10 Secrets of Successful Leaders

How to Transcend from a “Good” Leader to a “Great” Leader

Becoming a great leader isn’t easy. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said,  ”A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.”

That’s the one thing that sets a good leader apart from a great leader. Worse, it isn’t always clear how to achieve that status.

Some say people are born leaders, while others are born followers. Others say you’re born with a blank slate and can be made into a leader with the proper training. Whatever you believe, learning from already-successful leaders is the best way to improve your leadership skills.

Here are Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top 10 Secrets of Successful Leaders:

1. Assemble a Dedicated Team

A business is only as strong as its weakest link. That being said, your team is the most important thing in your business. Hiring a team of passionate employees who get your mission, share your passion, and blend in seamlessly with your culture is key. That way, they will go above and beyond with everything they do. The best leaders hire the best people and are selective. Never sacrifice quality for quantity if you’re looking to hire more people as your business grows.

2. Overcommunicate 

This one sounds scary, but don’t fret quite yet. Normally, keeping communication to a minimum is most effective. Being bombarded with emails that only 5% of people need to see is completely unoptimized.

This isn’t what we mean by overcommunicating. Overcommunicate company happenings so everyone has up-to-date information. Recently featured in a press release? Make sure everyone on your team knows. Overcommunicate your goals and make sure people set goals for themselves. This not only creates accountability, but people are always in the know with what’s going on.

This can be done through a weekly newsletter, blog, or even social media. Trust us…it works!

3. Don’t Assume

This one is a biggie. When you run a small business, you might assume that everyone in your team knows your mission, goals, and what you envision the future to be. Don’t assume anything! Hammer home your mission. Remind them why you hired them. Let them know your goals for the company.

It’s important to paint a picture of your company’s future, and where they fit in. Also, ask your team where they see themselves in a year, five years, ten years. Your team will feel excited as they become a part of your growth and reap the rewards.

4. Be Authentic

Great leaders instill their personality and beliefs into the fabric of their organization. Be yourself. Don’t try to act like someone else, and surround yourself with people who are aligned with your values. Just by doing that, your business is more likely to succeed. We all know those people who assume a certain personality because they think that’s what people expect, but this is the furthest thing from the truth. Your team will be much more attracted to a company whose personality reflects your personality.

5. Know Your Obstacles

Most entrepreneurs are optimistic and certain that they’re driving toward their goals. But, a short-sighted leader doesn’t take the time to understand his or her obstacles. That mindset is a recipe for disaster. You need to know what you’re up against, that way you can plan around it.

6. Create a “Team Charter”

Too many new teams race down the road before they even figure out who they are, where they’re going, and what will guide their journey, says Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One-Minute Manager (William Morrow & Co., 1982). Just calling together a team and giving them a clear charge does not mean the team will succeed.

“It’s important to create a set of agreements that clearly states what the team is to accomplish, why it is important and how the team will work together to achieve the desired results,” says Blanchard. “The charter provides a record of common agreements and can be modified as the business grows and the team’s needs change.”

This charter can be something as simple as a sales chart with each salesperson’s name, a shared/personal goals spreadsheet, etc. Setting personal and shared goals is essential to a successful growing business.

7. Believe in Your People

Entrepreneurial leaders must help their people develop confidence, especially during tough times. That confidence comes in part from believing in your team.  If you think of your people as 10s and treat them like 10s, they perform like 10s.  But believing in people alone isn’t enough. You have to help them win. Make sure you are there to guide them to success. Share your knowledge. Make sure they are learning something new every day.

8. Dole Out Credit

We all know that phrase, “give credit where credit is due.” The same goes for your team members. Pay attention to their accomplishments and let them know you noticed. This will bring a smile to their face every time. It’s always nice to be recognized for something you did right.

Don’t be an entrepreneur who is too in love with his own ideas to dole out credit to those who have better ideas. You’re a team, not a bureaucracy. You really know a successful organization when other employees can do a better job at what they do than the CEO could.

9. Keep Your Team Engaged

Great leaders give their teams challenges and get them excited about them. It’s important to keep the passion alive. Set challenging yet reasonable goals. Give your team autonomy to learn and grow within your company.

10. Stay Calm

An entrepreneur has to backstop the team from overreacting to short-term situations, such as the current economic crisis. The best leaders thrive in tough times. Some of the most successful companies were created in economic crises, including Apple, FedEx, and GE.

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts

The 80/20 Rule

How Utilizing This One Approach Will Prioritize Your Time and Energy

We all know time management is important. However, no matter how well we plan, it seems like there are always things that slip through the cracks.

