Within most organizations there is a management / leadership track – take advantage of this track by further refining and developing the leadership and management skills you already possess.

1. Improve your Peer-Leadership Skills 
 Build a reputation as a leader among your peers.  Actions speak louder than words.  At various meetings, listen and speak only when you have something important to say that will help the group to move forward.  Do not focus on negative issues.  Identifying problems is one of the easiest things to do; there is no great demand for problem identifiers, but there is a great demand for problem solvers.  Be Solution Oriented:  if you address a problem, be sure that you have a potential solution to discuss as well.  Share information and communicate often with your peers.  This helps you and others to grow and develop.

2. Improve your Administrative Skills
 Develop an administrative competence in every form of communication and logistical follow up you perform in your job.  Cultivate a reputation as someone who produces high-quality work no matter what your endeavor, no matter who your audience.

3. Develop your General Leadership Skills
 Leadership is a learned skill.  Constantly seek to learn from those successful leaders within and outside your organization.  What pearl or pearls of wisdom can you pick up and use to help you become a leader?  Pick and choose from their leadership styles, yet make it your own as you continue to develop your personal style.  Whatever style you choose, keep these “pearls of wisdom” in the forefront of your mind and think about how to apply them as you move forward in two key areas – achieving bottom line results for your organization and developing your people.

Here are some key ideas to consider as you move along this path of continuous leadership improvement during the first half of the New Year:

• Know yourself and seek self-improvement opportunities

• Be technically proficient and know how to apply your knowledge

• Seek out responsibility and take responsibility for your actions

• Make sound and timely decisions

• Set a good example for others

• Know your people and look out for their wellbeing

• Keep your people well informed

• Help your people develop a sense of responsibility

• Ensure that task job tasks you delegate are understood, supervised, and accomplished

• Train your people as a team

• Develop plans of action that are in accordance with your team’s capabilities

We have just been though one of the greatest financial crisis in the history of the world.  The world goes further into debt.  Companies struggle to be profitable.  We continue to see the bickering of politicians and watch the business-as-usual with our governments.  The wars in foreign countries continue.   We continue to watch the further disintegration of the family system and family values.  And through all of this, one asks “Where are the leaders?”  What is leadership?  Who is a leader?

Regardless of our position in life, all of us can and should be leaders.  So what is leadership?  “Leadership is the ability to decide what is to be done, and then get others to want to do it.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

Leaders accomplish things by leading.  That is, by guiding and helping other people.  Dictators issue orders, using fear and punishment to command compliance.  Leaders shape people’s opinions and win their enthusiasm, using every available opportunity to send out their message (VISION) and win supporters (Noel Tichy, The Leadership Engine).  Dictators break people down to feel inadequate, incapable, and don’t know much about the value people and their power.

What makes a leader?  A leader has VISION about what needs to be done.  He/she makes changes and helps others to make changes in order to see the VISION through completion.

What is your VISION about leadership?  What is the vision that you have about leading your family, in your community, in your employment, in your religious organization, or in your own personal development? As we talk about vision and change, there are a number of tools that can be used to help lead others towards change:

· Situational Leadership by Paul Hersey & Ken Blanchard (1984)

o Directing

o Coaching

o Supporting

o Delegating

· The Coach by Steven Stowell & Matt Starcevich (1987)

o Be Supportive

o Define the Topic and Needs

o Establish Impact

o Initiate a Plan

o Get a Commitment

o Confront Excuses / Resistance

o Clarify Consequences

o Don’t Give Up

· The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (1989)

o Be Proactive

o Begin with the End in Mind

o Put First Things First

o Think Win/Win

o Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood

o Synergize

o Sharpen the Saw

· Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman (1995)

o Self-awareness

o Self-regulation

o Motivation

o Empathy

o Social Skill/Team Builders

· E’s of Excellence by Curtis Reese (2000)

o Ethic (Work hard and Smart)

o Ego (Strong Ambition to Win)

o Empathy (Meet their needs)

o Empower (Help them to Help Themselves)

o Enthusiasm (Full of Energy)

o Education (Continue to Learn)

o Exercise (Stay Healthy)

o Execute (Put your Plan into Action)

Let’s take a closer look at Curtis Reese’s E’s of Excellence and what they means.  What can you take away from one or more of these areas so that you can be a better leader as you travel down the path of continuous improvement.

