101 Tips for Leadership eBook

8/13/2019 101 Tips for Leadership eBook

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1 1 Tips for:Leadership

by Mark Sanborn, CSP, CPAE President,Sanborn & Associates, Inc. Deve l op i ng

Leade r s i n Bu si n ess an d L i f e

303.683.0714303.683.0825 fax10463 Park Meadows Dr.

Suite 213

Lone Tree CO, 80124

www.marksanborn.com
http://www.marksanborn.com/http://www.marksanborn.com/


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Leaders are people who respond to the challenge.Leaders setthe course for themselves and their organizations. Leaders andmanagers differ; leaders are a valuable asset to their company, theirteam, and their employees. Leaders use the future to motivate people

and always believe that things can be better than they are.

Managers and leaders differ in several ways.Managers

perform tasks; leaders seize opportunities. Managers have employees;

leaders win followers. Managers monitor people; leaders inspire

them. The managers who make the most impact are the ones that perform

as leaders.

Leaders are needed at two different levels.These challengescome at both a social and a personal level. Social challenges involveinformation and technology as well as global competition. Leaders ata personal level strive to find meaning in a material world.

Leaders are needed to meet the challenges of our day.Socialissues such as illiteracy, homelessness, AIDS, hunger, terrorism, childabuse, health issues, environmental issues and more are challenges

that need dedicated leadership to be overcome.

All leadership is personal.To be a good organizational leaderrequires that you first understand your motives to lead. Two of themost important characteristics of leaders in the 2000s will beflexibility and the ability to live with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Personal leadership means understanding those values that never changeand providing a foundation for the future.

Leadership is the ability to help people and organizationssurpass themselves. If the impact you have on ten people yields a10 percent increase in productivity per person, you will have, in effect,

created an entire additional unit of human contribution.

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To understand the differences between a manager and aleader, you need to look at the root meanings of the wordsmanage and lead.The Greek root of the word manage means "tohandle" while the root of the word lead means, "to go." Managing can

be static (creating and monitoring processes) while leadership is dynamicand vital. Leaders take people from where they are to where they need tobe. Some managers focus on what is necessary, but all true leaders focuson what is possible.

Power over or with people?Management is power over people.It's positional power. Leadership is power with people. This peoplepower is developed from six skills that include: self-mastery,

stewardship, visioning, persuasive communication, empowerment, andservice. Leadership is seen through the behaviors that are expected by

employees and the results that are expected by management. Developingthese six behaviors creates great leaders.

Leaders develop self-mastery. Self-mastery is the ability toachieve your own personal maximum potential. Self-mastery isachieved through seven components: security of self, a sense ofpurpose, clearly defined values, positive expectancy, discipline,

credibility through experience and confidence, and emotional growththrough study and introspection.

Self-mastery requires a healthy sense of self.Self-mastery requires that you become so secure in your sense of self

that you are not concerned with the opinions of others and their

perceptions of you. Rather than taking others' opinions of you as the

determinant of your self worth, take the opinions of others as feedback on

your performance.

Purpose powers leadership.Leaders get out of bed in the

morning because they have a clearly defined sense of purpose.Leaders enjoy the journey even when it is difficult because they

are passionate about where theyre going

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Values make sense out of passion.Passion is created out ofa sense of purpose, but passion alone isn't always the best thing.Hitler had great passion, but was still a war criminal and causedthe deaths of untold millions of people. Your values will direct

your energy as a leader, so you must be crystal clear about what you value.There are three questions you much ask yourself to determine your values.

Leaders ask themselves, "What Gets Me Excited?"Petty

people get excited about petty issues, but significant people get

excited about significant issues. You can tell a lot about people

by what excites them. We have plenty of sports fans, and that is

great, but we also need to be fans of values that have lasting meaning.

Leaders ask themselves, "What Do I Personally StandFor?Don't compromise your personal values. One of the mostimportant concepts for motivation in the next century, especiallyfor leaders, is to align yourself with people who share the same

sense of purpose, the same values, and the same commitment. If you cantchange the value system present where you work, a second option is torealign yourself with an organization that shares your values andcommitments.

Leaders ask themselves, "What Do I Do About MyValues?"There are two kinds of belief, or faith: intellectualbelief and pragmatic belief. Intellectual belief is mental

agreement. The more important kind of belief is pragmatic beliefthis is lessabout what you believe in than about what you do about what you believe.The old standard actions speak louder than words holds true.

