Leadership has more to do with people than with the nature of the endeavour to which it is applied.
How do you score on your Leadership potential? Take the test!! (Complete the scorecard once you’ve read what Leadership is about.)
Leaders need to believe three things;
- We are in this world to make a difference
- You cannot get anywhere unless you know two things
- – Where you are now
- – Where you are trying to get to
- What separates a great business from another ,is one thing –
The People. It is the people in businesses that make them great.
The most effective leaders, those who contribute most strongly to the creation of a high-performance team, are those who:-
- Have absolute clarity about their purpose and priorities.
- Know what the role boundaries are among members of the leadership group.
- Build leadership at all levels of the business.
- Promote high standards and have high expectations of all staff.
- Manage staff performance with fairness and integrity.
Leaders today must
- think,
- reason,
- sense,
- understand,
- feel,
- and act with integrity.
This is the only way that they can create the environment in which team members can perform at their best. And this is what the most effective leaders do. This means that leaders at all levels must provide personal, and organisational leadership.
The leadership journey realistically only finds its true destination when the leader has the level of self-awareness that enables a realistic understanding of the likely response to a variety of situations they will encounter.
Only then will the leader have the ability to manage themselves or to understand the people they meet.
The Best Leaders focus their thinking on helping people feel energised. Are clear about their responsibilities, and focussed on the business target and their progress towards it.
They provide empathy, not sympathy to their people!
The Best Leaders :
– Exert strong and versatile leadership, and adapt to the needs of their staff.
– They raise individual capability and promote individual role clarity.
– They realise how the influence of their leadership can raise standards and how to link rewards (recognition and praise rather than monetary reward) to performance more strongly.
Believing that strategy can only be achieved through people they:
-
- Discuss and implement a clear a sense of direction for the organisation.
- Set targets and elicit staff input on the best way to hit it.
- Sell the vision describing the target in terms of the organisations, and their own potential for success.
- Set performance standards and K.P.I.’s and hold everyone accountable for meeting them. They don’t and won’t tolerate mediocrity.
A survey of one hundred self-made multi-millionaires showed only one common denominator. These highly successful men and women routinely looked for the best in people.
Examine your leadership style and see if any of these 7 questions fit you. If they do, make the changes that are necessary. Humility to accept you may be wrong and are willing to change is one of the greatest leadership traits available to you. It is not a sign of weakness. You are actually perceived as a strong leader when you can admit mistakes and are willing to rectify them.
Leaders don’t often question themselves enough to enhance their value in their business. Here are 7 questions for you to consider….and then complete your scorecard…
My first question…..
Strong Leadership: Have you a clearly communicated Vision and Strategy for your business and your team?
Having a vision in your head means nothing. The business vision must be clearly articulated and be visible and known by all staff. Otherwise, staff will expend their energies in uncoordinated directions.
How well do you staff understand your vision and? Can they see it every day, and live and breathe it? Or is it just a document attached to the wall?
Question 2…..
Common Goals: Are your staff clear on where they’re heading and understand their Key Performance Criteria?
You should have no more than 3 Key Performance Criteria for the business that are critical to achieving your vision. This gives your staff the clarity they need to choose which KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) need to be done each week in order achieve their goals. It lets them know what is important, and where they need to spend most of their time.
Question 3…
As a leader what are the business Rules of the Game?
You have rules for your business that everyone understands and adheres to. It’s built into the team culture. Anyone coming into the business quickly know and understand these rules because it is part of the Induction process.
A great rule is called MBWA. ‘’Management by Walking Around. Staff love to see the boss walking the floor, interacting and talking with them. It makes them more engaged and productive. It’s part of the culture. You need to be doing an MBWA at least once a week.
Question 4….
Do you have an Action Plan for the business and a mentor helping you?
Most leaders understand they need to mentor their staff, but fail to realise they need to be mentored as well. Being the ‘boss’ can be very lonely. Who can you talk with to ask those burning
questions that you don’t want your staff to know about. Who is detached from the outcome in your business decision-making, and will tell you the truth even though it seems harsh. You may not like what you hear, but it is valuable to know. Without knowing, you can’t grow or change
Question 5….
Support Risk Taking
Are you ‘down’ on yourself constantly or do you understand you have strengths and weaknesses and can identify the right action to take? If you make a mistake, or your staff make a mistake, do you beat yourself or the staff up, while taking no pleasure or reward for a job well done. You need to be kind to yourself and your staff because every day something will go wrong that you have no control over. If you beat yourself over the head every time something bad happens, you’ll end up with a very sore head and little movement forward!!
Question 6….
100% Involvement and Inclusion
You are judged by your actions more than your words. Staff know that talk is cheap. They want to see you acting in accordance with your values and the vision you have set for the business. They want to know you will support them in their endeavours to help the business be even better. So take a look in the mirror. That is the person to please. If you cheat this person, you may have fooled the world, but not the person in the mirror.
Question 7….
Continuous training
It is often said, train, train, train, and then train your staff some more. You can never give your staff too much training. This starts on the first day of your 90 day Induction programme. Staff should have the expectation they will be trained well, and then expected to perform their duties to a very high standard.
With these 7 questions in mind – now complete your scorecard? Leadership Scorecard
What will you do to change to ensure your Leadership style and capability matches that of your business?
Would you like to enhance your Leadership capability, with our C.L.S. (Corporate Leadership Specialist) programme so your team passionately respect and follow you?
Would you like your Leadership Team to enhance their Leadership capability and become great E.L.S’s? (Elite Leadership Specialists)
Janelle and I have been helping good Leaders become great Leaders and average Leadership Teams become great Leaders in the Business, for over 26 years through our E.L.S. (Elite Leadership Specialist) and C.L.S. (Corporate Leadership Specialist) programmes.
We only have 2 Leadership programmes available, left this year, so please get in quick and talk with us now, to secure your place.
Imagine being the Leader everyone respects and seeks guidance and advice from. Imagine how good you will feel!
