Serve to Be Great

Hope for our Future Restored

March 27, 2013 Matt Tenney

The tremendous hope I have for our future has been restored once again.

I spent last week in Atlanta at the National Conference for the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities (APCA), where I presented to college students and their advisors.

I met many, many people over the course of the week. And, as usual, I didn’t bother with the Where are you from? What do you do? type of questions. I went right to what matters to me and asked, “What is your name and what are you most passionate about?”

Although I didn’t formally record the answers in a scientific way, I feel pretty confident in saying that around 60-70% of the students I met answered that question with some variation of, “I’m most passionate about helping others.”

I heard many inspiring examples of how these young people are actively engaged in serving their communities and focusing their energy not on how they can get more stuff or have more fun, but on how they can help the people around them and make our world a better place.

They seemed so wise beyond their years, already aware of the truth that the most joyful, meaningful life we can live is one that is devoted to service.

I had the good fortune of meeting one student from Northwestern State University of Louisiana who mentioned that he had a written an essay on how serving St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has absolutely changed his life. I’ve included this essay below. It is very inspiring, includes some great lessons on leadership, and is well worth the read.

Enjoy!

(As a side note, Michael would love to work for St. Jude in Dallas after he graduates this May. If you know anyone there who could help him do that, please let me know. He has an impressive resume, which I will gladly forward on to you.)

Leading as a Servant and Inspiring Change

Michael Ryan Stephenson

Growing up, I had many thoughts about what leadership meant. I thought that leadership meant having power, rank or distinction. I thought in order to be a good leader, one had to rule with an iron fist or be able to persuade people to do what they wanted them to do. I thought that leadership was about “I” and not “we.” Through St. Jude and in my growth as a person, I now know that those definitions are completely false. Because of St. Jude, I’ve learned that in order to become a good leader, one must first become a good servant. This new found definition of what leadership truly means has completely changed my life, guides my work and drives my passion. St. Jude has given me many things in addition to a new insight and perspective on leadership. It has given me the ability to realize my own leadership potential, it has given me transferable skills that I will use for the rest of my life and, most importantly, it has given me purpose. In all cases, St. Jude has helped me develop into a better leader.

Upon entering college, I was always involved but never in a capacity where I was seen as the leader of the group. I served on committees and participated in a variety of activities, but by no means considered myself a leader or thought that I could be. After getting involved with Up ‘til Dawn at Northwestern State, I started to realize that I could in fact be a leader. From serving on a committee to serving as Executive Director, St. Jude has allowed me the opportunity to unlock the leader within myself and has given me the faith and confidence to know that I can make a difference. UTD has given me the ability to become known as a trusted leader and a valuable resource to many facets of campus life. It makes me proud to automatically be associated with St. Jude and know that the organization has become notable on my campus. My involvement with St. Jude has also given me confidence in other aspects of my involvement. Because of that confidence and my new perspective on leadership, my fraternity elected me President and I have been inducted into two leadership honor societies. St. Jude has definitely been a springboard for my collegiate career and life. I do not think it is possible to understand how much this has meant to me and has helped with my development. It has given something that cannot be seen on a resume or in a portfolio – a new beginning.

St. Jude has given me a skill set that can be applied to many different areas of my life and future. It has developed and fine-tuned my communication, organizational and networking skills. The year-round work that goes into planning and executing an UTD finale event takes lots of communication. I have learned to effectively communicate with others within the campus and local community in order to create awareness and solicit help for the event. This has put me in many different positions – speaking in front of student groups, at city hall meetings and at school sponsored events. The ability to speak in front of large crowds and, more importantly, the ability to capture the hearts of people in order to make them feel conviction about something as special as St. Jude is invaluable. Before working with this organization, I would have never been able to do that. Organizationally speaking – the skills that revolve around event planning is one of my most valued skills gained from this organization. No matter what you do, the ability to manage people, time and resources is going to be a useful skill. The networking experience I now have is tremendous. It is so important to build a network, socially and professionally, and I have developed the skills to do that. Without realizing it, working to raise support and awareness for St. Jude has given me many tangible and intangible life skills that I was not expecting but value more than anything.

Most importantly, working with St. Jude has given me something that most search a lifetime for – a purpose. Before working with St. Jude, I felt like I had no real direction in life. I was lost and just going through the motions. Because of this outstanding organization, I have discovered my purpose in life – to help others through service. In particular, it has given me the aspiration to work in a non-profit setting that benefits children. In the words of our founder Danny Thomas, “all of us are born for a reason, but all of us do not discover why. Success in life has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It’s what you do for others. ” Knowing that I have a higher calling has filled me with a joy that is often hard to express in words. I know that I am important. I know that I exist for a reason. I know that I can inspire change.

Gandhi once said, “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service to others.” This is not something that I just believe – it is something that is now intertwined in my heart and being. It is amazing to think how one single event, UTD coming to Northwestern State, can change the course of your life forever, but I am fortunate to be involved with this cause and to now intern for St. Jude. It has been my pleasure to work with this organization and I hope to continue to learn more about myself as I further develop as a leader though raising support and awareness for St. Jude Children’s Research.

