Leadership Thought: More Words of Wisdom from That Beautiful Office Wooden File Cabinet.

Dear Friends.

Yesterday I was at my daughter’s home celebrating the birthday of my youngest daughter. During the conversation I asked my son in law, how his work was going. He responded in one word, “ Terrible.” Now Chris  is an excellent salesperson who has done very well selling large telephone systems to companies all over the northeast, so I suggested that I was sure the pandemic has something to do with his sales. “No,” he said. “My sales are up 30 %, but the head of the company is impossible to work for. He then went on to relate how unhappy he and so many others in the company were because of the critical environment in which they worked.

I thought there is a boss who could benefit from a class on encouragement, and so continuing  my “Leadership Thoughts” from yesterday on the subject of encouragement, let me offer a few more  thoughts I’ve gathered from others and filed away in my treasury storehouse-that old brown file cabinet.

As a coach, I am always reminded of encouragement’s importance:

Encourage while the sweat is still on their brow.

Whisper criticism; shout praise.

Praise in public, criticize in private.

Be on the lookout to catch people doing something good and then affirm them.

And one of my favorites, A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but oh what a difference those inches can make.

Believing in people before they prove themselves, is the key to motivating people to reach their potential.

Treat people as the most important people in the world and you will communicate that they are a somebody to you.

And finally, don’t be a 'tombstone encourager.' Don’t wait until there are flowers on his/her grave before you speak those encouraging words your friend would have loved to have heard.

It is true that the high spots in most of our lives have come from times when someone has encouraged us. When I was athletic director at Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Lauderdale, one of our physical education teachers always carried with him a plastic bottle of honey. Whenever he would catch one of his students doing or saying something worth commending- a kind word or action- he would immediately stop everything and draw attention to the individual and the specific act. He would then squeeze a little honey on the fingers of the recipient and quote one of my favorite encouragement bible verses, “Kind words are like a honeycomb; sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (Prov. 16:24).

I wish my son in law’s boss knew how sweet and refreshing kind words could be, and what a difference they could make in one’s attitude towards work.

I don’t remember who wrote these words, but they couldn’t be any truer. “Flatter me and I may not believe you, criticize me and I may not like you, ignore me and I may never forgive you, but encourage me, and I will never forget you.”

A word to my friend and son in law, Chris-why not leave those words hanging on your boss’s door, unnamed of course!

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom