| |
| |
|
Leadership Information |
|
|
|
Two Vital Abilities Any Leader Must Have
As a business owner, you are a leader whether you like it or not. Whether you like it or not you have to guide your group in order to expand your organization. And whether you like it or not, there are some difficult situations that you have to confront and handle -- hopefully in a way that inspires confidence in you from your staff. I commonly say that in order to be successful you only need to be right 51% of the time. You really don't have to be much more right than that to make it. Fortunately or unfortunately the more correct you are in your actions, decisions, policies, directions and programs the more agreement you get from your group. Some people, one would say, are natural born leaders. I believe a natural born leader is one who is right more than 51% of the time, but even more importantly is willing to be wrong 49% of the time. He or she is willing to make the difficult decisions organizationally in planning, administration and justice within the group. The group then respects him or her for making the call and is more likely to support the leader in future decisions. If a business owner has guided his organization to high levels of prosperity over a period of time, when that business owner presents a new plan or goal to the staff they are likely to support it because that leader has demonstrated a majority of correct decisions and actions in the past. Conversely, if a business owner has not guided his organization to desired levels of success in the past, when that business owner presents a new plan or goal to the staff they are likely to disagree with or not comply with the plan because the leader has demonstrated a majority of incorrect decisions and actions in the past. Business owners I have met commonly know what they should do but most of the time they lack the courage to make the decision and act. I see this so often - an owner knows exactly what he needs to do to expand his organization or handle a particular staff member, but chooses to do something else; something easier to face, something easier to confront. This choice, in essence, makes him do the wrong thing. A real leader is one who does the right thing for the group even if it doesn't win a popularity contest. If you formulate a positive plan, if you get agreement on it from your staff, if you are not weak about your orders and if you follow through and get compliance, you will expand. We find in a less courageous leader an inability to issue an order and probably more importantly the lack of the ability to get compliance to that order. These are two vital abilities that any leader must possess. The ability to make the call and the ability to make sure it gets done. If you were able to face things in your organization without flinching or avoiding, if you were able to make the tough decisions and knew you were at least 51% correct in those decisions, if you were able to get others to get the work done and enforce compliance to your orders, you would find you would become significantly more successful and you would sleep better at night. What do I mean by that? Let's say you are looking at trying to solve a problem and you work out the solution. But the solution, however simple, is difficult to face. Perhaps it requires the determination of a staff member. Perhaps it requires changing how you have always done things. Perhaps it has the possibility of upsetting someone. So you choose to do something else. Something less right, or something more wrong. And when it doesn't turn out exactly the way you want it to, you look at this and although you might feel frustrated, you apathetically write it off as experience. But if you have the ability to face it, if you have the ability to tell that staff member something that you know might initially upset him/her and in the end gain the agreement of the staff member that it is the right thing to do, you find that the stress associated with not facing something, is significantly higher than just facing it. Have you ever lain awake at night trying to figure out how you were going to handle a particular staff situation? Perhaps you have someone who is basically causing trouble whenever you are out of the office for a day or two. You find you are always calling in to check on this staff member to see if he or she is causing any difficulties or problems for others in your absence. You think about this person all of the time. Basically you know you should fire this staff member, but you lack the courage to do it. Your group is looking to you to handle it. You lie in bed at night and think it through and what you dream up is something way more difficult to handle than just walking in and telling Joe that he needs to knock it off or he is gone. You should be a leader - just implement what you know needs to be done and ensure that it gets done. That should be you. You know what to do. You know how to handle things. Your staff is counting on you. Can you do it without losing sleep? Maybe not at first, but when you do and see how easy it actually is you'll "sleep like a baby"! Shaun Kirk is President and Co-Founder of Measurable Solutions Inc., a consulting firm engaged in all areas of business management. Measurable Solutions trains entrepreneurs and executives how to be consultants to their own businesses, so they not only can expand their own business but any business. With his partner, he has built the most rapidly expanding company of its kind in the world. Visit his website at http://www.measurablesolutions.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Leadership - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Leadership: Seed or Fruit? Purpose: Learn immediately if you are fostering leadership or ignoring it. Discover the power of nurturing your people. Leader is Not a Title There is a steady flow of information in the form of books, articles, white papers and training all in the context of [ "what is leadership" or "how to develop a leader"]?. In this issue, I will avoid those two questions and write about two others that I believe might be on the minds of a lot you readers and they are:Why does better leadership make a difference? andHow does better leadership achieve those differences?If you ask yourself and others the first question, why does better leadership make a difference? the answer will most likely be because better leadership creates high performing teams with strong sense of personal and collective power. 