Real leaders know that they can’t fight every battle.

But their values are crystal clear long before they are faced with critical decisions. So when a situation demands it they don’t hide, cower or flock…

This post honors the stands of a REAL LEADER that spent several years working overseas.

When the business struggled, this leader:

• Offered solutions: By reminding peers and executives that they could SIGNIFICANTLY decrease expenses, and increase efficiency, effectiveness, customer retention and revenue by holding people accountable to policies that were already in place.
• Spoke the hard truth: By pointing to the root cause of issues instead of agreeing with popular thinking that only treated symptoms.
• Maximized the resources he had: By playing to his strengths and the strengths of his team and leveraging old assets he kept expensive and critical operations running for nearly an entire year without a budget.

When five rounds of layoffs came, this leader practiced:

• Compassion: By treated exiting employees with honesty and respect.
• Understanding: By speaking truth and encouragement to his remaining employees.

When the sixth layoff came, this leader:

• Encouraged character-based leadership: By reminding other titled leaders that the time had come to let go of their jobs so that the remaining frontline employees and the business could go a bit farther.
• Led by example: And offered his position so others could keep theirs.

Then the business began to impact his family at a higher level:

Three days after he offered himself in the layoff, and before his offer was accepted… A disconnected department in the company sent a letter.  The letter told him that he needed to move from a home he had been in for four years – that was located in a secure community with many amenities – to the 32^nd floor of an apartment building.

A year earlier this leader had watched from his home as a neighboring six-story apartment building burned.

He’d witnessed:

• Limited and inadequate fire fighters and equipment
• The screams of the people trying to get out
• How long it took to get helicopters to rescue people from the roof

And later heard stories of locked and blocked exits and inadequate fire codes in the country.

After being informed that he needed to move, he stumbled into information emphasizing a lack of security protocols in the proposed apartment building.

He knew that he and his family had embraced their initial move across the world and successfully adapted and added value in this new location, but this move put their safety, security and sanity at risk.

He knew that he’d taken stands for the business and for his people. And this time he took a stand for his family.

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Those who have the courage to stand, risk being:

• Misunderstood
• Judged
• Ignored
• Replaced

But their commitment to a greater good drives them to lead in an uncommon way.

They are the leaders that inspire generations.

Real leaders are like eagles, they don’t flock…

You find them one at a time.

 

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