Maybe you’re not even sure you’re a leader. If that’s you, check out 9 Signs You’re a Leader by Joe Lalonde or Michael Hyatt’s 12 Ways to Know if You are a Leader.

And if you’ve ever wondered if you’re a GOOD leader, here are 5 simple tests that may help you…

1. The Follow Test

A few months ago, our family was spending a lazy Saturday together in Fort Worth. As we were finishing up lunch in a hamburger joint, I noticed that our son, Andrew was intently watching his sister, Madison.

I watched for a few more moments, then I asked her, Did you know you are a leader? She immediately responded, Yes!

I followed up with – Are you a GOOD leader? She was less emphatic – I don’t know.

Sensing her hesitation, I asked – What is a good leader? She paused for a second then replied – Well, a good leader first has to do what they’re told.

Not at all what I expected. But she’s right –

To lead, you must first follow.
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Let’s face it – that’s not the first time you’ve read that. But when’s the last time you evaluated how well you follow?

How do you respond to these Follow Test questions:

1. How long has it been since you handed the reins to someone else to lead and you served their team?
2. Do you lead most of the meetings you attend?
3. How often do you speak or express your opinion in meetings?
4. How do you respond when a team member challenges your position?

2. The Vision Test

Many leaders have a vision statement somewhere in a file or they’ve posted it on a conference room wall. Yet, unfortunately, these vision statements seldom serve as an energizing guide toward exponential growth and remarkable success for the organization.

A vision is energizing. It’s enlivening. Vision is the guiding motivation for all great human efforts. You get that!

Most likely, your problem is not vision itself but rather how to get focused and stay focused on the vision.

Try these Vision Test questions:

1. Does your team know your vision? Can they explain it to you succinctly?
2. Were they part of the vision development process?
3. When is the last time you clearly communicated the vision?
4. Does every system, process, and team member in your organization reflect the core components of the vision?

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, pick up your copy of my book, Creating Your Business Vision. When you subscribe to my updates, it’s a free download for just a few more weeks. So get it before you have to pay for it!

3. The Criticism Test

Dan Rockwell once said:

Criticism is something you can avoid – by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.
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Is that what you really want?

Over the years I have benefited significantly from criticism. OK, that sounds weird. But I am a better dad, a better husband, a better professional, a better leader… because of my interaction with critics. In fact, I recently wrote about 6 Things I Learned From Critics.

Here’s the deal – Some critics should be heard, many should not.

It’s painful to be criticized. But occasionally my pain is compounded by the fact that I needed the criticism – because it addresses an area where I need to grow.

Yes, criticism hurts. But it often presents an opportunity to grow. So, when faced with criticism, let it come – and let it go.

How would you answer these Criticism Test questions:

1. When’s the last time you were criticized? (Someone let me have it on Sunday – while I was on vacation!)
2. How did you respond?
3. Does some criticism feel personal to you?
4. How has criticism improved your leadership?

4. The Team Test

In his best-selling book, Good to Great, Jim Collins found that leaders who HAVE to continually manage a team member have made a hiring mistake. And if you CHOOSE to continue to manage team members, your organization made a hiring mistake – when they hired you.

Your organization simply cannot grow to reach its full potential if you are not developing your team members to work and lead with passionate freedom.

Try these Team Test questions:

1. Can your team articulate to you what is expected? Ask them.
2. Is your team making regular progress in the primary areas of the organizational vision?
3. Are they aware of the progress they are making? When’s the last time you told them?
4. Do they think together? Plan together? Create together? Innovate together? Serve together?

5. The Integrity Test

Like it or not, your organization and your colleagues are a reflection of your leadership. Consequently, if honesty and ethical behavior are core convictions for you, your team will exhibit them also.

Try these Integrity Test questions:

1. Do you tell the truth? – we’re talking about the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
2. What do you fear being exposed?
3. Would you write that again if you knew everyone involved would read it?
4. Would you say that again if you knew everyone involved would hear it?

Now, you might be thinking, these simple assessments sound boring  or weak.

Our society says leadership is about “getting”. Most leaders think leadership is about winning.

It’s not.

Leadership is about preparation. Leadership is about regular evaluation – personal evaluation.

Winning is the byproduct of intense and consistent preparation and evaluation.

