Community & Government

How to Measure Success

Lesson time 10:49 min

Leadership can be largely determined by how you keep score. Learn how to develop your own method of measuring success in your personal and professional life.

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Topics include: Define Success for Yourself · Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last · Focus on the Long Haul

Bill Clinton

Teaches Inclusive Leadership

Drawing from his career in politics, President Bill Clinton teaches you how to inspire diverse teams, manage criticism, and mediate conflict.

Preview

[MUSIC PLAYING] - Leadership is defined not entirely, but largely by how you keep score if you keep score in the right way. What do I mean by that? You know, if you're in business, you can keep score by how fast you grow your customer base, how fast you grow your employees, how fast you incorporate the newest technologies. Or what is the quality of your work? And your suppliers, what is your relationship with them? And how do they treat their employees? How do you treat yours? That is, to me, I like keeping score in the private sector by how your activities contribute to, in a positive or negative way, all the constituencies of your endeavor, which is not just your stockholders but also your employees, your customers, your suppliers, and the communities in which you operate. And you should be contributing to all of them. So if you're a leader, my recommendation for you is this. First of all, decide what kind of business are you in? Then I think you have to ask yourself, if we prevail, how will I know that? How will I know that victory has been won? And I recommend deciding that fairly early. Because otherwise, you can get midway through your strategy, you can have a perfectly good analysis of everything, you can have a good plan, but you're going to lose your way somewhere along the way if you encounter any obstacles at all-- and most of us do-- if you're not really clear on how you're going to keep score. When I was a very young man, I mean, before I ever knew that I would have a career in politics or whatever, have any success at it, I thought about how I would measure my life in a middle and old age if I was fortunate enough to live that long. And I think that's another thing that's really important for people to do is to think today and tomorrow about when I get to the end, how will I know if I did it right? I just went to a funeral of the wife of a man I lived with in college for four years. I worried about this man. We were seniors in college. Because even though he was going into the Marine Corps and was very strong and self-assured, he was the most tender-hearted person I've ever known. And I worried that he'd never find a life partner to match him. But he did. He married a woman who was five years his senior, was a beautiful nurse. And when they were living in Southern California, they were devout Catholics and practicing. Their idea of a vacation was going to Mexico to build houses for poor people. They adopted a young child with cerebral palsy. And I was thinking about it, you know, without consciously thinking about it, they lived their personal lives keeping score, not just according to their faiths, not as a burden, but as a source of joy by the impact that they had and that their children had on the lives of other people. So that's why I think it's important to keep score, not so you can say, oh, I did a better job than this president or a better job than that president. First of all, the ...

About the Instructor

Commander in chief from 1993 to 2001, Bill Clinton has spent a lifetime navigating complex challenges and bridging deep divides. Now the 42nd president of the United States teaches you how to be an effective, empathetic leader. Learn how to assemble, inspire, and empower diverse teams, mediate conflict, manage criticism—and create a personal framework to guide you and your team toward a shared vision.

Featured MasterClass Instructor

Bill Clinton

Drawing from his career in politics, President Bill Clinton teaches you how to inspire diverse teams, manage criticism, and mediate conflict.

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