Positive expectancy is more than just a positiveattitude.Do you focus on the setbacks in life or the things thatwill move you forward? Dr. Martin Seligman, of the University

of Pennsylvania, states there are two basic explanatory styles: positive andnegative. Our explanatory style at age 25 is one of the best predictors ofour health at age 65. What we believe to be intuitively true is also valid andquantitatively true. So, how you view the world and what you expect fromit impacts you and your sense of self-mastery as well as the confidence ofthe people around you.

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Self-mastery requires discipline.We cannot demandexcellence from others if we do not command it from ourselves.We need to always command our best from ourselves. A goodexample of why we should always demand the best from

ourselves is to consider the pilot on an airplane. You certainly wouldntwant the pilot of a plane you are flying in to determine his days workaccording to his mood or his lack or sleep last night. In the same manner,you should strive to provide your best performance in all that you do.

Discipline means choosing long-term gratification overshort-term gratification.The choice is there every day, andyou must consciously decide. Will you choose what satisfies youjust for today? Or will you forego instant gratification to benefit

in the long run?

Everyday, once a day, do something tough andchallenging.This means choosing to do one thing a day youdont particularly want to do, or feel like doing, but somethingyou know you should do just because it's good for you. Every day

we can prove to ourselves that we are in control and that we can choosewhat needs to be done, not just what we feel like doing. We need to takecare, however, not to lose our spontaneity and flexibility.

Everyday, once a day, do something just for the fun of

it.Balance is the key to developing discipline. It is much easierto develop the discipline to do that one challenging thingeveryday if we balance it with doing something else just for the

fun of it. Life is filled with simple pleasures, so don't delaystart today.

Self-mastery requires credibility through experienceand confidence.A leaders credibility doesnt come fromhaving a perfect track record of success. Instead, credibility inleadership comes from having learned your lesson from

unsuccessful experiences. Learning from your mistakes builds credibility.

Develop credibility through confidence. Credibility comes from beingfamous for something. Find some aspect of your job you can do better thananyone else. Own some aspect of what you do for yourself. Acquiringownership requires three sub masteries: mastery of craft, mastery ofinteractions, and mastery of process.

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Understand your level of craft mastery.People who arereally good at something appear to be almost magical, as ifnaturally born to the task. There are four levels of craft mastery.Unconscious incompetence refers to people that do not know,

but also do not know that they do not know. Conscious incompetence iswhen you know you have some deficit of skills you have to develop. Thethird level is called conscious competence. By concentrating and workingvery hard you are able so have some level of mastery over what you aredoing. Leaders move into the fourth area: unconscious competence. Youhave done something so often that you appear to do it with almost noeffort; you have integrated that skill. This is mastery of craft.

Become a master of interactions.You can't master peoplefor a very simple reason: we cannot change other people, at least

not at a level we call mastery. We can understand what is knownas the law of behavioral flexibility. The greatest freedom youhave is the ability and willingness to change yourself. To be a master ofinteraction means that you choose to control your interactions andresponses with people. That will give you complete control over anysituation.

Become a master of process.In one of my favorite books,Executive Odyssey by Frederic Harmond, the author says thebuilding block of success in the workplace is the complete act.The complete act is when you have a very clear picture of what

youre trying to accomplish, and youre able to accomplish that taskcompletely and successfully. There are three subtle components to acomplete act. The first is the physical component, the detail part of thecomplete act. The second component of the complete act is called themental component. I call it the thinking part of the complete act. The thirdcomponent, often overlooked, is the psychological component. I call it thepeople aspect of the complete act. These three components comprise acomplete act, which is how you develop the mastery of process.

Self-mastery requires a beginners mind.Michelangelo is

reputed to have said at the peak of his career, Still I amlearning. Thats the final challenge of self mastery. Itsimportant that we get outside of the world that we live in most of

the time, and expose ourselves to new experiences. One of the basic skillsof leadership is unlearning the lessons of the past. We cant hold tootightly to the lessons of past experience because in a rapidly changingworld whatever we learned last week, last month, or last year may nolonger be relevant or applicable.

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Get more from your life experiences.There are two keys:

precede every significant life experience with study, and follow

up every significant life experience with introspection. Become

of student of ideas in people. The way that we increase the lessons of

experience is to precede that experience with relevant study. Theres a

more important step. After weve had that experience, we should always

ask what lessons we have learned. Introspection is reflecting not on what

you did, but on how you felt about what you did and what you learned

from it. Experiences without introspection become relatively void of value.