If you want to win at life, work, and leadership, it will only happen through intentional preparation and evaluation.

I recently published an article about the 5 Most Influential People in the World. If you missed it, take a few seconds to read the post – it’s not what you might expect.

As I wrote about those influential people, I asked this question: What makes them influential?

After spending some time thinking about how leaders develop influence, here’s my list…

People with influence…

1.  Give when they don’t have to

2.  Care for others

3.  Continuously grow

4.  Serve with humility

5.  Live authentically

6.  Facilitate life change in others

7.  Handle hardships in a healthy way

What’s not required

I asked my wife, Sarah, to list the most influential people in her life a few weeks ago. After she listed several people, I realized that some of those on her list she has never met – never spoken to.

And that’s the incredible thing about leadership – it doesn’t require regular interaction with followers. In fact, influencing others does not require a direct relationship.

The truth is, you won’t be able to influence everyone. You won’t even be able to influence everyone you would like to influence. You’ll have to take Andy Stanley’s advice and do for a few what you’d like to do for many.

Do for a few what you’d like to do for many.
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Those who are most influential in my life have influenced me because they patiently earned my trust and respect.

What is one characteristic of a leader who has influenced you greatly?

This has certainly been true for me. Throughout my life and career I’ve enjoyed many incredible experiences.

In 2002, I made the most significant financial investment of my life. At that time I began thinking about two things – What do I want my life to mean? and What do I want to experience in life? To be clear, these are two very different questions for me.

What do I want my life to mean?

I’ve written much about my SIMPLE Personal Life Plan and how it has dramatically improved my life and work. It helped me once-and-for-all address the question, What do I want my life to mean?

Writing out my SIMPLE Personal Life Plan has been the single most important decision I’ve made in the past 10 years. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to spend a few moments reviewing our previous articles about life planning.

• 3 Reasons Everybody Needs a SIMPLE Personal Life Plan
• Your Life Matters
• Get Better Results – Today!

What do I want to experience in life?

About 15 years ago, I came across Ted Leonsis’ 101 list – his bucket list. I began thinking about significant experiences I would like to enjoy in my lifetime.

I had never thought intentionally about life experiences, but I knew that if I was going to accomplish many of them, I’d have to start by making a list (you know the whole if you fail to plan, you plan to fail thing).

So I spent several days jotting down ideas for my own list. Over the years I’ve added to it and checked off many of the experiences. There are currently 86 items on the list. So far I’ve completed 41 of them and I fully intend to complete them all (although some of them may be a bit of a reach considering I spent many years early in my career serving with non-profits).

If you don’t have a bucket list, write one. It’s a blast!

My Life 86

(I’ve completed the 46 items in blue)

Family
1. Fall in love and get married
2. Have a daughter
3. Have a son
4. Zero family debt
5. Leave trusts for family members
6. Help guide children into career paths
7. Help children plan to pay their own way through college
8. Ensure that Parents are cared for
9. Ensure that In-laws are cared for
10. Have grandchildren

Financial
11. Pay off all personal debt
12. Pay off our home
13. Net one hundred thousand dollars in an investment
14. Net one million dollars in an investment
15. Net ten million dollars in an investment
16. Net worth of one million dollars
17. Net worth of ten million dollars
18. Leave financial matters in great shape for family members before passing on
19. Own my own business
20. Start a company and sell it
21. Establish a School of Leadership that focuses on coaching leadership
22. Establish a Coaching and Counseling Retreat Center

Charities
23. Give one million dollars to charity – $693,300 through December 31, 2018
24. Change someone’s life through a charity
25. Start a charity foundation
26. Have a building or perpetual memorial named for the family

Sports
27. Run a marathon
28. Go to a University of Tennessee football game
29. Purchase Tennessee football season tickets
30. Watch a University of Tennessee football game from a luxury suite in Neyland Stadium
31. Watch an NFL football game from a luxury suite – Jacksonville
32. Watch a Washington Redskins game from a luxury suite at FedEx Field
33. Develop a golf handicap under 10
34. Play TPC Sawgrass
35. Play Augusta
36. Catch a foul ball
37. Go to the Daytona 500
38. Go to a Superbowl
39. Go to a World Series
40. Go to the Olympics
41. Go to the Players Championship
42. Go to the Masters
43. Go to the US Open Golf Championship
44. Go to a World Cup

