Ultimate Leadership

Book excerpt: This is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Book. Welcome to Ultimate Leadership: 10 Rules for Leadership Success. These 10 rules were created out of my successes, achievements, mistakes and failures. These were hard-won lessons I learned on my journey to becoming a successful leader. The pinnacle of my leadership career occurred during the summer of 2014. On this particular Saturday, it started off like any normal Saturday, mowing the lawn, washing my 100 pound Akita "Grace," which was always a task in itself, and preparing to barbeque some steaks for lunch. Just about that time, the phone rings and my second in charge is on the line. He told me we had a situation at work. After that call, I made the decision to forgo my plans for grilling and head to the office. My career for the past 30 years was in the medical field. I specialized as a Paramedic and worked in some very busy EMS systems across the United States. During this time, my tenure was as Chief of Emergency Medical Services for Christian Hospital, a role I had for 4 years at this point. Little did I know that once I arrived on scene to assess the situation, my leadership skills were going to be tested to their maximum limit. On this day in August, a white police officer shot an unarmed African American teen named Mike Brown, and the city of Ferguson, MO was getting ready to be thrust into the international spotlight for rioting, looting and assaults. I arrived on scene approximately three hours after the shooting, and our ambulances were in an area about a mile away from where the shooting took place at the Canfield Apartments. The Canfield Apartments were already a powder keg ready to explode. For our safety, police asked us to leave and find a safer place to "stage" and wait for further instructions. Mike Brown's body lay in the middle of the road on this hot August day for more than 4 hours, and the protests grew louder, more heated, and eventually aggressive. Once I arrived at the staging area, my needle of concern for employee safety was immediately pegged in the red. Even though we moved to a so called "safe area," there were more than 300 yelling and screaming protesters with signs that read, "Kill the police," "Stop murdering our kids" and "The police just murdered my son." Along with the protesters, there were also regional SWAT teams, armored vehicles, and news cameras that were trying to capture the emotion of the event. I can share with you now that this was a scary, stressful time and there were many times I questioned the decisions I needed to make to ensure the safety of my workforce and leadership team. In the end, none of our folks were hurt, everyone went home safely and we were recognized for an outstanding job well done. Even though the decisions made during the Ferguson crisis allowed us to deliver exceptional service and remain professional. I can share with you that my leadership skills were not always as tight as they could have been. To be honest, it was quite the opposite for a long time. In the beginning, my leadership style was based on egotism, ignorance, and wanting to advance my career instead of growing my team. Over this time frame, mistakes mounted and lessons were learned. You always hear that Leadership is both an art and a science, and if you do not know the science of leadership, you will not be able to paint the portrait of success. My leadership journey eventually allowed me to learn the necessary science that allowed me to develop an award-winning organization and be recognized as an international leader. Join me on my leadership journey and learn from my hard-won lessons. If you follow each of these 10 rules and you will increase your leadership effectiveness, enjoy a positive reputation, and have an organization whose workforce is engaged with a high level of employee satisfaction. Thank you for allowing me to join you on your leadership journey.