Open Hand or Closed Fist? The Surprising Benefit of Choosing Abundance over Scarcity
Do you adopt an abundance or scarcity mentality?
Do you see opportunity everywhere and share freely with complete transparency? Or, do you covet your resources and hoard information so others don’t get your advantage?
I’m inspired by leaders who share, even with those who might have competing interests.
In fact, I can remember a time when my firm benefited from one such leader – Mike Abrashoff, the New York Times best-selling author of “It’s Your Ship.”
When Courtney and I were getting our business off the ground and preparing for our book launch, our literary agent offered to introduce us to Mike so we could speak with him to learn about the publishing and speaking business. At first, Courtney and I were suspicious. Would Mike really share his ideas and best practices? We’re competing in the same “military leadership” space he is in – would he really give us an advantage? But after spending more than an hour on the phone with Mike, the answer was clear: Yes, he would!
Courtney and I were amazed how Mike took us under his wing and shared ideas, best practices, and pointed out pitfalls we needed to avoid. Mike made such an impression on us that we vowed to be as open and collaborative with others just as he was with us.
In the spirit of staying open, positive and collaborative, here are some of the practices that we’ve since strove to adopt:
- Be open and transparent with information. Don’t keep information hostage in some sort of weird power play move.
- Eliminate gossip. Work hard to build people up (rather than break people down).
- Commit to growth so we can better our best. (That way we don’t have to worry about competition. We’re competitive with ourselves.)
- Celebrate the success of others. Be proud of what others achieve – and use their examples as inspiration for what you can do, too!
We – at Lead Star – always aspire to lead with an abundance mentality. Visit our Spark Experience site for free leadership resources you can use to lead yourself, your team, and your organization.
