1. Success
Everything starts by defining success for your organisation, both in terms of what you want to achieve (the results) and the way you want to achieve it (the culture). With today’s business pace and our current economic climate, most leaders rush too fast to the “DO”, without really thinking through what they want to achieve. The most successful leaders invest the time upfront to create a very clear and detailed picture of the success they want to achieve, then focus on defining the conditions (people, processes, culture, etc) that will create that success. Your definition of both success and the conditions that will create it will become a powerful focus that will guide the choices on how you apply your time as the leader (and thus how your people will apply their time as well).
Action:
Invest the time to define “Success” and the “Conditions” that will create it
2. You
You really cannot expect others to follow you unless you follow yourself first. All successful leaders have the discipline to do what is necessary, when it is necessary. They are constantly thinking and planning ahead, and always striving to be the best role model they can be for their people. Successful leaders understand that they are really in show business, and that their behaviour has a big impact on both the pace and culture of their organisation. They know that their behaviours create stories that travel across their organisation faster than any formal communications they do. Your success as a leader grows when you grow yourself first.
Action:
Discipline yourself to be the “Best You” (regardless of circumstances)
3. People
Every successful leader knows that their key people are driving their organisation’s success, and that success starts first with recruiting the best people possible, and then providing challenges that will utilise the potential that is inside them.
As a leader, the more you focus on delegating those ever increasing challenges to your key people, the stronger they become and more ownership they will take with the day to day operations of the organisation. Your key people drive the success of the organisation by both what they accomplish, and the role models that they become for others in the organisation.
Action:
Grow your people to use their “Potential” and they will help grow your organisation
4. Outcomes
Leadership is about influencing and encouraging your people to accomplish what they might have originally thought was not inside them to achieve. This can never happen unless your people are taking ownership, and the fastest way to create ownership is by delegating outcomes versus activities. As a leader, when you delegate an activity, ownership stays with you. When you delegate an outcome, your people take on the ownership, and this ownership drives them to use their own creativity to find the fastest and most effective ways to accomplish the outcome. The more you delegate outcomes to your people, the more ownership you will get them to take on.
Action:
Delegate “Outcomes” to drive “Ownership” and “Commitment” in your people
5. “Glue”
Getting people from across the organisation to work together effectively is one of the biggest challenges for every leader. Those leaders who achieve teamwork across the organisation have taken the time to think about and discuss the required “Glue” that will enable the teamwork to happen. “Glue” is really the processes and culture that will encourage people to communicate across the organisation and to build strong business relationships. Relationship drive trust, and trust enables people to work together effectively, and even in times of stress. You will achieve even greater success as a leader if you have the right “Glue” in place.
Action:
“Establish” & “Reinforce” the processes and culture that builds “Trust”
And Finally,
To release your potential and to become the best leader that is within you, ask yourself the following question each and every day:
The Question:
How would the person I’d like to be, do the things I’m about to do?
This question will drive you to THINK like the person you would like to be. When you THINK like that person, it will not be long before you will begin to DO and ACHIEVE like that person.
This question will drive you to become the “Best You” for your people, and to lead your organisation to even greater success.
