Leadership Behaviors, A List of 25 of the Most Important
What Leaders must DO – The Behaviors They Need to Exhibit for greater leadership influence.
Do you know what they are? Better yet, do you exhibit them yourself? Write next to each word/phrase giving yourself a 1-10, 10 being best on how you’re doing. Then let others in your company do the same, ON YOU that is! Hummm . . . who will take me up on this intimidating, but revealing activity?
Leadership has been aspired to, examined, torn apart, written up in every literary form to man, but when you have to determine if your management team is exhibiting the needed behaviors to lead your business to greatness, where do you begin? As well, how do assess and determine if your training has been effective in this area? You need some kind of comprehensive list to go by. Steve has synthesized and melded the work of others to come up with this list, and I think it’s a great conglomeration of “actions most needed for superior leadership competencies”, therefore providing a mirror to hold up, whether it be for yourself, or with your team leaders. When it gets right down to it, you build collaboration, team work, and influence according to what you do, not by what you say you do. As an Executive Coach, I would love to dig even deeper. Assess what will make you better, and then hold you accountable, but it’s a post. So take it as deep as you can – then when you need assistance implementing, call me, so we can talk about creating a strategic leadership plan specifically designed for YOU and YOUR SUCCESS! We all need one you know.
So what do you think, do you disagree, or have something to add? Leave a comment even if it may be controversial.
This list is taken from Steve Arneson – of the Leadership Examiner
1. Being a Role Model for Integrity and Ethics
2. Demonstrating Optimism and Positive Energy
3. Learning the Business
4. Establishing a Vision and Mission
5. Setting Strategy and Priorities
6. Hiring Great Talent
7. Creating a Culture of Customer Focus
8. Building High Performance Teams
9. Motivating and Inspiring Others
10. Delegating and Empowering
11. Listening
12. Communicating
13. Driving for Results
14. Managing and Evaluating Performance
15. Coaching and Developing Talent
16. Managing Complexity and Ambiguity
17. Managing Your Time
18. Evaluating Risk
19. Resolving Conflict
20. Driving Innovation
21. Influencing Others
22. Collaborating Across the Organization
23. Demonstrating Passion for Your Work
24. Being a Champion for Work/Life Balance
25. Keeping Things in Perspective (Humility and Gratitude)
So, who’s your hero? Who do you know that exhibits more that is on this list than anyone else you know? If you could work on one thing, you’d like to add to your leadership list, what would it be? Now go to Marshall Goldsmith’s Library and learn the “Feed Forward” activity, and go to 3 people you know and trust wants your best for your life, and follow his instructions. You’ll be glad you did!
Here’s to you, and your leadership development!
Sue The “Accidental Leader“
Taking the Accident Out of Your Leadership and Your Life and Instead Helping You Make it Intentionally EXCELLENT!
Want to Learn to Blog, and Need a New Website?
Bea is offering her fabulous blogging program. This can then be your new website, like I did.
WHAT BEA SAYS ABOUT HER PROGRAM:
BEFORE YOU REGISTER:
This program is not well designed for the true beginner (meaning you have never touched a blog in the past.) It is designed for a self-starter who enjoys weekly participation in a live group and who also enjoys self-paced online training via a library of training materials and video tutorials. If you are brand new to blogging, I recommend considering one of our blog mentoring packages below , which will help get you ready for the Become a Blogging Maniac Program.
ABOUT THE BECOME A BLOGGING MANIAC START UP PROGRAM
PLEASE NOTE: We will be using the WordPress self hosted (meaning the blog is hosted on your own domain) blogging tool for this course. You will need a WordPress blog hosted on your own domain. If you use another blogging tool such as Blogger or Typepad, you can still benefit from the program, but the bulk of our materials presented will focus on using WordPress.
If you are in need of a hosting company that easily installs WordPress using a one-click installation feature, please contact http://Hostgator.com or http://BlueHost.com .
