Dr. Will Moreland: LEADYOURSHIP™ Part I

Photo courtesy of Dr. Will Moreland

Several years ago, I had the pleasure of leading a mentorship group of young men.

While I was preparing for the course, I came up with the concept of “LEADYOURSHIP™.”

It was a play on the word “LEADERSHIP.” In the course, I wanted to emphasize the importance of taking personal responsibility for your life, actions and outcomes.

The course was a hit, and I knew I was on to something. Since then I have taught the “LEADYOURSHIP™ concept to companies around the world.

People who know me well know that I love the subject of leadership. I don’t think there is one single thing that impacts life, companies, organizations or nations more than leadership. I know that’s a BOLD statement, but when you get to the heart of any problem or solution, you will find the root cause being either bad leadership or good leadership.

For almost 20 years, I have been teaching people that “Everyone Is A Leader” regardless of a title or position, “Everyone Is A Leader.” And since this is the case, the only logical question is,

 “WHAT KIND OF LEADER ARE YOU?”

 Pause for a moment and think about that. It’s very easy to identify what kind of leader others are, but have you ever asked yourself, “What Kind of Leader Am I?”

There has been much study done in the area of “Leadership Styles” over the years and even on the subject of “Leadership Levels.” Those two subjects are not my focus when I talk about “LEADYOURSHIP™.” Styles and levels deal more with your interaction with others, I want to focus on YOU!

How well are you leading your ship, and “ship” is a metaphor for your life. At the heart of any success or failure in our lives, you can trace it back to our individual leadership. Any student of personal development, success psychology or Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) will tell you that personal responsibility is the key to all lasting transformation.

So if “Everyone Is A Leader” as I suppose, and the most important question is “What Kind of Leader Am I?”, how do we effectively measure our leadership? I’m glad you asked.

Just as a ship has many moving parts, so does our life. There are parts of a ship that are seen by everyone, the outside, the deck and so on. Then there are areas that only a few people see.

Whether the parts are seen or not seen, they are essential to the overall success of the ship. Many times we give more attention to the parts that will be seen by everyone, and less time to the parts we only see. It is usually the unseen that impacts us the most.

When we neglect those hidden parts, we are in danger of causing the whole ship to sink.

Some years ago, my mentor taught me that I could not rise higher than my personal leadership. He said,

“You may sneak to the top, but eventually your personal leadership will bring you down.”

If you are going to “LEADYOURSHIP™” well, there are 5 Key Components you must have in place. When I was in the military, we had to do a PMCS which stood for “Preventative Maintenance Checks & Services” on our equipment every Monday. Now I was stationed in Germany, so this meant going outside in weather that sometimes reached 20 below. I, like many of the other soldiers, would complain to our leaders about the necessity of going out each week. We would say things like,

“We just checked it last week and we didn’t use the equipment, so nothing should be wrong with it.”

Our leaders would always remind us, you don’t want to find out something is wrong with your equipment when you get ready to use it, you need to know before you go to battle that your equipment is working right.

I have seen failure occur in families and organizations because a PMCS was not conducted on a routine basis. When you want to “LEADYOURSHIP™” the right way, you will implement these 5 Key Components:

1. Desire
2. Vision
3. Discipline
4. Accountability
5. Maintenance

In part two, I will break down each one and show you how to implement a personal PMCS into your leadership that will help you “LEADYOURSHIP™.”

Remember that the key to any lasting success in life is predicated on your ability to take personal responsibility.