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If the jockey is hesitant or uncertain the horse will also be hesitant and uncertain—and slower. Even though the jockey doesn't do the real work of running the race, his or her feelings and state of mind have a tremendous influence on the condition of the horse. The horse picks up on the rider's anxiety, fear or stress, and it knows when the rider is stressed—or happy. These feelings become its own. The first person every good manager must lead is him—or herself. How we feel about our work has a tremendous impact on our followers. In fact, some people believe that the special qualities of inspirational leaders flow from within and are matter of attitude rather than anything specific about how they lead or what exactly they do. Certainly your personal attitude has a great deal to do with how (and how well) you lead, and can affect your ability to use any of the techniques and strategies throughout this book. Look at it this way: how can you possibly motivate your people and turn them on to a higher degree than you feel motivated and turn on yourself? There is some wonderful new work in the area of "emotional intelligence" that shows just how powerfully contagious attitudes and feelings can be. Then the is the other little matter of how you get yourself up for the task of leadership each day. You must also decide how best to manage your time and effort so as to keep your leadership focused where it will do the most good. To keep all your people up and focused and going in the right direction, you need to be up and focused and going in the right direction too. You personal attitude toward leadership is yours to define but whatever your approach, it needs to be the foundation of your leadership. The ephemeral spirit of a turned on and fired up organization or work group stems all the way from the personal inspiration and approach of their leader. Leadership is truly personal thing, even in the too-often-impersonal world of business. Employees Speak Out on Leadership The following is from a nomination for Best Practices Award for Gerald Griffin, a manager with the National Weather Service. It was written by his employees. Mr. Griffin has been our leader for a number of years. He goes above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that his team members are suitably recognized and rewarded for their accomplishments, yet his own contributions are generally overlooked. Team members who work for Mr. Griffing feel a high degree of loyalty and trust towards him because he places their interests and welfare above his own to ensure that they are treated fairly and with respect. Communication, support, consideration, fairness—these are qualities of leadership from the employee's perspective, and this organization has an interesting mechanism for letting employees talk about these qualities in a positive context. Each of the employee testimonials for nomiees is posted for all to see—making it crystal clear what qualities employees value the most in their leaders. Keeping It Simple Great leadership doesn't have to be huge effort, since the goal is to let your people do what they do best. As the leader, you aren't supposed to be doing the work. You're just supposed to make sure they do what they do well. That at least seems to have been the philosophy of Joe Torre, the legendary baseball coach who led the New York Yankees to a record number of wins and a World Series Championship in 1998. Unlike many of the coaches whose teams he beat, Torre didn't jump up or down and shout at his players or rush onto the field to question every close call. He saw his job as "writing out a lineup card, making putching changes, and patting guys on the back every once in a while." According to one of his players, interviewed by the Associated Press during the World Series, "For the most part he lets us play." Not a bad strategy for leaders in general. Unrelenting Pursuit of Quality If I'd written this book ten years ago, it would have been full of quotes and examples from companies focusing on quality improvement. That was the inspiration of many successful leaders. But now quality is just another old fad, and few business leaders obsess about it any more. However, if you are looking for a purpose or a new direction for your leadership, you might try revisiting this crumbling temple. The company that doesn't have to recall its products make a lot more money than the one that does. And the company that provides a noticeably better service or product wins a higher share of sales and brings in greater returns on investment. Quality pays off if you pursue it hard enough to achieve quality that customers notice and get excited about. If you think there is any possibility of achieving noticeable improvements in quality, why not dedicate your leadership to this quest? Obsess About the Details that Really Matter Leaders delegate. They don't worry about details. or so goes the conventional wisdom. In the hotel business, for example, CEOs have entire deparments of peons to select carpets, sidetables, and bedsheets for rooms. Why would a CEO spend his days studying fabric swatches and paint samples? Because these details are the ones that really matters to the guest who wants to stay in a nice room, according to Barry Sternlicht, Chairman & CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, owner of Sheraton properties. "This