If you currently have your own website, and you would like to manually install WordPress to your existing website, please visit this link for installation instructions:
If you want your blog to match the current look and feel of your website, you will need to hire your designer or contact Bea Fields at beafields@beafields.com for names of someone who can help you with this.
PROGRAM DETAILS AND DATES:
This Webinar is held on the following dates via webinar and telephone: (PLEASE NOTE: We are not going to be using Voice Over IP during these calls. The telephone number is not toll free, so if you do not have unlimited long distance, I recommend purchasing a 1 cent or 2 cent per minute phone card with a company like http://callingcards.com or http://pennytalk.com ).
Call Dates:
Monday, October 24 from 1:00-3:00 PM Eastern
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(All calls are both video and audio recorded for later viewing)
Faciliator: Is Business Coach Bea Fields
Benefits:
The Become a Blogging Maniac Start Up Course is designed to teach you how to become fully comfortable with the set up and technology side of running your own website using a WordPress blog platform. At the same time you’ll gain influence and credibility with your niche’.
For cost and all the details, click on the icon above.
The link above provides Sue with an affiliate fee, but does not increase your cost.
Are You Ready to Hire Your First Office Manager pt. II
Save Yourself a Lot of Headaches, by Putting the Correct Foundations in Place!
The next best practice for managing managers is:
-
Know them. Find out what keeps them with you and your company, and in this position, as well as what would cause them to want to leave.
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Regularly take time with them. The best way is to have a weekly meeting to keep your pulse on what’s going on with them, and to discover who’s doing what.
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Take the time to find out what motivates them, looking for ways to communicate special thanks and encouragement. Give them a short survey and include a list of items they can choose from. i.e.
-
Time off
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Gift card to ________________
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A spa treatment
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What’s their favorite candy or drink
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Do they like public praise, or would they prefer a sincere note of thanks.
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Tickets to a ball game
Then when you notice exceptional behavior, remember to reward them with one of the items they chose. Positive reinforcement goes a long way. Also, you’re modeling how to treat their employees. This is influencing up! Just go into any Starbucks and watch the level of confidence their employees display.
“I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.” asserted John D. Rockefeller
The next important leadership item is the performance review. I admire the Starbucks standards and systems. With two grown children who have been shift managers with an accumulated 14yrs of experience with Starbucks, I have had a rare opportunity to study them from the inside. They are a model organization regarding encouraging their employees and managers to “feel” like company partners. I interviewed our city’s District Managers a few years ago, and they described a practice I have implemented with every company I consulted with since. They not only have exception training with high standards, and detailed manuals for everything, but they do what is called “Skip Level Performance Reviews.” For instance, they will skip the store manager and interview the shift managers (who are directly under the Store Managers) in order to ascertain just how well the Store Managers are fulfilling their responsibilities, and how they are being treated by the Store Manager. This kind of accountability keeps the Store Managers on their toes. Then the Store Manager will skip the shifts and speak with the employees about the Shift Manager. This also gives one the opportunity to learn if the employees are thriving or struggling under this manager. If you wait for them to come to you, it’s probably already out of hand, and will need time and intervention, which costs money. If you do discover there is a problem, corroborate the truth of it by interviewing the other employees to discern if this is an isolated case between the manager and employee, or if it is necessary to either correct the manager, or possibly provide more training. Either way, take care of it, or it will grow exponentially and sabotage the culture of the office, and you will loose credibility and influence. The Starbucks system of performance reviews works ingeniously, measuring how well they are fulfilling the expectations of being a manager! As well, if the managers are responsible for certain levels of sales, the numbers never lie. As well, how they’re creating raving fans can be measured by providing customer surveys. Feedback, feedback, feedback provides concrete evidence! With the right systems in place, you’ll be able to keep the pulse of a place, knowing when you need to provide extra training and possibly need take a more hands on approach for a time. Whether you have one or many employees, with the Starbucks systems in place, a company can run efficiently with scheduled, regular performance reviews.
