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Strong Leadership Will Make you Money: Part 2 Balance Is The Key

The first article on ‘Strong Leadership Will Make You Money’, which was based on a list found in Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’, proved so popular that I decided to delve further into this topic.

One facet mentioned was – Lead By Example.

We all know that we only listen and retain a certain percentage of what we hear, however we do learn by modeling behavior.  Much of this happens sub-consciously such as taking on the habits, either positive or negative, of our parents or adult role models from childhood.

How can we choose who to model from?

Study successful people.  However firstly we need to decide for ourselves ‘what is success?’ Success means different things to different people, however in general the wants of us all fall loosely into the following categories:

Love, peace, joy, hope, financial freedom, good health, and living a purposeful life.

So look around at the people you see as successful, then just for fun give them a report card on these various aspects of their lives using the following legend:

A doing great, B doing pretty good, C – average, D – needs work, F – requires a major overhaul.

Examples

Love

A = has close family and friends, supportive peers, generally well liked and respected

C = Most family is close knit, few close friends with others being more like acquaintances, needs work on people skills

Hope

A = optimistic.  If having a bad day they will choose to feel the emotion, then choose to turn it around into a positive such as swimming laps to work through the anger, or listen to a motivational audio on the way to work to change the attitude.

F = pessimist, does not see a future, does not believe there is a God or any reason to live

Living a Purposeful Life:

A = heads an expanding company with a great team of motivated managers and staff.  Volunteers on weekends as his son’s assistant football coach.

B = Has an okay job, earns good money and is writing articles on the side in preparation for a career change to then work in his passion of writing for the national newspaper.

D = Unhappy in his job, doesn’t earn much and is not using his skills, however volunteers on the audio visual team at church which has an international television program. [so minimal changes are required to radically improve this area]

So successful people are not those who have achieved the highest in their field or earn the most money or have the biggest toys – although they could also have these!!  Success is living a balanced life.

If you plot this report card on a wheel, the ideal is balanced.  The person can have all C’s so there is room for expansion. However if the person has AAA then an F in love or purposeful life, the wheel will cause the vehicle to spin violently out of control and crash.  Even little bumps can cause unbalanced wheels to derail over time.

So the goal here is two-fold.  Aim to change your life to be one of balance and also choose to follow balanced people.  This could be as a coach or mentor (remembering that all successful people have others in their lives, who hold these types of roles, either formal or informal).

Stay tuned for the next post on how to live a balanced life and stay in control.

For further information on this topic, go to the tag cloud on the left hand side or do a search on this blog.  A great search is ‘Zig Ziglar success’.

April 26th, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Category: Better Business Strategies, success | One comment

Strong Leadership WILL make you money.

Some of history’s most famous leaders were so successful … or were they?  Keep reading how we can lead our own teams to success.

There are many forms of leadership.  Some are more authoritarian – we’ve all heard of “it’s my way or the highway”.  Over a shorter period of time this can be very successful – at it’s most extreme we can consider Adolf Hitler.  He was so successful that he was able to bring his vision for a master race not only to Germany but to inspire many Germans to join the Nazi party and take over much of Europe.  However over the medium to long term people will not continue to be ruled by fear.

Leading by example is the more authentic way to lead.  One only has to remember William Wallace’s speech leading the men into battle in ‘Braveheart’ to see that strong leadership by example, can inspire even the most uncertain and even timid men, on to great things and occasionally almost certain death for the greater cause.

When leaders have integrity by honouring their word, being loyal to their workers and acknowledging their team for any and all successes, the team members will return that honour, respect and loyalty.

Other facets of strong leadership over the long term include:

Courage especially in the face of adversity (making the tough decisions and staying the course)

Self-control – if someone cannot control their own temper, overindulgent drinking habits or other addictive behaviours – it will flow over into the work arena and affect the respect you receive from staff

Justice – being fair does not always mean treating someone the same but being equitable – this could be by giving people the same chance to do their work.  Access to inclusion relies heavily on this.  For example, thinking outside the square to allow a sight impaired person to undertake office duties such as updating databases and answering telephone enquiries by utilizing technologies such as a scanner combined with software such as Jaws.

Commitment to the  plan – staying the chosen course which has been researched and chosen then undergoing review over time to check it’s effectiveness.

Giving more than is expected.  At all levels of employment, some people will notice your work ethic and commitment to excellence.  However it may not come from where you thought.

Be respectable.  This is not being a people pleaser but making the tough decisions when needed and not becoming over friendly with staff but open and respectful.

Be empathetic to others.  Everyone goes through difficulties at times.  Great leaders have usually been the most intelligent followers, learning quickly, thoroughly and accepting the authority.

Become a master of details as well as the big picture.  This does not mean that you need to do this yourself but are able to bring together an effective team and work with them and lead them.

Be responsible for yourself and your team.  Show loyalty even when things do not go well.  Great leaders understand that when things are not going well that they have also failed in their role as a leader.  Then they do something about it once they have acknowledged it.

Cooperate with others for the common goal.

(source:  based on the list from Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’).

Great leaders understand that every one of these traits is vital.  Only having some but not all will lead to problems!

September 22nd, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: Better Business Strategies | 34 comments