The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 790 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 13 trips to carry that many people.
Review of Maxwell’s Leadership Keys: #8 – Enlarging Others
He’s a New York Times Bestselling management-guru and in “The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player” John C. Maxwell writes about being relational, or, as he puts it at the preface of the chapter, quoting Rabbi Harold Kushner: “The purpose of life is not to win. The purpose of life is to grow and to share. When you come to look back on all that you have done in life, you will get more satisfaction from the pleasure you have brought to other people’s lives than you will from the times that you outdid and defeated them.”
He relates Sir William Wallace of Scotland’s story. He dared to oppose King Edward I of England in 1313 (Maxwell, 2002, p.65).” In Braveheart, the movie, William was actually portrayed as a daring and determined fighter who valued freedom above all else. As second born, he had been groomed to enter the clergy and developed a resentment of the English after his father was killed and his mother was forced to live in exile. His decision to become a fighter came after a group of Englishmen tried to bully him and by his early twenties he was considered a skilled warrior.
His early ideological foundation was based on the high value he placed on freedom and allowed him to inspire his countrymen: He “had an unusual ability. He drew the common people of Scotland to him, he made them believe in the cause of freedom, and he inspired and equipped them to fight the professional war machine of England ((Maxwell, 2002, p. 65).”
His life was ultimately sacrificed in the battle against the English, and he was brutally executed in a manner worse than depicted in the movie, but his spirit lived on (to this day, 700 or so years later), so much so that another man, Robert Bruce, a nobleman inspired by his example, claimed the throne of Scotland the following year rousing both nobility and peasants to win Scotland its independence in 1314.
As above, here is what team players who enlarge others do: they value their teammates, value what their teammates value, add value to their teammates, and make themselves more valuable.
In valuing their teammates; Maxwell notes how Charles Schwab once observed, “I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism ((Maxwell, 2002, p. 6).”
Maxwell illustrates how enlargers value what their teammates value by pointing out how such people listen to what their teammates talk about and understand what they spend their money on. This knowledge, along with a desire to relate to their fellow players creates a strong bond between teammates.
The previous characteristic allows an enlarger the perspective in order to assist others in improving their abilities and attitudes and add value to their teammates. Looking for the gifts, talents and uniqueness in each individual, he helps them increase these abilities to the benefit of the entire team allowing them to get to a whole new level.
Finally enlargers make themselves more valuable by working at it and in doing so they are able to make others better too. A great player such as Karl Malone is assisted by a great passer like all-time assist leader John Stockton. Maxwell advises that to make others better be better yourself.
Maxwell’s final commentary on the above views on enlargers is particularly instructive as he empathizes that it is not always easy to be such a person; it takes a person who is self-assured and unafraid of giving – not one who believes that enlarging others somehow hurts one and one’s opportunities for success.
If one is able to overcome this hurdle, he has a few other interesting pointers to increase your abilities in this important area in the chapter which you might read to find out….
Nilesh (Neil)Shreedhar.
NeilShreedhar's Blog 