My Seven "C"s

What is my leadership style? How will I approach the many challenges facing us? How will I engage you as an individual and collectively as a team? All good questions.

Here is the model I use for how I approach all these items and more importantly, how I approach each day. I call it Sailing my Seven "C"s.

I think about the days gone by where men would board ships with their handpicked crew and set sail to a foreign destination using only thier faith in their boat, themselves, their crew, and a good compass. As I start a new challenge, whether it be a new job, new learning path, or new period in my life, I compare it to getting on a new boat and setting sail to a new destination. It's exciting and terrifying at the same time for you won't know what you will find once you get there. Maybe treasure, maybe trouble. The adventure is in the travel, not the destination. That's the beauty of life.

So when I get on a new boat, I always take the same two tools and always give attention to the same two things. Based on my destination and path getting there, my attention on other things vary. For this endeavor, here are my seven "C"s.

Tools:

1. Curiosity

2. Compass

Attention:

3. Core (The Captain)

4. Cohort (The Crew)

5. Clients

6. Community

7. Company

Curiosity - One theme I find among all successful leaders and individuals is their insatiable curiosity. Curiosity means asking questions, be inquisitive, and being open to accept alternative ideas and thoughts. (Is that enough of an alliteration).

Compass - A compass gives you direction. My compass is my vision. That place I want to head for but not telling me the specific route to go.

Core - One of the things I struggled with early in my career is spending enough time developing my own skills. I was spending so much time focused on my team and other things, that I was not pushing my own development. Wrong move. It is critical that I am always learning new things and stretching my own boundaries.

Cohort - This is my crew, my coworkers, my team. No good captain can make the trip alone and when storms hit and things get rough, your team is the one that will help you get through them. Once I have a good team, it is them important

Clients - Without clients, we don't have a business. It is critical that the vision and the team are aligned with our clients' needs.

Community - The business community is a vital source of knowledge, learning and inspiration. Not engaging with this group greatly inhibits my capacity to understand trends and direction.

Company - Finally, it's important that our vision and our direction align with the overall company direction. If I were a profiteer looking for treasure, my company is my benefactor financing my trip. I must keep our collective goals in mind when I set sail.