· ETHIC

o How committed are we to the task or job at hand when we are at work?

o Do we go beyond company demands?

o Why do our services provide value to our customers?

o Do we work beyond the mark, within the norm or outside the box?

· EGO / AMBITION

o I want to provide the very best service because I want to drive results.

o I want to be a top performer because it is who I am.

o Our services are better because we value our cusomter

o I have quiet confidence because I believe that success is a journey, not a destination.

· EMPATHY

o What are my customers’ needs and how can I help them fulfill those needs?

o How does my customer, family member, religious leader, community leader, view the situation.

o How and in what way do our products/services satisfy our customers’ needs.

o I am aware that a statue has never been set-up to honor a critic and understand the metaphor.

· EMPOWER

o Allow others to help you accomplish your goals

o Compliment everyone around you; make them feel good about their contribution.

o Realize that the sole advantage of power is the ability to do more good.

o Empower your people to make your organization’s services even better by sharing ideas.

· EDUCATION

o Be a general student and always learn.

o Knowledge is POWER!

o The glory of God is intelligence.

o When you stop learning, you stop life itself.

o Don’t learn for the sake of learning, let your knowledge lead to action

o Teach and share your skills with someone else.

· ENTHUSIASM

o Enthusiasm, Energy, and Emotion can all have positive effects on what you do and on the people you come in contact with.

o Even your dog can feel your energy level; be aware of the effect you have on others.

o No one wants to get a “Kick In The Pants,” but it will raise their level of focus and attention.

o Clear your mind of the word “CAN’T.”

· EXERCISE

o Your most important asset is your health.  What do you do to protect your health?

o You buy insurance to cover all your material possessions

o You need a healthy diet and exercise for both the body and the soul.

· EXECUTE

o Live your goals and make your dreams become reality.

o There are three kinds of people:  those who wonder what happened, those who watch what happens, and those who make things happen.  What kind of person are you?  What about the people you lead?

Each one of us has the ability to look like a leader and act like a leader just by making minor improvements in our leadership skills each day.  James Michener, author of “The Tales of the South Pacific,”  wrote; “The master of the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion.  He hardly knows which is which.  He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leading others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he’s always doing both.”

However, the act infuriated the blocked car’s driver. With a smirk on drivers face and a “me first” attitude, the driver eased the car forward almost pinning the young girl between the two cars. While people in both cars were too impatient for the situation, the driver’s action was potentially dangerous. Had the driver accidentally pressed the gas pedal instead of the brake, the girl would have been badly injured if not killed. This driver’s “me first” attitude was noticed by several other drivers. In an unspoken group effort, the errant driver was deliberately boxed in for several extra minutes while others exited.

With the all the negative news on television, radio and newsprint, many people may demonstrate this “me first” mentality. We can understand their fear, as no one wants to lose their job, income, or current standard of living. Yet, this mentality harms not only harms team members and the organization, but that person’s competence and performance as well. When their intentions are to prove their personal importance, they tend to make less desirable decisions, sabotage other’s efforts, and in the end bring their fear to fruition.

As a leader you can do many things to help avert this “me first” behavior. Consider the following as you choose your course of action

1. Remain positive in your speech and actions. Your team will reflect your attitude; if you are positive, team members will feel more secure.
2. Keep communication lines open with everyone. Don’t keep secrets. Secrets have a way of being shared and peoples trust in you can be lost.
3. Give constant and honest feedback. Don’t lie; people recognize a lie very quickly. Lies generate fear.
4. Encourage innovation and creativity. Ask them to look for processes that can streamline, boost efficiency, or increase savings. Make them a part of the solution.
5. Impress on individuals that through team effort the organization can survive a negative environment. There is power in numbers if corrective action is taken.
6. Encourage employee development through training. Training increases the feeling of security (If the organization values me enough to train me, then I am important).

