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I Didn’t Like GoDaddy Before It Was Cool

February 6, 2012 in Leadership with 0 Comments

Companies have reputations. The majority of companies want to be seen as a leader in the marketplace and a global agent of change. Other companies are content—or strive—to be bottom of the barrel.

Two extremely popular Internet services companies top the list of companies of the latter. HostGator and GoDaddy.

photocredit: flickr/striatic

I started out with HostGator many, many years ago. I had an absolute horror of a nightmare with them. The story is for a different day, but in short, imagine if your website and e-mail were suspended during the middle of the night due to high usage without any explanation of what, specifically, had high usage, inability to access server logs to track down the problem and no recourse except to start paying for a monthly plan five times more expensive. Their CEO was in on the conversation thread and was unapologetic that my little blog in 2007 when no one read it was too popular for them to handle, but in the end, I was offline for three days—e-mail included.

I stuck it out with them for awhile.

Continue Reading…

Respect Is Essential For Leadership

January 25, 2012 in Leadership with 2 Comments

Yesterday, I wrote of disappointment with my U.S. Senator and political decorum in general after a Twitter conversation. Today is a follow-up to that.

The level doesn’t matter. I’ve learned this lesson to be true in every leadership position I’ve held. Every one, from president of a fraternity and a leader in other student organizations, to a leader in the Knights of Columbus, to a leader in numerous church organizations, to a manager overseeing employees, to a father and husband:

Showing respect to those your serve is not charity. Showing respect is a duty.

photocredit: flickr/runran

With the spat with Sen. John Cornyn, his disrespect for a higher office, the Presidency of the United States, is serious issue, but the lack of respect toward a constituent, a person he serves, was more telling of this lesson of leadership. As a leader, sometimes you’re the first among equals—anyone in the room could switch out positions with you without the wheels coming off the axles. Sometimes, you are the leader because your skillset, your knowledge, your abilities are deemed better equipped for the time. Sometimes, you are the leader because you simply are smarter, stronger and have greater ability than anyone else.

In all cases, respect is the cornerstone of an effective leadership platform.

My two-year old provides the perfect test subject for this theory of leadership. I am her leader because I am smarter, stronger and all around better at all things. As her father when she is a toddler, in no area, in which I can defer to her decision. She can have her opinions, but feeding her nothing but cookies in a day, I can never allow. Continue Reading…

Respect for the Office

January 24, 2012 in Leadership, Politics, Rants with 3 Comments

I’m calling an audible and changing up my schedule for the week. Tomorrow’s post is a follow up that focuses on my thoughts on leadership as demonstrated in what happened in today’s post.

Leadership is a privilege. We are all called to some form of leadership: in our homes, workplaces and the civic and church communities. However, positions of leadership are something to be earned and carry a great responsibility.

The present reality in our political system amazes me. If we believe the media and the pundits, “the American people” each fall into a distinct category. We are either liberal or conservative. We are either Democrat or Republican, except for those crazy third-party people to whom no one pays attention.

Our politicians should know better. I know many self-identified Republicans who disagree with the Republican Party on certain platform policies. I know plenty of self-identified Democrats who disagree with their party.

Our politicians, by virtue of representing us before the nation and the world, should strive to be above the mud. I’ll grant that their campaigns are waged by underlings, but the politicians themselves should strive to be the model of decorum and respectful, productive disagreement.

Before I show the example that got me fired up last week, this is not a single-party issue. Both sides have this problem. While I’m about to call out a Republican, I could just as easily done it with a Democrat.

The Honorable John Cornyn, U.S. Senator from Texas, is an outspoken critic of President Obama. His right to be, and truthfully, his duty when he believes his constituents would not be well-served by a policy of the President. Continue Reading…

Tim Tebow Saved My Marriage

January 10, 2012 in Family Life, Leadership with 3 Comments

Vanessa and I got into it over the weekend. The details aren’t important. Typically, we follow our Ephesians 4:26 “rule”: Do not let the sun set on your anger. But not this time, we got into a heated discussion on Saturday, let it cool down, but left it unresolved. On the way to Mass on Sunday, we attempted to find resolution, but didn’t.

Sunday afternoon, I was off by myself steaming inside. “Vanessa did this and that, if she didn’t, this wouldn’t be so difficult.” “Vanessa made this happen.” “It’s her fault that this didn’t go as planned.” I wasn’t coming to peace.

photocredit: flckr/denverjeffrey

Sunday late afternoon, all was calm but unresolved. I caught the end of the Broncos game—the last five  minutes of regulation and the 11 seconds of overtime when Tim Tebow threw a direct pass to Demaryius Thomas, who himself threw a great stiff arm, and took the ball 80 yards to win the do-or-die game for Denver.

Twitter exploded. “Was he Tebowing?”, the name for his kneeling and praising God after a win. Tebow threw 316 yards (3:16…) and won by throwing to a guy born on Christmas.  Continue Reading…

Servant Leadership Begins at Home

January 3, 2012 in Daddy's Corner, Leadership, Site Info with 0 Comments

This site’s theme for 2012 (and beyond?) is Servant Leadership Begins at Home.

photocredit: flickr/lovestruck94

Servant Leadership, as a term, is most connected to the work of Robert Greenleaf, beginning with his book Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness. The underlying idea is that the most effective form of leadership is in the form is service. True leaders do not rule with iron fists, but serve their community (organization, business, whatever social arrangement).

Christians have the prime example of a servant leader in Jesus Christ, but this concept is not exclusively Christian. The Laozi from  ca. 5th century BC China (thank you History of Asian Cultures course) speaks of leadership in a similar vein. Indian, Islamic and other ancient writings, religious and secular, promote servant leadership.

While at the University Catholic Center, our team introduced this philosophy to student leaders and developed their skills toward leading through service. Within ministry or the non-profit world, this model is obvious. While not as obviously applicable to businesses, research is clear that companies based on servant leadership are successful.

What about at home? From my Catholic perspective, the way spouses should treat one another and parents must lead a home from a servant’s perspective. How can the concept of servant leadership, as a formal leadership model, be applied to home life? What best practices exist that help to realize this “leadership structure” within the most basic unit of society?

Being a father is to lead the house. Mothers lead too, but there are plenty of “mommy blogs” out there that speak to the trials, tribulations, best practices and philosophies of motherhood. Fatherhood isn’t as explored online and, being a dad, I can only speak personally to the masculine aspect of domestic leadership.

Over the coming months, I hope you will join me as we explore leadership, fatherhood, rearing kids, spirituality and more.