7 Excellent Ways To Improve Your Leadership Skills! Did you know that there are 7 really effective yet powerful ways to improve your leadership learning opportunities?If you have ever looked at using a leadership skills training program, you probably have run smack into one or more of the following problems:- leadership training will usually cost you some serious money - in fact, some programs are outrageously expensive- leadership training programs last for a very short time - quite a few of them run for only one or two days- many leadership training programs fail to give you some way to support or help you meet your daily challenges- less than 1% of all leadership training programs couple coaching and mentoring follow-ups with classroom sessions- most leadership training programs like to do 'raw data dumps'- the vast majority of them do NOT give you chances to 'blend' your learning experiences with supervised practiceThis article will help you to find, use and take advantage of every leadership skills learning opportunity you encounter - you will be able to employ your leadership skills in highly effective, more creative and powerful ways.Power Strategy - 1 -- Make sure you get clearly defined and significant returns on your training investment!When you spend your money on training are you looking for entertainment, engagement or education?I don't know about your priorities but I know that I demand a ton of convincing to invest in training of any sort. A Good Leader Knows The Teams Colours Leadership can be a very challenging task. As leaders we don't always get to choose who is on our team. Leadership for the Successful Entrepreneur! Why talk about leadership?"Leadership is important whether you a leader of a team or are a sole proprietor with no one working for you. Effective leadership is actually a way of thinking, a way to get things done. Ask Yourself Whats In It For WE? "Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Celebrating Successes: The Power Of Compliments Years ago, when I was new in management circles, a veteran administrator decided to share his self-described secret of success. He said: You have to be careful, Bill. 3 Elements of Leadership Power! In an article discussing the need for innovative products and profitable service offerings, Vinutha V., points out that, "improvements are only the expected results, not the source of competitive advantage. Transformational Leadership "What is leadership?" When this question is asked most of the people answer "leadership is the capacity or an ability of a person to lead". Earlier theories of leadership viz. In Leadership, Good Enough Is Pretty Bad The first time I meet a leader to decide if we should work together, I invariably ask one question. The answer to that question gives me an idea of whether we'll have a productive relationship. The Leadership Talk As A Living Hologram The hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made on a flat surface with laser beams.The three-dimensionality of such an image is not the only remarkable characteristic of a hologram. The Four Laws Of Leadership (Part One) Leadership is motivational or it's stumbling in the dark. After all, isn't it more effective to have people want to go from point A to point B instead of to be ordered to go from A to B?The ability to instill "want to" in others, to motivate them, marks the difference between average leaders and great leaders. Leadership and Followership in a Team Setting Many solopreneurs work in a team environment either with their client's staff, or with subcontractors. Having spent over 20 years in a teaming environment before becoming a solopreneur 13 years ago, I know that during the course of any highly functioning team effort, the leadership and followership roles flow back and forth between the members. Leadership - Passion, Purpose, Profit - Its Not That Hard Go to any educational institution, look at airport bookshelves, shopping centres and open your eyes to the myriad of products available today and you could be forgiven to thinking that the art of leadership was beyond mere mortals.After many years in corporate life before starting my own business I finally got the chance to prove for myself what I had always beleived - leadership is simple, it is being a person who has passion, purpose and who uses that to bring others with them on the journey and reaps the rewards. What We Can Learn From J. Paul Getty J. Paul Getty planned to enter the U. The Three Faces of Leadership This article was published in the Nov. 2003 edition of Hamilton, Ontario's BIZ Magazine under the title "Leadership's Triple Crown" LMWhat does it take to be the head of a small business, a department manager, or even a corporate CEO? The effective director isn't one persona but three: a Visionary, a Manager, and a Mentor/Coach. Coaching a Leader One of my favorite memories growing up as a child was making trips with my family to my sister's volleyball tournaments on the weekends. Those memories are filled with being a part of an exciting atmosphere, sitting in the stands and watching the action-packed games. Stepping Into Leadership and Being The Source Of Your Success Why is it that we often wait until we have achieved a level of success in network marketing before we feel as though we have earned the right to step into a leadership role? Leadership is NOT a position you acquire as a result of having achieved a certain volume or compensation plan position. It is a place you come from as a declaration that guides your decisions and actions. The Defining Moment: The Straw That Stirs The Drink Of Motivational Leadership (Part One) Decades ago, as a rifle platoon commander in the Marines, I saw leaders who could motivate troops to do extraordinary things -- and leaders who couldn't get the troops to do much at all. I wondered what was the difference between the successful and unsuccessful leaders; and if that difference be taught. What Kind of Leader Are You? There are literally millions of words written and spoken each week on enlightened leadership yet the fact remains that low morale, high stress and job dissatisfaction continue to be three of the most serious problems facing the workplace. We seem to be so effectively socialized into top down leadership that we find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to change our autocratic ways.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