If you remain optimistic, the members will respond in a like manner. Your team will not continue to perform proficiently but serve as a model of teamwork to others in the organization.

Just a few weeks ago, I recognized one of those major deficiencies while standing in the checkout line at a home improvement store. The store wasn’t too busy, but I was eager to give my money away and get home to my project list. I watched the three people in line ahead of me with great anticipation. The woman at the front of the line was purchasing various plants and other outdoor home improvement goods. The first problem occurred when the bar codes on the plants didn’t scan correctly. Then, the cash register system started malfunctioning. The checker, who must have been a relatively new employee, quickly became frazzled. Because he didn’t know how to solve the problem on his own, he called for his manager. The manager, looking saintly and important, strolled over to the register and gently nudged the checker out of the way. He pushed a few keys on the register to fix the issue and everything was as good as new. The manager then quietly exited without saying a word. The checker gave a polite thank you and the manager, without turning around, gave a wave of acknowledgment. The checker finished with the first customer and moved to the next man in line. He experienced the same problem with this customer. Sure enough, the register started malfunctioning, and the checker had to call his manager to solve the problem. This time when the manager strolled back, he pushed a few buttons, turned the key on and off, and said “that should solve it.” I watched the manager closely as he went on his merry way. He seemed satisfied with the speed of his performance.

A couple of hours later, I was back at the home improvement store to purchase a few items that I forgot earlier in the day. I happened to return to the same checkout line and checker and so I asked the checker if his boss had shown him how to troubleshoot the register. He laughed and said “I was told to call my manager over if I have a problem, and it is his job to solve problems how he best sees fit.”

The gap of coaching in this organization became clear. When the manager failed to share his basic knowledge of the register and help the checker troubleshoot problems when they arose, he created dependency. The checker was not empowered to learn, nor did he want to solve any problem on his own. It was painful to realize that I used to be that kind of manager. It was clear that it created trouble for me and my entire team. Whenever something went wrong, I would swoop in to save the day. I used my knowledge and problem solving skills to become an expert and increase my reputation as a “go-to” person. However, I missed many coaching opportunities to share my knowledge with my team. After a while, I was just solving problem; not leading the team and coaching its members to excellence.

I have noticed that the best coaches in the workplace do more than just help or fix problems. They constantly provide guidance, look for opportunities to collaborate, and offer timely advice and assistance for developing others. When a coach looks to enhance growth and performance, promotes individual responsibility, and encourages accountability, you see true magic take place. The great thing about coaching is anyone can learn to do it.

One tip I would recommend to managers and leaders is to get to know your people. Take an interest and have a personal stake in their development. Find ways to encourage learning and communicate your desires to your people on a regular basis. For additional tips check our blog on a regular basis or give us a call to speak with us in person.

Also cited in this study is the decline in human resource professionals’ confidence in leadership over the past eight years (from 47% to 35%).  These professionals believe that 37% of leaders fail.  That is a staggering loss for companies especially in today’s competitive environment.

I found this fascinating because during difficult economic times and as businesses are under increased scrutiny, it seems natural that this would be the time for companies to invest in the development of their current leaders and high-potential future leaders.  The key word is investment.  When the economic pressures are on, leadership development is not always seen for what it is – and investment or an insurance policy for the future.  More than ever we need competent leaders at the helm of our organizations and leadership competence is achieved through development on an ongoing basis.

I believe that during turbulent times, businesses cannot avoid managing their talent and equipping leaders for the future by investing in development initiatives that are directly linked to profitability and the organization’s strategic goals.  Click here to read part two of Developing Leaders During Tought Times.