Leadership: It’S Not That Hard!

By Lucas Chang

ITS AN AGE-OLD QUESTION: how do you develop and hone the skills you need to lead a team ?

You could enroll in a leadership course or buy technical books. Or, you could learn what you need to know from movies, television and comic books! Some of the best case studies and leadership qualities can be found in what we watch and read for fun. Join Lucas Chang, a Director at a large telecommunications company, as he delves into popular culture to uncover common-sense leadership principles. Youll discover

how to be a visionary like Optimus Prime, who surrounds himself with Autobots who have a variety of skills; how to boost leadership skills by using your imagination like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes what you can learn from the professional wrestlers who create public personas that are extensions of their personalities; and many other case studies that teach valuable lessons, such as the Incredible Hulk, G.I. Joe, Star Wars, and others.

Develop the skills you need to build a team that works for you and have fun in the process with Leadership: Its Not That Hard!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 2, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450267656

Lucas Chang

Lucas Chang is a Director at a telecommunications company with team members throughout Canada. He has led teams as large as sixty people. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife, Judy, and their two daughters.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Preface

Recommended Pre-Reads

Thanks

Congratulations!

The Beginning: What is a Leader?

Know and build around your strengths and weaknesses

Play off of your strengths and push yourself outside of your comfort zone

Be genuine as a leader

Adapt your communication style to your audience and circumstances

Synthesize your knowledge to communicate an inspiring direction

Take informed and calculated risks

Always develop your team members

Take time to understand what motivates each of your team members

Match assignments to skill sets, desires and developmental needs

Give assignments with meaningfully-large scope

Deliver praise and criticism at the right time and in the right forum

Articulate the team’s strategy and objectives

Build your team’s trust in you

Create an environment where team members trust each other

Prioritize work for the team, and don’t be afraid to say no to low-priority work

Change structure and processes to knock down roadblocks

Bringing It Together

Works Cited

Preface

I have been fortunate to have spent time working with people in leadership capacities across many industries and levels. Going back to my days spent organizing youth leadership camps, to more recent career experiences in banking, transportation, government (Canadian federal, provincial and municipal), and telecommunications, I have seen leaders of all shapes, sizes and styles in action.

One realization that struck me was that very few companies train their people how to be an effective leader. Companies will take their best and brightest doers and promote them into roles to lead people, but don’t do anything to help the recently-promoted to shift their mindset from I do the work to I inspire others to do the work. Compounded over time and promotions, many companies are led by teams of people who are managers (administrators) but not leaders (inspire others).

Judging from the popularity of how to be an effective leader literature, speakers and courses, I’m not the first person to arrive at the we manage but don’t lead conclusion.

I suspect that this plethora of material only adds to the problem. For the person starting in their first team leader role (for example, my first leadership role involved leading a team of one), even knowing where to begin to sift through the volume of material and gather a few tricks and tips would itself be a lengthy research project.

So, in most cases when it comes to leadership, we either say too little or we say too much. Either way, the result is that many people in leadership roles learn on the job. Some people figure it out, but many do not.

Hopefully this book will help those who struggle with where to begin, by demystifying the basics of leadership. My perspective is that good leadership is rooted in common sense and a respect for people. I’ve highlighted the elements of common sense and respect that have worked well for me, or that I’ve seen work well for others. The examples from popular culture are deliberate, intended to illustrate both the relevant leadership observation as well as the it’s not that hard spirit.

Inevitably, you will disagree with some of my ideas, which is wonderful as challenging my opinions will only help you refine your own leadership philosophy and style, in turn helping you become a stronger leader.

Whether you agree with some or most of my opinions, I hope you enjoy this book and find it helpful in your own leadership journey.

Lucas

Recommended Pre-Reads

After Steve Rogers was assassinated, Bucky Barnes quickly assumed the mantle of Captain America. It made sense – he trained and battled beside Cap during World War II and he knew what Captain America meant to America. He was also scared senseless, as he faced the pressure of being the one man who everyone looked to, to make it all right.

In between moments of self-doubt and panic, Bucky has been figuring it out. He has climbed the Captain America Learning Curve while at the same time figuring out how to be a hero and a leader to those around him. He’s not perfect, but he’s getting better.

Bucky’s experience of having leadership shoved at him, followed by moments of intense panic and figure it out as you go along, is a parallel for many people growing into larger leadership responsibilities….

To ensure maximum benefit from reading this book, we[1] would strongly recommend you take the time to complete some pre-reads to familiarize yourself with the examples that will be cited in the book. This might take some time, but this will be one of the more interesting research projects you will do in your lifetime.

TV / Movies:

• The Best of Mr. Bean

• Cars

• Forrest Gump

• GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

• Minority Report

• Monsters Inc

• Peter Pan

• Star Wars: A New Hope

• Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

• Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

• Toy Story

• Transformers More Than Meets the Eye

• Transformers the Movie

• WWE shows (particularly from the late 1980s and late 1990s)

Books and other fine literature:

• Calvin and Hobbes

• Dark Avengers

• Dark X-Men

• Secret Invasion

• X-Force

• X-Men, particularly issues in 2009

Also, give P90X a try – the results are quite amazing.

If you’re not able to do the background preparation, you will still enjoy and gain from reading this book. Best of all, you will have a pre-set reading list for your next vacation.

Thanks…

To Blake Hanna and Steve Lew for showing me how to inspire while being genuine to yourself.

To the Project Planning and Delivery teams I have supported, for allowing me to learn and refine my own style.

To Blaine Kideckel, David Martin, Glenn Lau, Ian Cruickshank, Jamie Clerf, Jeff Warkentin, Jenn Refvik Bramley, Kristin