JaysonFeltner.com - Christian, Husband, Father, Leader

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Priming The Musket

I wrote a post the other day about ineffective leadership and how to overcome it. One of my steps was to prime the musket. This is the full explanation.

The Shot Heard Round The World was one single gunshot that set in motion the events that would lead to the American Revolution and set the stage for all that would become America. This is an amazing example of The Butterfly Effect. If you haven’t read Andy’s book, do so now. It will change your perspective on the effect actions have on your future.

Before the Shot Heard Round The World could take effect and have the profound impact that it had, there were several distinct, and overlooked actions that …

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Thursday, May 17th, 2012

5 Styles of Leadership You’ve Experienced

Having spent many years in the corporate environment, I’ve seen nearly every style of leadership you can imagine. I believe that leadership is a God given talent that comes from your soul, but you can study to refine that talent. If you take a management class you’ll usually see the same top 5 types of leadership, however, the best leaders are a combination of those styles. I’ll share with you the leaders who I came to admire over my career and some of their secrets to success.

There are many different styles of leadership. Some are listed in the textbooks, so you just have to meet to really understand. Each of these styles of leadership have their own unique …

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Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

How To Handle A Bad Boss

Rather frequently, I find myself blown away by John C. Maxwell’s ability to reach deep into my soul and speak directly to my needs and experiences. This time was about ineffective leadership. I don’t know if it is circumstance, his style of writing, or maybe he’s a clairvoyant who knows exactly what I wanted to read in 2012 so he wrote it for me, knowing how long my reading back log was, in 2007.

It is part of my Dragon Slaying Routine to read John C. Maxwell’s The Maxwell Daily Reader every morning up arriving in the office. During my run this morning I was listening to a book on Michael Hyatt’s Mentoring Reader’s List (yes, I’m about a month …

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Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Who’s Watching You?

It was a Thursday morning when I came into work late. I had a late night before. The baby wasn’t sleeping well, I had work on my mind, I was uneasy about trying to figure out how I was going to tackle the next project at the office. The long night caught up to me in the morning as I turned off the alarm clock and rolled back into bed. ”I’m the boss, I can show up whenever I want” I told myself to convince my will power to just give up and let me sleep in.

Will power lost the battle and come 10:00 am, I was strolling into the office with my head hung low. The receptionist greeted …

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Monday, May 14th, 2012

Motivational Monday – Leadership Quotes (Again)

Wake up! It’s Monday Morning and you need these leadership quotes. Your organization is calling on you to lead them to the promise land. You have before you the unique opportunity to directly dictate the outcomes of this week. Today is the time to commit yourself to being the best leader your organization has ever seen. You alone will be in control of this weeks story. How will it go down in history?

Last week I posted a video by Leaders Beacon featuring 7 leadership quotes. I don’t usually repeat my Motivational Mondays but this week I’m making an exception. Last week’s quotes were so powerful I just had to do it again, at least for myself. Each day …

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Friday, May 11th, 2012

The 3 C’s Of Contagious Leadership

If you look into the annals of history, every great achievement has at its heart the strength and courage of a leader with good leadership qualities. What makes a great leader? What does the job entail, exactly?

What was it about Alexander the Great that made his army march across and conquer the civilized world for him? What was it about Eisenhower that made his men storm the beaches of Normandy for him? What inspired the followers of Gandhi to stand up the mightiest empire in the world to win their freedom?

It’s often been said that a great leader with good leadership qualities can lead his men to hell and back in such a way that his men follow him with …

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Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

5 Pitfalls Of Effective Leadership

Everyone wants to be a leader. However, most leaders are too busy assuming they are doing everything right to stop and ask themselves what are they doing wrong. These are 5 of the most overlooked pitfalls standing between you and effective leadership.

Have you ever wondered why a certain person or department is holding up the progress of your plans? I have. It was only until I stepped back and did a little self-inventory that I discovered why.

I was standing in the way of my own progress. Many leaders possess incredible leadership skills and implement all 6 traits of good leadership yet still struggle to achieve results. When searching for an answer to the problem, it …

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Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

The Leadership of Jesus

The inspiration for this post comes from one of the oldest books in history. It is one of the most often told stories of all time. It is an example to all who lead, given to us by the world’s most influential person to ever walk this earth.