BOOKS TO HELP YOU:
“Developing the Leader Within You” Dr. John C. Maxwell
“Developing the Leaders Around You” Dr. John C. Maxwell
“Love “Em or Lose “Em” by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans
“The Boss’s Survival Guide” by Bob Rosner, Allan Halcrow, Alan Levins
Over 20 Values an Executive Coach Provides
The Key Benefits of Enlisting a Business Coach 
The other day I was meeting with a woman who asked me, “Sue I know what a Life Coach does, but I don’t know the purpose of an Executive/Business Coach?” Well, it’s not counseling, and it’s not consulting, although I shift into this mode frequently. The best way I can describe it is for you to think of a coach of an Olympic Athlete. Now, that elicits exactly what we do, but for a business leader. We are your greatest supporter, your cheerleader, and a bit of a velvet brick. Our purpose is to ensure you become successful:
- To challenge, develop, and assist you in improving your leadership skills.
- Uncover and develop your unique leadership style.
- Provide essential feedback regarding gaps in your skills and abilities. Discovering feedback in a safe, private environment.
- Reveal so you can abort any self-sabotaging ways which would jeopardize your leadership and your job.
- Expedite the improvement of your time management and organizational skills.
- Help you to develop greater abilities in making appropriate, time bound decisions.
- Establish concrete goals for change and progress.
- Someone to hold you ACCOUNTABLE to do the things you know you need to do, to become the leader you aspire to be.
- A uniquely rich development opportunity to truly discover all you were meant to be.
- Have a non-partisan, non judgmental, objective third party who is an impartial sounding board.
- Assistance to execute key business initiatives.
- Help in balancing work and life priorities.
- Cultivate exceptional ability to influence those you lead.
- Development of your unique personal mission, vision, and values.
- Reduce turnover while building loyalty and retention.
- Successfully navigate the white waters of conflict.
- Enhance and fine-tune your decision making skills, learning to appropriately evaluate business risks, while navigating any politically entrenched environment.
- Inspire peak performance in employees by employing fresh leadership insights.
Contact Sue right now, with the e-mail below, to set up a complimentary Discovery Session to explore if Executive Coaching is right for you right now. Sue will be doing the same, discerning if you’re a good fit, as a client, for her. If all is compatible, we then co-create a plan that works specifically for you, and your specific needs. Contact Sue at AccidentalLeader@comcast.net for more information, and to set up our Discovery Session.
Managing to Succeed as a Boss and Leader!
What Great Managers Do With their Employees, To Add Value to Their Company
Here’s where the rubber meets the road in successful businesses where people feel valued for their contributions! Managing people is all about developing other people to bring out their unique:
- talents
- gifts
- personality
- knowledge, and education
- skills
to meet the needs of their position at work. Great managers develop and release their employees by assisting them through training, coaching, directing, supporting, encouraging, and delegating. Lee Iaccoca managed to lift Chrysler Motors back from varying challenging issues including labor disputes and bankruptcy. Through it all he managed to maintain his value of “succeeding at the people level”. What this meant was that he insisted, and I quote: “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words,
“PEOPLE – PRODUCT & PROFITS.
PEOPLE come first.”
If fact one of my very favorite quotes states that to be a superb leader, or manager:
“You need to develop the skill of:
MAKING OTHER PEOPLE FEEL IMPORTANT.”
Dr. John C. Maxwell
In fact,
“No man will make a great leader who wants to
do it ALL himself,
or to get the credit for doing it!”
Andrew Carnegie
Again, management isn’t about you. It’s about what you can do with and through others to build and develop them, while simultaneously meeting the mission, vision, and strategic plan of the company. J. Paul Getty, the wealthy oil mogul, when asked what was the most important quality of a successful executive replied:
“It doesn’t make much difference how much other knowledge
or experience an executive possesses. If he is unable to achieve results
through people, he is worthless as an executive!”