Did you like this post? To receive The Ultimate Leaders E-Zine for FREE, just Click Here. It includes all my blog posts, interviews with great leaders, and other resources to help you become the Ultimate Leader.

Servant Leadership, Student Leaders

Enhance Both Communication and Learning

March 21, 2013 Matt Tenney

Every day we are bombarded with messages that we don’t agree with. The resulting conversation might sound something like this: “I think this is the better way.” “No way! My way is better!”

What is your habitual reaction to ideas you don’t agree with?

I know what mine is. I want to correct what I see as an obvious error, and point out why my idea is correct.

Unfortunately, when we immediately resist ideas that don’t seem correct to us, we are cutting ourselves off from many opportunities, and we might be creating interactions that end up looking like the one below. If we are in a leadership position, we are also conditioning our people to avoid sharing ideas with us. This can be devastating to the performance of our team.

A new habit I’ve been working on whenever I hear an idea that I disagree with is to simply say, “That’s an interesting way of looking at that. Could you tell me more?”

There are several interesting results to this approach.

First, we get exposed to a whole new way of approaching an issue. So, even if we still don’t agree once we’ve heard more, our minds are a bit more open to other possibilities. This can help us to be more creative.

Second, the person with whom we’re communicating will feel heard. This results in them being more open to our view (should we decide to share it).

Third, communicating in this way builds trust and deepens our influence with the person.

All of this makes it much easier to lead. We are sending the message to our people that we will always at least listen to and respect their ideas. This is absolutely essential if we want to have a team that is creative and innovative.

Finally, if the idea is really not a good one, people will often realize it for themselves as they talk it out. And, some great innovations have been based on ideas that weren’t so good on their own, but amazing when integrated with another idea.

What are ways that you get people to share more about ideas that you don’t agree with?

Did you like this post? To receive The Ultimate Leaders E-Zine for FREE, just Click Here. It includes all my blog posts, interviews with great leaders, and other resources to help you become the Ultimate Leader.

Communication

The Power of Humility and Listening

March 19, 2013 Matt Tenney

A great example of a young leader transforming his campus by being a humble, servant leader. This story begins at the 11:30 point in the video, lasts for about a minute and continues for a couple minutes more at the 23:00 point.

In addition to Ben’s story, there are many great learning points in this interview with Dr. Stuart Rayfield of Columbus State University in Columbus, GA. She runs the Servant Leadership Program there, and offers some great examples of how students are improving their campus, their satisfaction in life, and their prospects for future employment by applying the principles of servant leadership. Dr. Rayfield is also a great example of humility herself.

Enjoy!

Interviews, Servant Leadership, Student Leaders

Interview with an Inspiring Student Leader – Francisco Ramirez

March 16, 2013 Matt Tenney

This is an interview with an inspiring student leader named Francisco Ramirez, who is devoted to serving others and is out there changing our world both as a great example of a servant leader and as a social entrepreneur.

He was a guest at Stanford the day of the interview. He took a break outside to speak with me.

Enjoy

If you’d like to see the video he mentions of the service project in New Orleans, here’s the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yltT2wZMg-I

Interviews, Student Leaders

A Review of the book Love Works by Joel Manby

March 13, 2013 Matt Tenney

I recently finished reading an excellent book by Joel Manby called Love Works. This is an enjoyable, inspiring, and verypractical read.

Joel became a veritable star overnight after he appeared on the TV show, Undercover Boss. Viewers got a taste of how Joel, who is the CEO of Herschend Family Entertainment (HFE), leads the company with love, based on the principles of servant leadership.

Over 18 million people watched that episode. After the show, Joel received an unbelievable amount of mail from people who were inspired and wanted to learn more about how they could become a better leader by applying the principles that Joel does, which, by the way, he states as being the key component to HFE’s success through the recent tough times. Over the last seven years, HFE has increased operating profit by 50% and earned a 14% return for its shareholders, significantly outperforming indices over the same period.

I highly, highly recommend this book to everyone because we are all leaders, whether we have a title or not. And, I especially recommend the book to leaders of organizations.

Joel shares seven timeless principles for becoming a more effective leader. Each chapter offers inspiration and very practical tools for actually applying the principles of servant leadership and leading with love in realistic ways within an organization.

The book is a quick read and definitely worth the time!

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Works-Timeless-Principles-Effective/dp/0310335671

Book Reviews, Servant Leadership

The Most Important Lesson I’ve Ever Learned

March 5, 2013 Matt Tenney 2 Comments

Within the last couple of months, I gained some clarity on what is the single most important core value for me – the number one filter for every decision that I make. This simple filter has absolutely transformed my life on so many levels, and I believe that it is very useful in terms of becoming a highly effective leader who inspires greatness in others.

I’ve found that the more closely I live up to this ideal, the more magical life becomes. Success in growing my business seems to be directly proportional to the degree to which I live up to this ideal. More important, the more closely I live up to this ideal the more happy I am. I often feel as though I am truly living in heaven on Earth.