stuff really matters, especially if it's going to be replicated 10,000 times," he says, countering the criticisms of the industry observers who accuse him of being too detail-oriented. Since the company has grown and prospered under his leadership, those so-called experts are beginning to wonder if they passed judgment too soon. Truth is, while you won't want to worry about every detail, there are going to be some that really matter. Those are well worth a leader's time and attention. Be Your Customer Goofy sports coaches in B movies are always telling their players to "be the ball". This is not very helpful advice in sports, but in business, it literally pays to be the customer. Or at least to take time to share your customers' experiences and stay in touch with the customer perspective on your business. A classic illustration of this point comes from the contrasting management styles of the executives of two great American hotel chains. Howard Johnson spent most of his time in his posh corporate headquarters in New York, allowing his once-dominant business to fall on bad times because he didn't realize his customers were no longer happy with his prices and services. In comparison, Marriott used to visit hundreds of his chain's hotels each year and he expected his managers to do the same. Ha had a much clearer idea of what his business looked like from the customer's point of view... and the business prospered as a result. Positive Persistence In my firm's leadership workshops we often teach a principle called positive persistence. It is the common theme running through almost every entrepreneurial success, technical breakthrough, or turnaround of a failing business. What is it? It is a combination of optimism, determination, and creative problem solving. Persistence alone is not enough, because after all, banging your head against a wall is persistent. But it is not effective. A positive belief in the possibility of solutions lead you to examine that wall carefully and find a way over, around, under, or through it. Great leaders always exhibit positive persistence and spread this powerful attitude to their people. To simplify only slightly, all you really have to do to be a great leader is to make a vow to yourself that you will approach challenges with a higher-than-average level of positive persistence! How Do You See Yourself? Remember the advice of Helen Keller, perhaps the greatest contemporary example of a person who focused on her own strengths rather than weaknessse as she overcame her extreme disabilities. She said, "one can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." Do You Have a Credo? Some business leaders define their philosophy and write it down to remind themselves of how they want to lead. Here's an interesting example. Ready. Aim. Fire! If it ain't broken,,, break it! Hire crazies. Ditch your office. Avoid moderation! Do You Have a Leadership Philosophy? I'm always impressed to meet a leader who has defined his or her approach to leadership and is able to communicate it effectively. It's helpful for the leader to be clear on these things, and it sure makes things easier when the followers know that their leader believes in. One of the activities my firm uses in leadership workshops and retreats is to give each participant a sheet of paper with a big star on it. Their task is to label each point of the star with one of the key components of their own personal leadership philosophy: what they believe it takes to be a star and help the organization be one too. It's a challenging exercise but it helps clarify one's personal leadership philosophy. Why not give it a try? Leading from Values Personal values are an important part of a leadership philosophy, and without them leaders sometimes wander into trouble. With them, however, a leader's path is often made clearer, as in this case: When an employee from a competitor offered to sell him a valuable customer database for $20,000, Andrew Parsons, vice president for sales and marketing at Vector Networks, promptly reported the attempt to the chief executive of the competing company, NetSupport. Release Your Own Stress to Lead More Calmly Pity the leader in any organization. They are ultimately responsible for anything that goes wrong. They are the ones who have to worry about what to do next or resolve conflicts and problems within their organization. Leadership is, let's face it, a highly stressful endeavor. Yet good leadership requires calmness and an ability to rise above the daily stresses and stay coll and collected. Great leaders are still smiling when all hell break loose, and their ability to avoid stress inoculates their entire organization against this enemy from within. So how can leaders be less affected by stress and lead your people by example? How can they feel more calm and collected than those around you so that you can provide emotional leadership and keep everyone positive and productive, even in the face of chaos and confusion? Well, one thing for sure. It won't happen just because you want it to. Some people are naturally more calm than others, but everyone responds to stressful events in basically the same way: they get stressed! So to get rid of your own stress, you need to adopt some practices that zap stess and keep it from taking control of you. Book, $10.95, signed by the author, reg price $19.95  |
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