three games in a row and are on their way to escaping relegation to a lower division.

Another manager, Stuart Pierce, of Manchester City also knows the importance of confidence: “We need to go out and really believe we can play a bit.”

What key success lessons can we learn from the above?

Skill is important but attitude is even more important. We should expect to win and not show too much respect for the obstacles in our path whether they are human or otherwise and whether they are real or imaginary. We need to believe in our own ability and expect to win even if this makes us seem arrogant.

We should handle failures by reminding ourselves that things could be much worse. Retaining our sense of humour also helps. Teamwork is a key factor in many types of achievement. We should not be worried about making mistakes whether we are playing soccer or cricket or the game of life.

We need to face up to reality and be willing to be judged by the results we achieve as well as the effort we put in. On the whole, I think, that the effort we expend is more important. We cannot always control the results but we can control the effort we put in. The same manager can lose with one team and win with another. He is still the same person and he still made the same efforts.

I’ll leave you with a final quote from Gordon Strachan who has been both a winning and a losing manager:

A reporter asked: “Gordon, can we have a quick word?”

“Velocity”, replied Gordon as he walked off.

About the author

John Watson is an award winning teacher and fifth degree black belt martial arts instructor. He has recently written several books about achieving your goals and dreams.

One of these can be found here

http://www.motivationtoday.com/36_laws.php

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Having studied successful people in all walks of life — in business, sport, the arts, science, politics, and other fields — it seems clear to me that successful people share a very similar mindset.

In fact, this “success mindset” has 7 critical elements or keys that virtually propel such people to achieving the loftiest of goals.

It follows that if YOU absorb and harness these 7 key qualities, you too will accomplish success in your endeavour.

And fortunately, these success factors aren’t secret or exclusive — they are latent qualities you already have within. You just need to harness them in pursuit of your current goal!

So what are these 7 critical keys to achieving success?

Let’s discuss each one in turn.

1. Commitment

Commitment is about deciding exactly what you want and being willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it.

Being committed is more than being “motivated” or even “determined.” While motivation and determination indicate a willingness to succeed, commitment is stronger: it allows for no alternative.

If you are committed to achieving something — you MUST achieve it, no matter what!

2. An Open Mind

Now, being committed to a goal is all very well. But what if your goal is, to put it bluntly, unrealistic? Or what if your strategy for achieving that goal is flawed?

What if you lack key information, skills, talents, contacts or other resources that are essential for achieving the success you desire?

Let’s take the issue of unrealistic goals first.

Contrary to what some self-help gurus seem to suggest, there are some goals that are out of your reach, no matter how much you may “commit” yourself to achieving them.

I, for example, am simply never going to be a champion swimmer. I simply don’t have the physique, the talent, or the years of training under my belt. Being open-minded, I can see and accept this fact.

Likewise, having an open mind allows YOU to distinguish between what is worth committing yourself to and what isn’t.

Open-mindedness also helps you find the best strategy for achieving your goal.

In your quest to succeed, you’re almost certain to make mistakes… or, as I like to regard them, “valuable learning experiences”!

This is not only fine — it’s invaluable.

As long as you do, in fact, learn from your mistakes. And better yet — you learn from other people’s mistakes (a much less stressful and less costly way to learn!).

So while being committed without being open-minded is akin to “backing the wrong horse” — having an open mind and being willing to learn almost guarantees that you’ll find the best possible strategy for achieving your goal.

3. Persistence

Success doesn’t come easy.

Okay, it depends on how you define “success” and “easy” but from what I’ve experienced and observed, it takes a lot — in some cases mammoth — patience, endurance, resilience, courage… in short, persistence, to achieve anything worthwhile.

You’re going to make mistakes. You’re bound to suffer setbacks. You will confront challenges…

But to succeed, you need to get right up after you’ve been kicked to the ground.

That’s persistence.

4. Flexibility

On the other hand… just as being committed without being open-minded is a recipe for failure, so too is being persistent without being flexible.

This is called being “stubborn” or “pig-headed”.

What good is it if we “persist” in making the same mistakes over and over?

No good at all.

That’s why you need to be flexible — to adjust your plans when circumstances change.

To take advantage of unexpected opportunities.

To account for unforeseen hazards.

5. Faith

You might think that commitment, having an open mind, persistence, and flexibility are enough to succeed. But I’ve found that three remaining factors are essential for maintaining that commitment, open-mindedness, persistence and flexibility!

Not to mention helping us enjoy the day-to-day journey towards accomplishing our goals!

The first of these is faith.

In many cases, it takes days, months, sometimes years of chipping away at the old block before you have a work of art to show off.

In other words, you may be working day and night on something, without seeing or experiencing any “evidence” that you’re making progress.

How do you keep going when it feels like you’re making absolutely no headway?

The answer is: faith!

Faith that with commitment, having an open mind, persistence and flexibility, you will succeed!