Travel
45. Visit the Grand Canyon
46. Visit all 50 US states
47. Visit Israel
48. Visit Hawaii
49. Visit Jamaica
50. Visit Hong Kong
51. Visit Italy
52. Visit Paris
53. Visit London
54. Go an a Caribbean Cruise
55. Go on an Alaskan Cruise
56. Visit South America
57. Visit Central America
58. Visit the Philippines
59. Visit Nepal/Mount Everest
60. Visit Africa

Personal
61. Complete an accredited Masters Degree
62. Complete a regionally accredited Doctoral Degree
63. Own a hand gun
64. Get a pilot’s license
65. Be a guest on a Radio show
66. Be a guest on a TV show
67. Write a book and publish it
68. Make a movie
69. Visit the White House
70. Swim with dolphins
71. Ride an elephant
72. Live overseas
73. Take a year sabbatical (August 2005 – July 2006)
74. Be on a magazine cover
75. Be the subject of a newspaper article
76. Start a regular blog
77. Start a regular podcast

Possessions
78. Own a home
79. Own a commercial property
80. Restore an antique auto
81. Own a beach home that stays in the family – Florida
82. Own a rural home that stays in the family – South Carolina
83. Own a boat
84. Own a plane
85. Own a restaurant
86. Own a log home

Priorities

It’s been fun checking the items off my bucket list – especially with our family. (Just a few of weeks ago, Madison and I caught a foul ball at a baseball game.)

Yet my SIMPLE Personal Life Plan has become significantly more important to me than my bucket list. Don’t get me wrong – I plan to complete the items on my bucket list. But fulfilling my SIMPLE Personal Life Plan will always be higher priority.

Life doesn’t come with a road map – and there’s no universal list of pros and cons for your path in life. You must simply find what you were made to do and commit to it – no matter what.

A SIMPLE Personal Life Plan helps you do that by regularly bringing you back to what’s most important. So, start the adventure today! And experience the power of living and growing on purpose.

I’m so committed to helping you succeed in your life and work that we developed the SIMPLE Personal Life Plan Guide and Template just for you! I want you to enjoy the freedom and clarity that comes from identifying your top priorities and I want you to avoid the struggles that I faced personally.

Click here to download the Simple Personal Life Plan Guide and Template.

Once you download it and try it out, shoot me an email. You can even send me your draft to review for you. I’m looking forward to hearing about the dramatic improvements to your life and work.

To tell you the truth, you’ve already made the choice. You are either living and growing on purpose – proactively according to a written plan. Or you are living reactively – subject to the needs and demands of your environment and those around you. It’s one or the other – accidental or intentional.

This post is part of the series – Get Your Life Back!
Take Control of Your Schedule
4 Tips for Managing Your Calendar More Effectively
Plan Your Year with Your Annual Plan
Create Your Best Week
You Can Keep Up With Your Email
The Secret for Managing Email More Efficiently

I have done both. And I can tell you from experience that it’s far more fulfilling to live with purpose – knowing what is most important and intentionally working toward it every day.

I’ve written previous posts about how developing my personal life plan, business vision, and business plan brought about dramatic improvements in my life and work.

Although I had very specific plans in place, I realized I also needed a tool to be more effective with my top priorities and decision-making.

The best time to make decisions is before they have to be made.

So I developed My Best Week.

I was first introduced to this concept by Michael Hyatt and he illustrates the Best Week perfectly when he suggests:

The Best Week is similar to your financial budget. The only difference is that you plan how you will spend your time rather than your money. And like a financial budget, you spend it on paper first.

My Best Week template, available in Microsoft Excel format, is the “perfect” week I would live if I could control 100% of what happens in my life and work.

Best Week – Themes and Focus Areas

Today I’m giving you access to our downloadable tool, Best Week. I’ll show you how to download it in a moment.

In the tool, you’ll notice my daily themes listed on the top row above the day of the week. Then, I divided each day into 3 specific areas of focus which are listed in the left column.