Are you hearing a similar theme? As a leader, it’s about extracting from your people, their very best on behalf of the company, in ways that honor, value, and build them. You get to make a difference in someone else’s life. Because of you, they can gain a new skill, learn a new competency, or even be directed toward their dream position and ultimately live a fulfilling work life. You have the opportunity to “be” the difference in each and every employee who calls you their boss. So, it’s important that you get the right perspective on your position, and learn what great leaders/managers say and do to create great employees. A great leader says, as they work with their employees, “How can I make those around me more successful?” In fact, one of the very best questions you can ask yourself to evaluate why you are a leader, to discern what your motive is in carrying the title leader/manager/supervisor while you support, coach, direct, and lead the people under you is:
“Am I building people?
Or, am I building my dream
and using people to do it.”
Fred Smith of Federal Express
This question goes to the heart of why you are in this role, what your motivation is. In fact, when you correctly understand what your “Job Description” is, you will begin to understand that everyone you work with is hungry. Yes, that’s right. They’re hungry to be understood, to feel worthwhile, important, and ultimately in their own way, to be recognized as valuable . . . valuable to you and to the organization you both work for. And you know you’ve reached this level of leadership when instead of feeling like you’re going to throw-up when you’re reading or hearing something like this, that speaks to the soft side of business, – like I myself use to feel; instead, hearing this now resonates with you, motivating you to work toward finding out how you can genuinely meet the unspoken needs of those who are a part of your tribe, who call you boss.
What Do You Do When You Hit The Wall When Looking For Great Things To Write About? Leadership Tries New Things.
Here’s a Fun Way to Break Writers Block
Do you write blog posts, articles, deliver speeches or even have to come up with content for a manual or book? Well, if you do any of these on a consistent basis, I’ll bet like me, you get that annoying infection called “writers block”? So, I’ve got just the tip for you today. If you can discover a few key words, with personality, for your target market, scope out a noun or two, some verbs and a few creative adjectives that tickle your fancy. However, what do you do when you don’t quite know how to put them together? I’ve got just the tool, a free internet site for you! It’s called http://www.rackandwrite.com . All you need to do is plug these few choice words into the lines they provide, and magically it will pull out of the blue, as many as 200 titles from which to choose from. Change around and add different words, and you’ll get another huge set of suggested titles. Not only do you obtain great suggestions and ideas, it’s just plain fun to do. And it will help you write great content, to build better influence as a leader in your industry! There’s got to be a game in this, there’s just got to be. I never thought that looking for subjects to be able to create great material, could be so much fun. Try it out, then write a review of “rackandwrite” below in the comments suggestion. I dare you to come up some fun, fabulous, outrageous title for your favorite genre! You’ll never again be at a loss for what to write.
How Would You Like to Kick Off 2011With a Fabulous Looking Blog or Website? Just Look at a Few of Our Bloggers and Become an Influencer and Thought Leader in Your Industry or Business! (It started today, but it’s not to late – watch the recording at your convenience!)
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Take a Peek at a Few of Our Blogs: Mine starts with Confessions . . . (People who have been through our program and have can now say “I DID IT”!)
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WOULD SIMON COWELL APPROVE OF YOUR HIRING PRACTICES?
Is it time to be a leader and say: “Employee Be Gone!”
Whether you have 3 or 300 employees, some may be challenging to you and your staff by creating continual nightmare situations that are just driving you crazy! In fact, do they:
- Perform incompetently exhibiting immature behaviors?
- Expect greater compensation and benefits from you, without doing competent work?
- Act entitled?
- Have to appear in court, leaving work due to poor life decisions?
- Live in a continual state of crisis?
- Blow off work and deadlines?
- Come in late, leave early, and take long lunches thinking no one knows?
- Play around on facebook, myspace, second life, or text on company time?
- Create a culture of grumbling, discontent, and back-stabbing?
- Steal from you literally, or in time spent dawdling around?
- Make excuses, blaming others for their problems and mistakes, blame-shifting?
- Refuse to upgrade their skills to meet minimum requirements for the job?
