Growing up a college football fan, I was no stranger to the impact that Tim Tebow had on his family, football team and the world of college football. In fact, I was a huge Tim Tebow fan despite my family being devoted Penn State Nittany Lion fans. For those that aren’t familiar with the name, Tim Tebow played for the University of Florida (Gators) from 2006-2009 while also winning one Heisman Trophy and two national championships.  Ultimately, he was the ultimate leader in the college sports world at that time. 

Recently, Tim Tebow was a guest speaker for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) annual conference. His given topic is one worthy of sharing with all of you: The Keys to Lasting Leadership. Throughout his session, Tim shared how anyone can demonstrate leadership once, but to do it over time and leave a lasting impact requires four core components: respect, belief, passion and compassion. Below, you will see my take on these four categories and how they greatly impact your effectiveness as a leader within your office. 

Respect 

• Tim mentioned how social media “likes” should be switched to “respect.” The argument here is that many people like things that they don’t necessarily respect, which creates a lot of confusion at the organizational level. 

• In the end, your employees could seem as if they “like” you, but still fail to respect you. Ultimately, respect must be earned from your employees- spend time with them to establish this early on in your relationship. 

Belief 

• Here Tim gave examples that demonstrate the power of believing in yourself.  

• As leaders, we must have belief in ourselves and our staff. If you fail to have one of either of these your power as a leader will quickly be diminished.  

Passion 

• Arguably the most important topic of the group, you must have passion for what you do.  

• If you lack passion in your job and don’t stand behind what your organization does, it will be extremely difficult to gain the respect and belief of your co-workers.  

• If you find yourself struggling here, take some time away (a great long weekend opportunity) and reflect on things you are or previously were passionate about and how you can reignite that fire. 

Compassion  

• Tim described this as “showing passion towards others” or “being willing to suffer with someone in a supportive way.”  

• Co-workers are real people and will experience real-life challenges throughout their time working with you. Spending 2-3 minutes just checking in on how someone is doing (not accepting the “ok” response when you ask how they are doing) can go a long way in enabling you to demonstrate compassion for others. 

In the end, the path to lasting leadership within your organization is not a “one-size fits all” approach, so appropriate time should be devoted to visualizing and strategizing how to provide effective leadership within your office. 

If you would like to get group insight with other attorneys and executive directors on effective leadership within the office, make sure to join our monthly Executive Director calls which are the first Wednesday of each month or email me for the link at dloffredo@staging_milliondollar.wordkeeper.net . 

Dom Loffredo