7 Leaders Behavior

7 Admirable Traits of a Leader!
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1. Know your people and your business.
2. Insist on realism.
3. Set clear goals and priorities.
4. Follow through
5. Reward the doers
6. Expand people’s capabilities
7. Know yourself.

Source: Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan/ Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

Leadership Speech

Quote from Adlai Stevenson: "In classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, ‘How well he spoke,’. But when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, ‘Let us march.’”

Question is: how can a person, born with speech impediment, conquer the hearts and minds of people of his age - one word - PASSION!

When Demosthenes talk, he exudes passion in his words, gestures and most especially -his VOICE. Most importantly, I read he practiced shouting at the beach all the while his mouth is filled with peebles!! I don't know how true. But if so, we can learn a thing or two on his burning desire to IMPROVE his handicap.

As a leader, what have we done lately to raise our level of handicaps to excellence?

Daily Leadership Traits and Behaviors

If you are both a leader and manager in your own right, below tips from TP would be helpful..Its quite lenthy-but worth the read!!

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*Send “Thank You” notes! It’s (always) “all about relationships.” And at the Heart of Effective Relationships is … APPRECIATION. (Oh yeah: Never, ever forget a birthday of a co-worker.)

*Bring donuts! “Small” gestures of appreciation (on a rainy day, after a long day’s work the day before) are VBDs … Very Big Deals.

*Make the call! One short, hard-to-make call today can avert a relationship crisis that could bring you down six months from now.

*Remember: There are no “little gestures” of kindness. As boss, stopping by someone’s cube … for 30 seconds … to inquire about their sick parent will be remembered for … 10 years. (Trust me.)

*Make eye contact! No big deal? Wrong! “It” is all about … Connection! Paying attention! Being there … in the Moment … Present. So, work on your eye contact, your Intent to Connect.

*Smile! Or, rather: SMILE. Rule: Smiles beget smiles. Frowns beget frowns. Rule: WORK ON THIS.

*Smile! (If it kills you.) Energy & enthusiasm & passion engender energy-enthusiasm-passion in those we work with—subordinates, peers, bosses.

It’s all … RELATIONSHIPS. Remember: Business is a relationships business. (Period.) We’re all in sales! (Period.) Connecting! Making our case! Following up! Networking! “Relationships” are what we “do.”

*You = Your Calendar. Your true priorities are “given away” by your calendar. YOUR CALENDAR NEVER LIES. What are you truly spending your time on? Are you distracted? Focused?

*What’s in a number? EVERYTHING! While we all “do a hundred things,” we may not/should not/cannot have more than 2 (or 3) true “strategic” priorities at any point in time. BELIEVE IT.

*MEDITATE:It’s the day’s most important act! Meditate every morning for 15 to 30 minutes over your “To-Do List.” Choosing the day’s “To-Dos” and (more important!) “To Don’t’s” is True Priority # 1.

* PREPARATION: He who is best prepared wins! Out-study, out-read, out-research the competition. Know more (lots more!) than “the person on the other side of the table.”

*“Excellence” is the Ultimate Cool Idea. The very idea of “pursuing excellence” is a turn on—for you and me as well as those we work with. (And, I find to my dismay, it’s surprisingly rare.)

*Think WOW! Language matters! “Hot” words generate a Hot Team. Watch your language!

You are the boss! Old ideas of “lifetime employment” at one company (maybe where Dad/Mom worked) are gone. No matter what your current status, think of your self as CEO of Brand Me, Inc. We are all Small Business Owners … of our own careers.

*Do something in … the next half hour! Don’t let yourself get stuck! There is … ALWAYS … something little you can start/do in the next thirty minutes to make a wee, concrete step forward with a problem-opportunity.

*Test it! NOW! We call this the “Quick Prototype Attitude.” One of life’s, especially business life’s, biggest problems is: “Too much ‘talk’, too little ‘do’.” If you’ve got a Cool Idea, don’t sit on it or research it to death. Grab a pal, an empty conference, and start laying out a little model. That is, begin the process of transforming the Idea to Action … ASAP. Incidentally, testing something quarter-baked in an approximation of the real world is the quickest way to learn.

*Expand your horizons. Routinely reach out beyond your comfort zone. TAKE A FREAK TO LUNCH TOMORROW! Call somebody interesting “you’ve been meaning to get in touch with;” invite them to lunch tomorrow. (Lunch with “the same ole gang means nothing new learned. And that’s a guarantee.) (Remember: Discomfort = Growth.)

*Build a Web site. The Web is ubiquitous. Play with it! Be a presence!
Start You.com … ASAP!

*Spread the credit! Don’t build monuments to yourself, build them to others—those whose contributions we wholeheartedly acknowledge will literally follow us into machine gun fire!

*Follow Tom’s patented VFCJ strategy! VFCJ = Volunteer For Crappy Jobs. That is, volunteer for the crummy little assignment nobody else wants, but will give you a chance to (1) be on your own, (2) express your creativity, and (3) make a noticeable mark when it turns out “Wow.”

*VOLUNTEER! Life’s a maze, and you never know what’s connected to what. (Six degrees of separation, and all that.) So volunteer for that Community Center fund raising drive, even though you’re busy as all get out. You might end up working side-by-side with the president of a big company who’s looking for an enthusiast like you, or someone wealthy who might be interested in investing in the small business you dream of starting.

*Join Toastmasters! You don’t need to try and match Ronald Reagan’s speaking skills, but you do need to be able to “speak your piece” with comfort, confidence and authority. Organizations like Toastmasters can help … enormously.