Here are my themes:

• Monday is devoted to my team – one-on-one meetings and a staff meeting at lunch.
• Tuesday is spent on short-term planning and thinking.
• Wednesday is for meetings with key stakeholders – colleagues within my organization and those in similar positions in other organizations.
• Thursday is an ad hoc day during which I schedule various requested meetings.
• Friday is primarily spent on long-term planning which includes reviewing my business vision and business plan.
• Saturday is for family time, personal chores, and activities.
• Sunday is for church, rest, and planning and preparation for the coming week.

My areas of focus include:

• My mornings are devoted to personal growth (or self) – reading, praying, working out, writing.
• The bulk of the day is devoted to my work.
• My evenings are set aside for my family and writing. I spend time with our kids every evening. We also eat dinner together as a family every night unless I’m traveling. At dinner, we discuss our days – the good and the bad. Later, I write while they are preparing for bed.

Best Week – Tips and Notes

You’ll notice that I have blocked out margin time throughout the day for “unexpected” events, processing notes, etc. The nature of my role requires that I plan for unforeseen events. You may not need as much margin time – or you may require more.

In my template, the activities that contribute to my goals and priorities are shaded blue. Those not related to my goals are shaded red. Those that could be either are white. Planning activities are shaded yellow.

As with any planning exercise, My Best Week is somewhat subjective. However, I’ve found that placing bookends throughout my week has enabled me to gain more clarity, focus, and momentum in my personal life, in my interactions with others, with projects, and in my planning time.

Getting Your Best Week Started

Now it’s your turn – map out your own Best Week. To make it easy for you, you can download my Excel spreadsheet guide and template to customize for yourself. It will save you a ton of time!

Click here to download the Best Week Guide and Template. 

Once you have created your Best Week, I recommend testing it for a week or two. Tweak it where necessary.

Then, once you’re comfortable with it, plug the items from your Best Week right into your calendar. This is the most important step – if you’re going to make it work!

Here’s what my calendar looks like on a typical week before plugging in other specific meetings…

I gave my Best Week to my assistant to simplify the management of my calendar.

You’re busy just like me – so everything won’t fit perfectly. The key is to get the important stuff in there.

And developing your Best Week will help you accomplish those things that are most important in your life and work.

If you haven’t already, click here to download the Best Week Guide and Template. 

Try it out, then shoot me an email to let me know how it’s going. I’m looking forward to hearing about your progress.

I thought it was a great idea! And since I wanted the time to be as productive as possible, I spent weeks trying to figure out how to structure the meetings and when to schedule them.

Looking back – I wasted a lot of valuable time trying to set up and agenda for the “perfect” meeting. Which was a futile effort from the outset – because I was going to be part of the meeting – and I’m far from perfect!

So I did the one thing that I knew would get me going. I asked my assistant to put the One-on-One Meeting on my calendar. She scheduled them so I would have two weeks to get ready for my first meeting. So, here’s what I did…

Purpose

I spent some time thinking about my purpose for the meetings. I also envisioned what my team members would like to accomplish in the meetings and what they would value most about our time together. Then I wrote it out –

To provide a structured time to coach my team members through the four components of effective leadership (life planning, business vision, business planning, and priority management) and to fulfill one of my core convictions – people are valuable and are worth developing.

Regular time

Next, I scheduled biweekly, 30 minute appointments for each of my direct reports. I started out biweekly because I wanted to be sure that the meetings wouldn’t be too cumbersome by occurring too often without enough content.

Weekly or monthly meetings may work better for you and your team. In fact, my assistant and I meet twice a week for 30 minutes each time. Although we work together closely, the regularly scheduled appointments are very focused and provide a time to slow down and address top priority functions and projects.

Be prepared

Preparation is the key to an effective meeting!

The more time I spend preparing, the more effective the meeting is for both of us. I spend approximately the same amount of time preparing for each meeting as I do in the meeting itself.

My Guide and Template prompt me to select specific questions prior to each meeting. (I’ll share my template with you in a few seconds.) I also review notes from our previous meeting and the list of projects for the individual. This provides a basic outline for the meeting. So I feel a lot better going in.

Focus

A critical component of meeting preparation is location. Pick a place where you can relax, focus, and engage. This may be your office, their office, a conference room, a cafe’ nearby, or the local coffee shop.

