For the background of this list – see my original post from 2-10-12.

The #6 Rap Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style comes from Drake, making his first appearance on the countdown, straight out of Toronto.  The line actually comes from the Timbaland song that features Drake – Say Something. The line is:

“It’s funny how someone else’s success brings pain”

If you’re competitive, I mean really competitive, you might have felt this.  You’re working your tail off, only to see someone else have really good success, and it actually seems to hurt in your chest – like a burning feeling. It’s not that you wish ill towards the other person, or that you don’t even want them to have their own success – you probably do want them to be successful – but still there is that pain.

As a leader we have to be able to recognize this within our teams – that each and every one of our team wants success and they want each other to have success – but when some get it over others, many times those who don’t get it are going to have some frustration and pain.  It’s completely normal.  Many times we start believing these individuals aren’t “team players”, etc. because they don’t have a positive reaction to another teammates success.  So often I’ve seen this misdiagnosed!  It has nothing to do with how this one teammate feels about another teammates success – it has everything to do with how this individual is internalizing their own lack of success.

If we can understand this, help this person work through it to find their own success – many times you end up with an additional successful employee who is as engaged as ever.  I see organizations all the time ignore this, and the person takes off to another company and finds success there – when they could have stayed and found it where they were at.  Everyone in your organization is different – not everyone is going to see another person’s success as a huge positive.  It might be they feel, or have put, so much pressure on themselves to be successful – seeing someone else succeed just points our their own struggle.

Work with them – help them find their own success.  Don’t automatically take the easy approach of just believing everyone should be supportive and happy of everyone else – some of your best employees are your most competitive – and that competitive nature can do crazy stuff with your mind.  They’ll work through it – but they might just need a little help from you!

For the background of this list – see my original post from 2-10-12.

The #7 Rap Lyric That Shaped My Leadership Style comes from 50 cent from his song “Outta Control” off his 2005 album The Massacre. This is 50’s 2nd appearance on the countdown (I’m sure he’s so excited!). There were actually two versions of this song – as it was re-released as a remix and that version was more popular. I got the lyric off the original version – because that’s how I roll. Here’s the lyric:

“Success is my drug of choice…”

We live in a society and culture fixated on gaining success, yet, most people don’t know the first thing about how to obtain success.  I think we all get our grandparents advice of “Success comes after hard work”, etc. – but no one really wants to believe that.  Being in HR for almost 20 years, people actions have led me to believe most hope to wake up and have success magically appear!

I’m one who thinks that success really isn’t that hard to obtain, but it takes two important things: Talent and Persistence.  Here’s why.  Success doesn’t happen to those you are untalented, they might get “lucky” in the short-term, but in the long-term their lack of talent will eventually show up.  Also, sometimes being talented just isn’t enough – you need to be in the right place at the right time, for your talents to be shown and recognized.  That is why persistence is a key to success.  You might have the talent and never be successful, because you weren’t persistent enough to allow your talent to become a success.

Success is my drug of choice, because I think it’s the single most factor in sustaining engagement.  Most one wants to work or play for a loser – long term.  As leaders it’s our job to help direct and create small successes for our teams.  Those small successes will lead to sustained long term successes – which leads to a very engaged team.  Easier said than done – but I do believe all leaders have the ability to create these small successes and highlight them to the organization.

For the background of this list – see my original post from 2-10-12.

Tupac Shakur kicked off our countdown at #25 and he’s back in the Top 10 with his hit song Keep Ya Head Up off his 1993 album Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.  This song is great and includes a sample from the song Zapp and Roger’s “Be Alright”, which gives it a classic R&B feel – 2Pac was great at doing this in his songs.   The Lyric:

“Forgive but don’t forget”

This is really one of the quintessential elements of leadership – being able to forgive and move on.  To often I’ve been around managers who are unwilling to forgive, or unable to move on past an issue – and ultimately it hurts how they are viewed as a leader.   Also, I see people who believe that when you forgive someone, that you should also forget what they did – that’s just naive.   Like Chris Rock said – when McDonalds hires a former crackhead, they don’t allow them by the happy meals! (well he almost said that)

The one thing in business that is a certain, is that everyone is going to make mistakes – it happens all the time.  So, as a leader, your ability to forgive and move is paramount to the success of your business.  But you must also have the ability to not forget and put yourself in the same situation over and over.  I believe in second chances – but not third and fourth chances.  Once you screw it up twice, you’ve just established a pattern – if I, as the leader, allow that to happen a third time – I’m just a bad leader.

As a leader you must also be able to move on and not hold someone’s mistake against them.  If you can’t, do them a favor and let them go – it does them no good to work under your inability to move past a mistake – you’re just holding them and your company back.  Give them a gift and let them go blossom somewhere else.  I can’t tell you how many employee calibrations I’ve been in with leadership when a manager will bring up something one of their employees did 3 years ago, but they’ve been great ever since – but they are unwilling to let it go and allow them to rise above it.  You’re not protecting the company, you’re establishing a culture where your employees understand every mistake they make will be held over their heads for eternity.