*Dress for success! This one is old as the hills and I hate it!! But it’s true. FIRST IMPRESSIONS DO MATTER. (A lot!!!)

Follow the Gospel of “Experience Marketing” in all you do. The shrewdest marketers today know that selling a “product” or “service” is not enough in a crowded marketplace for everything. Every interaction must be reframed as a … Seriously Cool Experience. That includes the “little” 15-minute presentation you are giving to your 4 peers tomorrow.

*Think of your resume as an Annual Report on Brand Me Inc. It’s not about keeping your resume “updated.” It is about having a Super-cool Annual Report. (Tom Peters Inc 2004.) What are your “stunning” accomplishments that you can add to that Report each 6 months, or at the most annually?

*Build a Great Team … even if you are not boss. Best roster wins, right? So, work on your roster. Meet someone new at Church or your kid’s birthday party? Add them to your team (Team Tom); you never know when they might be able to assist you or give you ideas or support for something you are working on.

There’s nothing cooler than an Angry Customer! The most loyal customers are ones who had a problem with us … and then marveled when we went the Extra Ten Miles to fix it! Business opportunity No. 1 = Irate customers converted into fans. So … are you on the prowl for customer problems to fix?

*All “marketing” is Relationship Marketing. In business, profit is a byproduct of “bringing ‘em back.” Thus, systematic and intense and repeated Follow-up and After-sales Service and Scintillating New Hooks are of the utmost importance.

*Take a break! We need all the creativity we can muster these days. So close your office door and do 5 (FIVE) minutes of breathing or yoga; bring a bag lunch today and eat it in the park.

BRANDING ain’t just for Big Dudes. This may well be Business Mistake No. 1 … the idea that “branding” is only for the likes of Coke and Sony and Nike. Baloney! Branding applies as much for the one-person accountancy run out of a spare bedroom as it does for Procter & Gamble.

*Credibility! In the end … Character Matters Most. Does he/she give their word, and then stick to it … come hell & high water? Can you rely on Her/Him in a pinch? Does she/he … CARE?

*Grace. Is it “a pleasure to do business with you”? Is it a pleasure to “be a member of your team”?

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Tom Peters on Leadership and Management

I like Tom Peter's approach to leadership a lot!

I was hooked the first time I encountered his book 'In Search of Excellence". Back then I was in university. And I thought his approach to leadership and management is tops. Essentially he is espousing "passionate people and relentless execution' as key executive traits in order to make it to the top.

Fast forward 10 years since then. True enough, I'm now one of those 'movers and shakers' he talked about in his work. And it's amaazing how a written narrative can alter and change the behavior of a yound mind, carry it off thru life, and be productive member of the society at that.

I'm sure there are many more out there with similar 'fate' as I do. I wonder what are they doing now...

Italian Leadership

According to Orson Welles, as Harry Lime, in “The Third Man....

In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed—and produced Michelangelo, da Vinci and the Renaissance...

In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce—the cuckoo clock!

Moral of the story? Chaos produces order and synergy..Order results to___________: Go fill in the blanks...

Which one you choose? Order or discord?

Rex Regis

It's time.

It's time to apply what I've learned all these years. Learnings such as "leadership, communication, global mindset, systems procedures, processes, IT, high tech, people skills, supervisory skills, mission, vision, SWOT analysis, re-engineering, best practice, benchmarking, six sigma, TQM, TPM, lean etc etc", working in the coporate environment and will embark on a personal crusade. And no, not the socio-political-or spiritual likes you're thinking.

I have decided to pursue something which is more closer to home-personal business.
And the key is this, I have to match the business model to my strengths and weakness.

Which reminds me, the best decision a leader or entrepreneur can ever make is how to harness his/her strengths and convert them into results.

Agree?

Power politics - essential to leadership?

Is it really absolutely necessary? Well, think of it this way, there is good politics. And there is bad politics. The reality is that both exist in any organized setting. The challenge is how you play the game. Often, the outcome make or break your ascent to the chain of command. According to one writer I came across, good and bad politics are defined as:

1. BAD politics: is one played by people who spend most of their energy managing up. In other words, working their chain of command at the expense of being a true leader for their organization. While this is necessary during times of crisis, these people base their career on building relationships with the power brokers. They attend all the right meetings, take personal credit for other's ideas and hoard information. This last point is key. Information is power and power is politics. He who has the knowledge has the power. The dead giveaway of a political person is when they rarely share information. On climbs this is obvious.

If you want to play the game you must build your network up, not down. Then make yourself visible to the network. These two steps will distance you from your peers and subordinates (if any). You will spend more time on your networking than on your job but you will still have to find a way to get your job done thus the "This was my idea" behavior.

And then, there is:

2. GOOD POLITICS - The good politician also builds a strong network but does so at all levels of an organization. They spend time with first level employees as well as two levels up. The have a solid understanding of what makes their organization or job successful and can represent it clearly and accurately at any level.

The good politician shares information and encourages other to do the same. Thus they build on their knowledge base often connecting the dots to see something others miss. They are visible to their network in appropriate ways. They attend meetings when they can add value and make themselves available and approachable throughout an organization.

At the end of the day, here are more Bad Politicians in any organization setting than Good ones. Perhaps this is because the Bad Ones have gotten ahead and continue to make the rules.

Regardless of how you play the game, the game exists. For me, the key question is - have I slept well at night?