It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting in the first row behind the sound board, I like to watch the creative team do their thing. I’m not wearing my usual attire. Today I’m in jeans and a t-shirt. My tennis shoes are really out of the ordinary for a Sunday morning at church.

My preacher reaches for one of the towels on a rack behind him and begins to …

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Monday, May 7th, 2012

Motivational Monday – Leadership Quotes

Are you ready to take on the challenges of the week? Leadership quotes can help. After a hopefully restful weekend, you’re ready to lead your team to success. Getting motivated to lead that team however, can sometimes be a challenge.

I find myself on many Mondays heading into the office with a full head of steam. Excited from the weekend and full of new ideas I barge in ready to lead and manage other. Unfortunately, that means lots of hard work; hard work that I’m not ready to start doing again after a restful weekend. Here are a few quotes I enjoy reading on Monday mornings to get me energized again.

Leadership quotes can be an …

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Friday, May 4th, 2012

Effective Team Leadership

You find yourself in a leadership role. You’ve studied leadership and business. You’ve purchased a few books to help you improve your leadership skills, a key decision that will make you a good leader. What’s more, you’re reading them. So you’re ready to do some team leadership, right? Not so fast.

When I was first dropped into a team leadership role I hit the ground running. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what I know now. I began leading my entire team using the same leadership style. This was a big mistake.

I couldn’t figure out why I was failing and losing some of my team, while the rest was fully on board. At the time, I …

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Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

Leadership Styles That Create Results

A good leadership style is a way to establish a strategy for not only becoming a leader but also influencing them in a productive way. A Leadership style allows a person who is a leader to assess the needs and adapt to demands to properly create solutions to challenges. Good leadership will be able to change their leadership style in order to adapt to a situation, or to fit into a certain type of leadership that a situation requires.

What is leadership? Leadership is a difficult term to actually define. See my leadership definition post for more. What is truly known is that leadership and leaders are the driving force that gives direction to society as a whole and influences change …

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Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012

10 Important Leadership Skills

What makes a good leader? People talk about the need for good leadership skills in government and business, but the concept of what is leadership is rarely discussed. The most effective people in leadership roles hone their skills over time and through experience. These leadership skills come through years of experimentation, effort, learning, and even failure.

Throughout my career I have worked as a leader, and I have worked for many who lead others. In my experience, the best leaders were the ones that understood what the 10 most important leadership skills were and how to utilize those skills on a daily basis. Here is my list of the 10 most important leadership skills;

Honesty – Some people would …

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Monday, April 30th, 2012

Motivation Monday – Invictus

“What is your philosophy on leadership?” Wow, what a question! What a call to action! How we answer this question sets the tone for how we will lead ourselves and our team. How would you like to be sitting with the President and he ask you this question. Would you be able to answer it?

This Monday’s Motivation comes from the film Invictus. In this scene Nelson Mandela is speaking to Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Sprinboks Rugby Team. The two are discussing leadership and the act of inspiring others. The film is named after the poem that inspired Nelson Mandela during his stay in prison. You can read the poem Invictus here.

I was watching this movie …

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Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

6 Traits of Good Leadership

Many people claim to be leaders, but truly good ones are few. Everyone who aspires to lead — whether as pastor, as a chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 company, or as a classroom teacher — should not only ask himself, “What is leadership“, but also he must ask himself, “What is good leadership?” What does it look like? What makes up a good leader?

Good Leadership

As the Vice President of a growing company I find myself often having to ask my secretary to email the notes from the last board meeting or to screen my calls so I can get some work done. Everything from my body language to my tone of voice is going to …

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Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

My Leadership Definition

As recently as a week ago, I was at a John C. Maxwell leadership event when somebody recognized me during a break and asked me a few questions about leadership. One of their questions was “What is your leadership definition?” I always answer this question the same.

My leadership definition is “getting people to do what you want, because they want to.” This is the leadership definition. It may sound crude but keep in mind that while leaders are servants to those who have chosen to lead them, the followers are also servants to their leader and they choose to do what is asked of them for one reason or another. See John Maxwell’s The 5 Levels of Leadership: …

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