Leadership Development Training:
Mastering Leadership

What makes a good leader? Confidence? Vision? Insight? Diligence? We could make a very long list and still not get it quite right. It may be hard to define a good leader, but most people know one when they see one. One thing we have learned during our more than 25 years in the training business is that a good leader is always ready to learn and grow. A good leader knows that it is his responsibility to pursue excellence at all times. For people like this, we offer excellent Leadership Development Training Classes so that they can refine their leadership skills in everything from communication and planning to motivation and conflict resolution. The difference between a good leader and a great leader is great training.

For more information or to Register for a seminar, class, or training workshop Click here

It's one of the most talked-up, sought-out qualities in American business today: leadership. Yet surprisingly few really understand the L word.

Many people wrongly assume it's something you are born with. Some confuse it with administrative excellence. Still others sense the importance of leadership, but dismiss it as a fuzzy, academic notion in today's to-thepoint, bottom-line world. After all, why are there so many ineffective leaders in all those leadership positions?

Let me put it boldly. In any organization-from global blue-chips to basement start-ups-nothing is more important than leadership. It is perhaps the single quality in common among high-growth, high-profit, 21st century businesses.

So what is leadership? Among the quick definitions: motivating others to accomplish goals, taking charge, directing activities, and creating compellin, visions but having a willingness to compromise.

More specifically, it's about creating energy in others by instilling purpose to what they do. It is also the abitity to regard the inevitable-changeas an opportunity for progress and growth, not as something to fear. Leadership is about taking any situation and making it better.

"Leading an organization to constructive change begins by setting a direction-developing a vision of the future (often the distant future) along witli strategies for producing the changes needed to achieve that vision," writes Professor John P. Kotter in his landmark 1990 Harvard Business Review article, "What Leaders Really Do. "

The next step, says Kotter, is for leaders to "align people" through coalition building, and, finally "motivate and inspire" people to overcome obstacles that crop up by appealing to basic, but often untapped, human needs, values and emotions. These include a sense of achievei-nent, a sense of belonging, recognition, self-esteem, a feeling of control over one's life, and the ability to live up to one's ideals.

Leadership is not something in the genes. While some people may be more predisposed to it than others, leadership is largely developed behavior that gets better with opportunity, discipline and practice. Those who are in leadership positions, but fail to property lead, usually suffer from cowardice, apathy or ignorance.

To the surprise of many, leadership means developing others-fully empowering those who follow you. YOU must show them they are included, promote their participation, and provide them virtually unrestricted access to important information and other members of your association. Those you lead-teatnmates really-are key players in the Success of your leadership. They have a self-interested stake in helping you reach your goals.

Absolute and continually-reaffirmed trust must exist between leaders and those they lead. Lead by example, or the "do as I do, not as I say" approach.

People like to be lead and will often decide who leads them. Their effort is a direct result of how they are treated. Leaders do not treat everyone equally-but must treat everyone absolutely fairly. Your responsibility as a leader is to get people to respond to you by helping them achieve their goals.

"Tell people what to do but not how to do it," advises Major General John J. Maher, commanding general of the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division. "Tell people what you expect of them, and they will rise to the occasion."

Leaders not only think outside the box, they have exceptionally high standards. What I call a "MAPP" or Minimum Acceptable Performance Point should be set nothing short of absolute victory, whether it relates to tomorrow s business deal or your personal five-year plan.

This standard obviously won't be reached every time, but with victory as the threshold, results will most often be in the winning column.

Accept the mistakes not as defeats, but as valuable education. Robert L. Pearson, president and CEO of Houston-based executive search firm Lamalie Amrop International, says that leadership means being able to take risks that others would avoid. "Leaders must have the courage to make mistakes, learn from them and continue to pursue their vision until it becomes a reality."

Early in my career, I held the view that leadership meant showing and promoting an image of strength and infallibility. I went out of my way to be visible, aggressive, outspoken, and tough in everything I did. It didn't take long to become clear that wasn't leadership. Neither is leadership achieved nor validated through another common approach-instilling fear in those who follow you. It is a depletor of precious, productive energy. Fear is one of the most poisonous, destructive forces in any organization.

The key to leadership is each one of the people who are being led. And it's directly related to their view of the leader's integrity. Integrity breeds loyalty, the superglue of any relationship, business and personal. Loyalty creates positive energy and grows out of openness, fairness and fostering the development of those you lead.

Leadership means creating energy in others. Your actions as their leaders will either start their engine-or turn it off. What destroys it? What I call "incapacitators"-things like abuse, betrayal, deceit, control, humiliation, and oppression. Among the qualities that create positive energy are what I call "energizers": freedom, authority, confidence, trust, courage, generosity, passion, praise and decisiveness.

These guidelines have a tremendous impact on motivation-and the bottom line. Dana Mead can tell you. He's a decorated Army colone , former International Paper Executive, and now chairman and CEO of Tenneco. "At Tenneco, the prime criterion for assessing our leaders is how successfu ly they lead change," says Mead. Leade 7s, he says, should have a "bias to action and focus on results."

Mead says he continually asks his leaders the following: Is the cultural innovation they lead happening fast enough and deep enough? Are they hitting their "stretch" targets? Are their management processes changing fast enough to support the cultural changes and results they seek? Are they recruiting, developing and surrounding themselves with other leaders of change?

Good leaders hold themselves to these and similar high standards of accountability. Such expectations should apply to those being led. When you give your all to your leadership position and those who report to you, you have-the right to expect much in return.

When it isn't provided, you've been shortchanged. Failure to set and live up to high standards is far too prevalent in today's business world where excuses are more common than results.

If those being led will not radically boost their MAPP-the Minimum Acceptable Performance Point-then the leader must act decisively. A mediocre or poor performer who receives immunity from his or her leader generates a betrayal of trust for others on the team. A leader never allows the majority to be held captive by the few.

By : Steve SuIlivan
San Francisco

Leadership Training - Motivate Others To Accomplish Goals

Leadership Development Training Quote
"The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work;
second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense."
Thomas Edison

Leadership Development Training: Mastering Leadership

Suggested Reading:

Leadership Development Training:
Mastering Leadership