Undocumented Features

Lead Like Ahnald

March 26, 2008 – 8:13 am

So Friday afternoon I was having the brakes checked on my car.  The wait was, well… what you’d expect at a mechanic’s on a Friday afternoon.  Lying on the table there was a variety of magazines… mostly car mags, a few sports magazines… and on top of the pile, an Esquire magazine- open to this article on Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I’m not terribly much on politics, although I find myself becoming more interested as I grow older.  I haven’t paid a lot of attention to Arnold’s governorship off in California.  I couldn’t tell you, for example, if he’s doing a good job or a bad job.

Reading the article, though, I realize that I do admire him for one thing- the unbounded confidence.  The human way he seems to be engaging people.  When he had to make hard decisions that would affect people negatively, he brought them in to talk to them personally.  Whatever his political reasons for doing it, I guarantee those people appreciated the opportunity to be heard and to have input on the decisions and the courtesy of Arnold to talk to them face to face about his reasons for his decisions.

He makes an effort to engage and involve people.  He shows confidence.  He uses the tools at his disposal, and his strengths, to his advantage.  Many people in his situation would try to seperate his ‘Ahnald’ acting persona from his political career.  Arnold uses it for what it is- a strength that he had, and a powerful and valuable tool that can contribute to the succcess of what he’s doing.

There’s a number of things I think we can learn from the article:

• Be straight and honest with people.  Give them a chance for input.
• Try to make people feel included.
• Challenges are something that you face.  There’s no need to fear them.
• Your decisions are something you make the best you are able based on what you know.  There’s no need to have guilt about them.
• Take action and keep taking action.  If you must do things other people’s way, so be it.
• Family matters.  Balancing your personal life and your job is a must.  Guilt over either will affect the other.  Do whatever you must to be happy at both.
• Use your strengths to your advantage, even when others see them as a weakness.  Especially if others see them as a weakness.
• Be who you are.  It’s the only way to maintain your confidence.
• When your decisions have led you to an unpopular place, however right you were in them, stand firm.  Joke about it, smile about it, and acknowledge what you’ve done.   Keep standing by your decisions that led you there with confidence.
• You can will your way to success.  It is one of the greatest forms of confidence, and that confidence will carry you and your team.
• Speaking of confidence, show confidence.  Always.  It is your greatest tool as a leader.  That, more than anything else you do, affects and strengthens the people who follow you.

There’s many more lessons you can take away from the article.  Whether you agree with what Arnold’s doing as a governor or not, read the article and think about what it says about his leadership style.  Take the lessons to be gained there to heart.

Like this post? Buy me a cup of coffee.

Popularity: 22% [?]