For most of my meetings, I prefer to use an office or meeting room because we have access to tools for coaching when needed.

Wherever you land, turn off the mobile phones, set the office phone to do-not-disturb, clear the desk and table, let the receptionist and your team know that you are not to be interrupted. Eliminate as many distractions as possible. This will prepare you for what’s next…

Listen

The guide and template contain scores of questions to make it easy for you to prepare – personal questions, project questions, resource questions, follow-up and feedback questions. This is by design – questions prepare me to listen!

And we need to listen to our teams far more than we do! Bill Greer, President of Milligan College, once said to me, If you want to help people, listen as long as you possibly can before responding.

When you ask your team more questions than you make demands, you’ll be more loved & respected. (Ben Reed)

During the One-on-one Meeting

Just as my preparation improves the meeting, when my team members are well-prepared, we both get a lot more accomplished in the meetings.

I have asked each of my team members to use an agenda based on 6 simple items to help them prepare for each meeting. My guide and template includes this Agenda Form for you to give to your team members to help them prepare for your next meeting.

When I began this process with my team, I saw remarkable improvements in each individual. And I improved! Our meetings weren’t perfect, but they became far more effective than they were previously.

Use a One-on-one Meeting Template

For months, I struggled to stay motivated to continue being intentional about the meetings. The meetings were awkward at times. There were times I wasn’t prepared. My team members came unprepared.

There’s no doubt you will face similar challenges. And that’s ok. You don’t have to have it all figured out right now. Just start with a simple plan for the meeting that prepares you to listen.

To help me prepare for one-on-one meetings, I developed the One-on-One Meeting Template and Guide.

It took months of tweaking to finally get my agenda template into a format that was comfortable for me. You can save all that time and download my simple guide and template now by submitting the form below. When you do, I will email you the downloadable guide and meeting template immediately.

This guide has become the most searched item on my site from internet search engines and has been downloaded tens of thousands of times.

Click Here to Download the One-on-One Meeting Template and Guide now.

What people are saying

WOW!  Super helpful! Great guidance and practical strategies. As someone who participates in a weekly meeting with my supervisor, this will be a powerful tool to help me guide the meeting better from my side of the desk.  Chad Miller, Finance Manager

I like the structure that the template provides – meet at a regular time and 30 minutes maximum. This requires both parties to prepare for the meeting and keeps it from being a time waster. I love the challenge to prepare to listen and follow-up after the meeting.  Todd Linder, Executive Director

The perfect study guide before you have a meeting with your boss. You’ll be prepared for anything! Lee Tomlin, Associate Director, BBFI

I really like the meeting agenda for team members that you provide as a part of the guide and template. And love the idea of more frequent one-on-one meetings, especially for the purpose of assessing work flow.  TJ Ward, Lead Pastor

I love the list of specific questions in each area.  As a manager, this template could help me tremendously make better use of my meeting planning time because I have somewhere to start instead of starting from scratch.  Dennis Scheidt, University Director

The guide is extremely helpful – both for leaders to use to prepare for one-on-one meetings, and for team members to use when their boss hasn’t provided an agenda to help them prepare for a One-on-One Meeting.  Paul O’Rear, Author

A great guide! I loved the sample questions!  Lindsey Hartz, Executive Assistant

I like the three categories that make up the guide and template. They’re valuable principles to follow for a good meeting. And I really like the action plan portion.  Great tool!  Matthew Heavener, Director of Development

Everything in this guide is right-on. It should be required reading for new college graduates about to enter the job market! Brian Parks, Software Developer

I particularly found the section on listening important. In far too many settings the leader is a poor listener. Yet the ability to listen well is the mark of the most respected leaders. I love your structured plan for the meetings – a terrific tool! And immediate follow-up is brilliant – it is another area where too many in leadership fall short.  Tammy Condray, College Professor

Excellent! People want to be part of something that’s worthwhile. And it’s our job as leaders to help them feel worthy and valued in their role. It’s very helpful to have a template to use as a guide to get started.  Curtis Barrett, Non-profit Leader

Click Here to Download the One-on-One Meeting Template and Guide now.

Once you download the guide and template and try it out, shoot me an email and let me know how it works for you. I’d love to hear how you are using it it improve your meetings with your team.