Consider your daily workload. You have various tasks that need to be completed, and some are more important than others. Often times, we spend so much time and energy completing smaller, low-value tasks, that the big tasks get pushed further and further back. Each day that passes by, the stress of knowing we still need to complete these important tasks builds up. Before you know it, we are frantically scrambling to get everything done at the last minute.

It’s time for a whole new strategy.

From now on, use the 80/20 Rule. The premise is simple: 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your results. 20% of your customers will account for 80% of your sales. 20% of your products or services will account for 80% of your profits.

Thus, by focusing on numerous low-value tasks, we procrastinate on the one or two tasks that will provide the most value. Those one or two tasks are the most difficult to accomplish, but once they are completed, you feel accomplished and satisfied with the results.

See what Brian Tracy has to say about the 80/20 rule:

We think about the 80/20 rule every day when it comes to managing our healthy vending machines business. For every task we tackle, the 80/20 rule is always brought up. We know that 20% of our activities will account for 80% of our results, so we focus most of our energy on completing high-value, important tasks. There will always be hundreds of things to get done at some point. Forget the low-value tasks. Focus your time and energy on things that will actually amount to results.

Today, before you sit down to work, ask yourself, “Is this task in the top 20% of my activities?”

If it isn’t, DON’T DO IT!

- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -

The Creative Product: Idea vs. Opportunity

What Distinguishes a Good Idea from an Entrepreneurial Opportunity?

“Opportunity ideas do not lie around waiting to be discovered. Such ideas need to be produced.” -- Edward de Bono, Psychologist

Ideas are everywhere, but only the best ideas are made into something real. How many times have we seen a seemingly commonsensical fad product (e.g. Silly Bands and Pokemon cards) and asked ourselves, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Or take Facebook. How many of us saw The Social Network and marveled at the brilliance of Mark Zuckerberg in coming up with an idea that changed the social world? Albeit, exactly who came up with the idea of Facebook is still under dispute, but the brilliance behind it is still the same. An idea sparked an opportunity, and that opportunity became a website that has now reached over 500 million people across the globe and made billions of dollars.

For an idea to become an entrepreneurial opportunity is a pretty amazing thing. To understand this process, it is important to understand research in entrepreneurial psychology.

Here are three approaches to opportunity recognition:

Approach #1: Opportunity recognition is the process (idea + action) along a continuum ranging from initial insight to starting/operating a business

It’s safe to say that an entrepreneur is not after ideas, he or she is after opportunities. However, the biggest question is as follows: Are ideas and opportunities distinct, or are opportunities simply a different form of expression of ideas in the domain of entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurial psychologist Dimo Dimov explains, “whereas ideas, once expressed, are ends in themselves—an abstract representation of an imagined (future) reality—opportunities exemplify the tension to make that reality come true.” In this way, ideas and opportunities are a process. The original idea is formed and then altered to closer resemble an opportunity. The idea is altered again and again until it becomes suitable for a business venture.

When does an idea transform to become an opportunity? This question is the most difficult to answer because it is the most subjective. Most researchers agree that the distinguishable step is the “action” of converting an idea into a profit maker. This implies that idea and opportunity are not separate entities, but rather inseparable counterparts.

Approach #2: Opportunity development is a social, learning process

Even if we accept the notion that the creative product in entrepreneurship is the continuous shaping of an idea, this is still not sufficient to complete the picture. The first theory ignores the influence of social interaction.

This theory highlights the context in which the idea is formed. If I had come upon the “wrong” website or talked to the “wrong” person, I could have decided not to further pursue my new venture. The insight itself is so fragile that we have to consider the context in which it occurs and thus appreciate its enabling or constraining influences.

We depend on our intuition as well as the interpretation of others when it comes to anything we do. This is no different when seeking to create an opportunity out of an idea.

Approach #3: The social context affects the processes of interpreting and integrating by providing information, ideas, resources that help shape individual ideas

This theory builds on the previous one regarding the importance of social context. The social influences on the opportunity development process pertain to the interpretation that new entrepreneurs gather from those around them.  They engage in discussing, selling, or defending their ideas to this social audience.

Talking with others about your idea can provide valuable pieces of information. Other people see things you wouldn’t normally see. It always helps to have a pair of fresh eyes look at your idea/proposed venture. This suggests the strength of weak ties in one’s social network. The people we know at an arm’s length provide the most benefit. They have access to resources and people to which we normally wouldn’t have access.

We don’t live in a bubble. However, we sometimes underestimate the importance of others when it comes to entrepreneurship.

Ideas and opportunities are a complicated subject. But, going from an initial insight to creating a product or service is a social, learning process. Understand that and you will understand a lot of what goes into creating a successful business venture.

- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - 

Related Posts:

• No Related Posts