6. Thankfulness

Chances are that simply by being on the path that you’re now on — even having the opportunity to read this article right now — you have more opportunities than most people in the world.

There is much to be thankful for.

And what a great frame of mind it is to appreciate each day, each hour, each minute, each moment you have on this Earth!

Being thankful is also great for “opportunistic” reasons. By being thankful for the resources and opportunities you have, you’re more likely to value and get the most out of them.

And you’ll also be able to cope with difficulties more easily. After all, you’re still better off than most people, right?

7. Passion

Finally, the seventh critical key to success: passion!

When you’re passionate about what you do, you enjoy the journey — you enjoy the training, the practice, the research, the seemingly tedious and difficult tasks, in short, the “work” involved in achieving your goal.

And when you enjoy the journey… you keep going!

In fact, when you’re passionate about what you do, you don’t see difficulties as difficulties… you see them as challenges in a fun and rewarding “game”.

And when you’re passionate about what you do, you also do all those little, teeny-weeny things that make all the difference between big-time success… and mediocre success… or failure.

Simply put, passion is the fuel that not only keeps your motor running, but keeps it running at its absolute peak.

Commitment, an open mind, persistence, flexibility, faith, thankfulness and passion - these are the 7 critical keys to success!

Now you might think these are a little abstract — not practical attributes or resources (things like practice, or contacts, or money) that are necessary to accomplish your goal.

But if you think about it, the more practical or material attributes and resources all become available to you once you have the 7 critical success keys.

Think about it a little…

And then focus on developing these 7 critical keys to success. You’ll achieve your goals much faster and more enjoyably than you ever thought possible!

Anna Johnson is the creator of the inspiring 1 minute movie, A Bit Of Inspiration. Enjoy the movie and get inspired! Then claim your free A Bit Of Inspiration screensaver - your daily reminder of the power you have within.

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In any organization effort can be divided into two categories. Effort that helps achieve the vision and effort that does not. It is probably impossible for an organization to operate at 100% efficiency. When information is lacking the mind becomes creative. In a study people were exposed to a situations in ways that certain details were intentionally unknowable. When repeatedly questioned about some of these unknowable details, the subjects began to remember things that they had never seen. The subject’s brains were filling in details purely from imagination.

Now think about an organization full of people with an incomplete understanding of the vision. Since a good deal of this personal vision comes directly from their imagination, it is not surprising what they create often is more aligned with their personal vision than the actual vision of the organization. This isn’t something you can stop. It is the natural way the human mind works.

If half of an individual personal view of the vision is coming just from their own imagination, it is likely that half of the effort they are expending is not in alignment with the true vision of the organization. If everyone in the organization is doing the same thing then it is likely that half of the organization’s effort is being expended toward the focused vision and the other half is pulling the organization in different random directions.

Much of the benefit of a large organization, is the efficiency that comes from having many people all putting forthh effort toward the same goal. When a leader regularly communicates a clear vision, the amount of wasted effort is minimized.

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Leadership Training Will Develop Your Pattern Skills
By: Bill Thomas

Who is the better leader, Sarah or Jim? Both are managers of
their respective departments, they’ve taken similar leadership
training courses and they have the same number of team members.
According to their bosses, they are well-respected supervisors
and they seem to be equally as effective as the other.

However, when surveyed, Sarah’s people rank her leadership as
being superior to Jim’s style. In particular, Sarah was seen as
caring, committed, casual and highly competent. On the other
hand, Jim’s teams felt his leadership style lacked compassion, a
clear focus, empathy and control over most circumstances. What
could account for these glaring differences?

Most leadership training courses fail to prepare leaders for the
realities confronting them and their people - that we operate in
and need to manage the whirlwinds of our complex lives. People
are physical beings, we think and calculate, aspire towards
ideals and feel emotions, we have family, household, social and
community responsibilities.

Somehow, leaders have to understand and manage the challenges of
the human condition. Short of becoming a master sociologist,
psychologist or cultural anthropologist, successful leaders like
Sarah have learned to handle those challenges by employing a
variety of work patterns.

Sarah’s Success Pattern One - Show Them You Care, In-Time!

While she doesn’t spend hours of her time doing so, Sarah does
make it a priority to inquire about, linger around and delve
into the personal lives of her people every single day. Of
course, she asks them how their day is going but she puts even
more effort and emotion into concentrating on a family problem
or relationship situation of her one or two people.

For instance, Sarah made some time to ask Helen about her son’s
weekly football game and found out he was slightly injured -
Sarah heard Helen’s concerns for her son’s safety so Sarah
decided to give Helen information about parental support groups
and the next day she shared a few sports injury website
locations with Helen too.

What Sarah really gave Helen was her time and attention - Helen
was shown appreciation and concern for being a mother, caregiver
and homemaker. Sarah’s total investment in time was a mere 20
minutes, the return on her investment was Helen’s loyalty, trust
and commitment to helping the department succeed.