Then Simon would say “You’ve put up with this?” You do know you don’t have to, unless you’re caught in a position, such as a government job where you’re given the position without the authority to enforce anything. I want you to know, you can hire good people, even good minimum wage employees! That is, if you will put the time in up front to:
- Have a thorough system for screening people in place BEFORE you hire anyone
- Work from a detailed “Job Description” for the position. Including a thorough list of key competencies/requirements and skills needed for the position. This must be spelled out, along with the necessary behavioral style traits, personality, that will fit the position, all created and refined before seeking the perfect candidate.
- Follow up on the recommendations they provide before they are hired
- Listen carefully to anyone who has any working knowledge of them
- Do a thorough back ground check – this will tell you a lot
- Put them through appropriate testing to verify their claims
- Become aware of current interviewing/hiring laws, and then follow them
And Most IMPORTANTLY don’t forget to:
- Institute a 90 day probation period wherein YOU LET THEM GO, if you feel they aren’t:
WILLING to do what’s needed
TEACHABLE – willing to learn new things
or DON’T FIT IN with the culture of your office
During the probation period be sure to deal with things the FIRST time they appear, or you will be sabotaging your business and demoralizing your staff. You must conquer the temptation to overlook small things. Remember, the 90 days are the honeymoon. If this is their best behavior, and it’s questionable, I guarantee you’re in trouble?
I know a of a blue collar business owner that I’ve done work with, who shared with me that he may go through six to eight people to find the right match for the position. TIP: Be quick to move on, listen to your gut, and you can create the work environment that draws and keeps optimal candidates for your company.
Remember:
Some will
Some won’t
So what
Next
YOUR COACHING CORNER: Become a strong, confident eader/manager by taking inventory and re-tooling your hiring practices. Be sure you have in place the processes mentioned above, while survey your employees to see if your hiring practices meet the needs of your company culture. You can do it, everyone will appreciate you if you tighten the reigns in the beginning of the hiring process, taking all variables into account
PEOPLE DO WHAT PEOPLE SEE
LAW OF THE BIG PICTURE
Dr. John C. Maxwell holds the mirror up to one’s leadership. He has been my mentor for over 20 years. When I discovered materials by Maxwell , I hit the treasure trough of leadership wisdom.
I can’t introduce you to someone more influential in my life than this great leader. In fact, the primer I use for all my Executive Coaching clients is: “Developing the Leader Within You “. This book reveals, in detail, where you stand as a leader, and exactly what you need to implement, or discontinue in order to grow and develop into an effective, influential leader. This video is an example of the practical wisdom he shares.
TO GROW PAST THE RELATIONAL STAGE:
During this blogging series on the 5 levels of leadership, and what it takes to move up 
the ladder of influence, here is your recipe for moving from Stage Two, the Relational Stage, to Stage Three. Although you’ll become dearly loved on this stage, if you don’t continue up the ladder by learning to delegate and give up control, you and those you lead will be both frustrated and burned out. So enjoy this stage while you can, but don’t stay here, or you’ll sabotage your leadership and your influence.
Cheers!
- Grow in your ability to effectively deal with people, especially difficult people. Learn to do “Small Talk”.
- Be sure you know the names, titles, responsibilities, and some personal things about each person in the organization.
- You must lead with the heart, as well as the head.
- Discern the values you want and need to live by, especially to continue gaining respect of your employees. For instance, trust, respect, good communication. But your values can’t just be in what you espouse, but in how you act.
- Create systems of communication that keep you in touch with your key people, and then a way for the rest of the organization to contact you to give input as needed.
- Create an open door policy, a real open door policy, not just in word but in deed. Let people know that if there are issues or problems you want to be the first to know the issues or problems at hand.
- Continue to diligently develop yourself by learning and reading about leadership.
- Learn to make decisions quickly and effectively.
- Develop the ability to articulate the mission and vision of the organization with heart.
- Learn to delegate key responsibilities, and then do it. Take the plunge and let go. Work on trusting and mentoring your people, without micromanaging them.
