3. Empowerment. Great leaders know that they need to create more leaders at all levels. Empower your people; nurture their development as leaders. Don't just delegate work; delegate decision-making powers to people. When people have the authority to make important decisions, they feel part of the organization, and they're more likely to remain part of it. By empowering your people, you enable them to reach their potential. When you fail to empower people, barriers are created that people can't overcome. If these barriers remain long enough people give up and leave. Many of those people go on to become great leaders at other organizations.
4. Coaching. Coaching boosts productivity, builds teamwork, motivates employees to elevate performance levels, and helps people overcome obstacles to their success. A great leader spends time working with individuals to see the blocks in their performance. A successful leader and effective coach are one in the same. People won't change until they see the need to. Good coaches listen to people to find ways to break down the barriers that keep people from reaching their full potential. They then work with their people to outline a plan of action that clearly states the goals for improvement and accountability. Coaching helps people learn, grow, and change. It provides a powerful structure through which people can focus on specific outcomes, become more effective, and stay on track.
Uncertainty calls for strong leaders who guide people through troubling and turbulent times. Inspire and motivate your people to help them adjust and be productive employees. By utilizing these four leadership skills, you can change attitudes and create a positive and nurturing environment.
Helen Gets It Right
When the board of directors of a failing company appointed Helen as CEO she brought with her all the requisite skills from her previous position with a competitor. She practiced the four techniques just described: communication, praise, empowerment, and coaching. Those skills enabled her to turn around the company.
Hands-On Advice: Bear this in mind – you can succeed where others have failed if you do the right things, have faith in yourself, and have the courage to persevere.
Helen did it as thousands of others have before her, and at all levels of the organization. It's not easy, but it can be done, and it is those character traits that separate thriving leaders from mediocre performers.
Takeaway from Chapter 1
Define the traits, duties, and competencies of highly effective leaders you have known. Compare them to highly ineffective leaders you may have had the good fortune to work with. I say good fortune because watching leaders fail enables you to evaluate why they failed. Now contrast them with leaders who have had great success and determine why they succeeded.
I suggest you write this information, listing the traits, duties, and competencies in the left-hand column, and the names of the contrasting managers in the next two columns, then evaluate them one attribute at a time. In the third column, write your name, and have a coach or mentor evaluate you compared with the other two leaders, attribute by attribute.
Why write it? Because the act of writing assures that you won't skim over the information but instead give each of the traits, duties, and competencies the thought they deserve. This method will also help guide your thinking, organizing how you analyze an issue (whatever that issue might be), then let you come to rational conclusions in a systematic way.
There is no better school than this. Use the takeaway from this chapter, and each succeeding chapter, to improve your leadership qualities.
2
Who Said It Would Be Easy?
Scope of the Leader's Job
Leadership is a tough job, one that places you in difficult positions, facing vexing dilemmas. Regardless of your level – supervisor, manager, general manager, president, or CEO – leadership is challenging.
Five Fundamental Goals of Highly Effective Leaders
Let's examine those five goals:
1. Bring people together to work as a team. You guide your team, department, or group, and it's not easy leading a group of diverse people. The workplace today is more diverse than at any time in history: Greatest Generation, baby boomers, Gen X, and Gen Y. Each group has its ideas, values, and thoughts regarding what should be done and how to do it. Effective leaders work hard to build strong teams that accomplish great things. People who work together cohesively offer a competitive advantage.
2. Motivate people to perform. You can't lead without inspiring people to do great things. They must be willing to take that next step, the one that allows them to reach beyond their perceived capabilities and step out of the proverbial box. Each employee has distinct values and needs, wants and desires. Effective leaders spend time coaching people one-on-one to find out what makes them tick, which challenges confront them, and which types of motivation will spur them to perform at a higher level.
People are motivated in two ways: intrinsically and extrinsically. Extrinsic motivation involves outside factors: money, power, or position. Intrinsic motivation comes from within: the desire for pride, a passion for one's work, and the desire to do a great job.
3. Take responsibility for bottom-line results. Regardless of your organization's size or type (public or private), much of your behavior is driven by the bottom line. If you are in a leadership role, you've got to work with people to produce and achieve the results necessary to be profitable. Leaders are measured by their results, as are the people who work for them. Every organization has financial goals. If they're unmet, the consequences may be severe.
4. Make difficult decisions. It's your responsibility to hire the right people, terminate the wrong people, and call people on the carpet to take corrective measures. It's also within your purview to change the direction of your department, team, or organization as the landscape changes in your business environment.
You may also have to decide whether friends or former colleagues are doing their job. You may find yourself in the unenviable position of having to reprimand, issue warnings, and occasionally terminate staff. The people who report to you must be in the right job for their abilities. You may have the right people, but the positions they're in may not be the correct fit, so you'll need to make the necessary changes.
5. Create positive energy. Team and company success depend on having highly motivated individuals who are excited about their work. Of course, no workforce operates in a vacuum. Employees need a strong leader with a positive attitude and enthusiasm. Employees work for people (leaders), not for companies. Conversely, employees don't leave companies – they leave ineffective leaders. An employee's relationship with a manager/supervisor largely determines the length of an employee's stay. The main reason people quit is the manager's behavior. A quality leader is the key factor in attracting and retaining top talent.
There is no shortage of good employees today; however, there is a shortage of inspirational leaders and inspiring places to work. Leaders are seldom energy neutral. They either energize their employees, or they act as energy vampires, sapping workers' motivation and enthusiasm and contributing to low morale.
What's Wrong with Being Right?
Ego can serve as a powerful tool in regulating your personal and professional behavior. In Freud's psychological schematic, the ego maintains balance between our primitive emotions (the id) and our conscience (the superego). “The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in contrast to the id, which contains