Sarah’s Success Pattern Two - Bridging The Gaps, In-Knowledge!

Jim believes leading is commanding, however, Sarah views leading
as an exercise in learning. A few times each week, Jim gets
unpleasant surprises and once or twice a month, he receives a
disturbing shock.

Sarah actively assumes she has gaps, shortfalls and errors in
her knowledge - so she methodically and persistently looks for
ways to gather as much information as possible. She relies on
the different perspectives, the answers to open-ended questions
and the ‘possibility-thinking’ of others to strengthen her base
of knowledge.

Being a “student” of human nature, the workings of Nature and
the dilemmas of the human condition, gives Sarah’s leadership
competence many opportunities to blossom.

Sarah’s Success Pattern Three - Provide Superior Service,
In-Deed!

Jesus Christ taught, “The greatest among you, will be servant of
all.” History proves the wisdom His words - the most successful,
enduring leaders have left legacies of great service for those
whom they led - just ask the people of India (Gandhi), Israel (
Moses), USA (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.), African-
Americans (Lincoln & King), South Africa (Mandela & Tutu), or
Great Britain (Churchill).

Sarah’s leadership style involves asking about, listening for
and clarifying the needs, desires or experiences of her
associates. She successfully serves the ideals of her team’s
mission by:

=> Accepting the risks and uncertainty inherent in all decisions,

=> Realizing how humility and meekness leads to wise
deliberations

=> Avoiding the unethical, immoral behaviors which result in
failed ventures

Using conversations with her followers and the counsel of other
accomplished leaders, Sarah treasures their wisdom, she
discovers new ways to be of service and she makes more on-target
decisions.

————————————————————

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to
learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for
their apparent disinclination to do so.” - Douglas Adams

As we seen in Sarah’s examples, leadership invokes the acts of
looking, learning and loving. Sarah also inspired us to adopt
open-minded, possibility-oriented, self-regulating attitudes.

Effective leaders employ patterns of behaviors, priorities and
styles to study, serve and support their people, their missions
and their knowledge. Leadership skills training courses which
include the subject of work patterns provide leaders with
reliable foundations for success.

“Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.”
- Saint Thomas Aquinas

Brotherly love, faith, inquisitiveness, service and creativity
are willful acts - when you intend on being like, acting like or
becoming like those actions, you will achieve them. Wise leaders
use pre-determined patterns of actions, resource usage and
mental controls to energize their visions and transform the
ordinary into the extraordinary reality.

Copyright © 2006, Mustard Seed Investments, Inc.,
All rights reserved.

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We are going to ask you to begin with kinesthetic anchors. They
seem to be the easiest to learn, and the most useful. You’ll generalize naturally from those. You can anchor in any system. Pair up again, A and B. You are both going to operate in both positions.

A, your job is to do the following: Face B and place your right hand lightly on B’s left knee. Then ask an accessing question: “Do you remember the last time that you had a really good personal success ?

Wait for an appropriate response. You have got to be able to detect a response before you can anchor it. As you begin to see changes, you begin to apply pressure with your hand. You observe the changes in the parameters of muscle tone, skin color, breathing, lip size, etc. As you detect them, let those actually drive the pressure in your hand.
When the changes level out, then you just lift your hand off. Then you will have a perfectly timed anchor. Don’t anchor initially until you can see a difference in your success response.

Your ability to see a difference depends on how forceful you are in amplifying what you are getting. If you do things like this: (low, slow voice) “Have you ever been really excited?” or (high, quick voice)

“Have you ever been really sad?” that won’t work as well as if you congruently say excitedly “Look, have you ever been really excited?

The more expressively you access, the more expressively they will
respond.

Then you place your left hand on their right knee, and ask them
“What in your experience is the opposite of that?” They will access whatever is the opposite, for them. As the changes occur, again you increase the pressure as you see the changes until they plateau, and then lift your hand off.

Then you have two anchors. What we want you to do is to use one,
and notice the changes. Pause, and then use the other one, and notice the changes.

See if you can regularly get the same response when you use your anchors.

When you are satisfied that you have two anchors that work, and
you can see the difference between them, then we want you to hold both at the same time, for about 30-60 seconds, and watch an amazing event, called “integration.” Watch your face. You will first see half of the face with one of those responses and the other half with the other, and then they will integrate. Anchors are not buttons; you have to hold them until you see the full response.
Once the integration begins, you don’t have to hold any more.
The purpose of this exercise is not to do therapy with your success.

The purpose is simply for you to verify with your own sensory
apparatus that anchors exist, and that you are capable of anchoring all you are doing for further personal development and success .

(C) copyright 2006 Mohammed Magdy Ahmed, Certified Practitioner of N.L.P; Neuro Linguistic Programming from American Board of N.L.P.

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