Urban Meyer's Above the Line is a popular leadership text.
Here's a summary.
Below are five excerpts from the summary:
Leadership is a skill and like all skills it takes time and effort to develop. The timeworn quotes
that have been hanging in your locker rooms for years are not nearly enough. Now I understand.
Average leaders have quotes. Good leaders have a plan. Exceptional leaders have a system.
E + R = O (Event + Response = Outcome)
We don’t control the events in life and we don’t directly control the outcomes. But we always
have control over how we choose to respond.
“I see better than I hear.”
Andrew Luck: “Your actions are so loud I can’t hear what you are saying.”
We are not measured by our intentions, but by our actions.
Build trust (Need all 3, strength in one cannot make up for weakness in another):
1. Character – ethical trust. Built through repeated experience of you doing what you say
you will do.
2. Competence – technical trust. Built through repeated experience of you doing your job
and making team better.
3. Connection – personal trust. Built through repeated experience of caring, listening and
fully engaging with the people on the team.
Every great leader I have been around or studied has demonstrated the unique ability to think. To
think deeply, originally, and often, bravely. Leadership is a mindset first and a skillset second. If
you don’t think like a leader, you won’t act like one.