I had been using this filter since about 2003 when I began living and practicing as a monk. However, I had this particular value split up into a few other words that I listed as separate on my list of core values. Recently, I realized that I could summarize these top three core values into one question: How will this help me to serve others?Although I certainly don’t live up to this ideal perfectly, moving in this direction has been life-changing.

To apply this tool, we simply filter every decision we make through the question: How will this help me to serve others? To put it another way, we are essentially giving up any concern for ourselves other than ensuring that we are doing what we need to in order to be in the best position to serve others. We make an effort to only consume or do what we need to do to ensure that we are happy and healthy, which means that we may give up some of our wants.

So, I’m not suggesting that we spend all of our waking moments actively serving other people. The vast majority of us would burn out pretty quickly if we tried to do that.

What I am suggesting is that if we can’t make a clear link between what we’re doing and how it will help us in some way to serve others, then we simply don’t do it.

For instance, some of us may need to see a movie every now and then to recharge our batteries. But do we need to see 3 movies a week? Probably not. That time could almost certainly be better spent elsewhere.

I don’t think there’s any magic answer for all people as to what the right balance is for doing things to recharge us, doing things to improve our capacity to serve, and actively serving others. However, I’m very confident that we can all find the right balance for ourselves if we simply start to apply the filter of “How will this help me to serve others?”

I’m also quite certain that if you start applying this filter, you will notice some amazing things start to happen in your life. You’ll be happier and you’ll be a more effective leader who serves and inspires greatness in others.

What are some ways that you might be applying this already?

Matt's Insights

Inspiring Story of a Student Leader

February 26, 2013 Matt Tenney

Happy Tuesday!!

This video interview includes a very inspiring story of a college student who was not doing so well and ended up transforming his life, the lives of numerous students and faculty members at his college, and the lives of many people in a city in Uganda. The story begins at the 5:20 mark.

The story is shared by Dr. David Howell, the servant leadership chair at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, who I interviewed recently. There are also plenty of other gems on the essence of great leadership in this interview, so be sure to check out the whole video when you have about 20 minutes. It’s well worth it!

Interviews, Student Leaders

A Starting Point – Who Are The Ultimate Leaders?

February 18, 2013 Matt Tenney

Dear Friend,

Welcome to The Ultimate Leaders! Thanks for visiting!

The purpose of this blog is to serve as a resource for people who aspire to become what I call the Ultimate Leader, which I define below, and to help build a worldwide community of highly effective leaders who serve and inspire greatness in others.

Here’s what you’ll find on this blog:

A wide variety of ideas, tools, inspiration for becoming a better leader and a better human being (to me the two go hand in hand)

Where will these ideas, tools, and inspiration come from?

Some will come from what I’ve learned on my journey as a prisoner, monk, and social entrepreneur
Some will come from highly successful leaders via interviews and guest posts

Who Are The Ultimate Leaders?

The Ultimate Leader may be a highly effective manager who leads a successful organization, but there is no requirement to have a title or position of authority. The Ultimate Leader is always leading by his or her example, whether or not she/he has a title or position of authority, and people naturally want to follow her/him.

I define the Ultimate Leader as someone who is committed to continuously growing to become the best human being she/he can be, who is committed to serving others, and who inspires true greatness in the people around her/him.

Grow

The Ultimate Leader is someone who is passionate about personal growth in all areas, including:

Becoming as competent and knowledgeable as possible about one’s profession
Becoming as competent and knowledgeable as possible about how to be an effective manager and leader
Always doing the right thing, even when it’s painful in the short term to do it
Becoming more kind, compassionate, generous, empathetic, patient, forgiving, honest, humble, and trusting

Serve

The Ultimate Leader is someone who understands that to lead is to serve others. The Ultimate Leader filters every decision through the question: How will this help me to serve others? (or aspires to move in that direction).

This mentality of serving includes:

Serving the people around us: helping them to meet their personal and professional needs
Serving our community
Making sure that we do what we need to (not necessarily want to) to ensure that we are happy and healthy and best able to serve others

Inspire

The Ultimate Leader inspires the people around her or him to achieve true greatness because she or he provides an example of being truly great. The Ultimate Leader also knows that by lifting others up and inspiring them to become better than they ever thought they could be, we are helping to ensure our success as leaders.

Why Are They the Ultimate Leaders?

The reason I call a leader like the one defined above the “Ultimate Leader,” is that such a leader is not only highly effective in terms of leading other people, such a leader lives a deeply meaningful and enjoyable life that is rich beyond measure.

I hope that this blog helps you in your efforts to become the Ultimate Leader.

I also hope that you’ll become part of the community and share your thoughts via comments on this blog, comments on our The Ultimate Leaders E-Zine page, or by submitting content for consideration as a guest post.

With a smile,

matt

Did you like this post? To receive The Ultimate Leaders E-Zine for FREE, just Click Here. It includes all my blog posts, interviews with great leaders, and other resources to help you become the Ultimate Leader.

A Starting Point