The lessons really come from thinking about what has just happened

rather than just experiencing it. The best high-impact leaders dont just

learn from their business lives, they learn from all areas of their lives.

Leaders are good stewards.In leadership, the most valuable

resource of all is people. Leaders have only three true resources:

their time, their energy and the time and energy of their team.

Leadership then is the strategic allocation of those three resources.

Use focus to create results.Heres an important leadership

axiom. Managers try to put more time into their lives but leaders

try to put more life into their time. Realizing that time is a

limited resource, weve got to strategically deploy that very

precious resource. The ability to focus effort and attention is what creates

results for most leaders.

Use focus to gain leadership credibility.Focus on what is

important and followers will know you have worthwhile goals

and objectives. Focus on what is trivial and you wont be taken

seriously. What does your focus say about you?

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Create a leadership agenda.If you try to accomplish

everything, youll most likely accomplish little. Prioritize those

things you most want to contribute and be known for. Success

does not respect intelligence as much as it respects focused attention.

Focused attention and effort will beat brilliance every time in the market

place of human affairs.

Be effective and efficient.Efficient means no waste of time,

energy, or motion. It means doing things right. But effective

means doing the right things. It doesnt matter how efficient we

are as leaders or managers unless were focused on the right things.

Identify MVP activities for yourself and the people you

lead.In sports the term MVP means most valuable player. In

business and in life, MVP stands for Most Valuable and

Profitable activities. Make a list of the ten activities you could

and should be doing each day to give you the biggest payback on your

investment of time and energy. Develop a top ten list for every employee in

your company and see how you can become effective, personally and in the

organization.

Think in 3F: future focus, past focus and present focus.

Future focus is dependent upon strategic anticipation. Positive

expectancy requires having a positive, yet realistic attitude

regarding the future. Hope for the best, yet plan for the worst.

Managers ask, "What if we fail?" Leaders ask, "What do we do if we fail?"

Learn from the past.The biggest value in past experience is

discovering what works and what doesn't work, and how to

apply that knowledge to the present.

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Be present-focused.Leaders know that most of us are

preoccupied with the past or the future. They also know that that

we should live in the moment of now. The key to being present

focused is to anticipate the future, learn from the past, but spend the

majority of your time focused in the present.

Beware the danger of perfectionism.Most people don't

know the difference between excellence and perfectionism. You

have probably heard that "anything worth doing is worth doing

right." Actually, that is simply not true. Some things are worth doing and

getting done. Some things are worth doing well. Some things are worth

doing very, very well. Excellence is the ability to know the difference. It

means investing additional time and energy as long as it adds noticeablevalue to the product or service for the end user.

Learn to cast a vision for the future. Managers provide

people with a destination. Leaders provide people with

transportation. It's one thing to be able to envision the future,

it's quite another to be able to show people how to get there.

Theodore Lovett of Harvard Business School says," The future belongs to

those who see opportunities before they become obvious.

Begin at the end and work backwards.Vision always

begins with the simple question, "What am I trying to

accomplish?" Many people are reactive. They wait for things to

happen and then they respond. Some people are proactive,

people who make things happen. Today's leaders are interactive. Being

interactive means having the ability to adapt and change very quickly.

Reinvent the way you do business.I call this the pursuit of

more, better, faster and different. The pursuit of more is

quantity. The pursuit of better is quality. The pursuit of faster is

speed. And the pursuit of different is innovation.

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Do a little bit more a little bit better.A favorite restaurant

will often gain repeat customers by providing larger portions at

less cost - a little bit more for your money. A reputable

manufacturer will increase sales by producing a product that is a little bit

better than the rest.

Get a little bit faster.Dominos Pizza taught the country

about a little bit faster with its "delivered in 30 minutes or its

free" campaign. Is Domino's the best pizza in town? No, but they

are the fastest and that has made them one of the most successful pizza chains in

the world. Leaders understand their followers and their customers' needs so well

that they anticipate those needs and fulfill them before they even know they have

them.

Become a little bit different.Being a little bit different

being an innovator will set you apart from the rest of the pack.

The Tattered Cover, a bookstore in Denver, is a great example of

a business doing things a little differently. They have more than

400,000 book titles available in 41,000 square feet. They take special

orders, mail a notice when its in, follow up with a phone call, and even

then, if it isn't just what you expected, no problem. They eat the cost. This

just isn't done in the book business. They offer a range of services, hire

only the best employees (who like their jobs!), and don't even ask for an ID

with a check.

Live your philosophy.When I asked Joyce Meskis, the owner

of The Tattered Cover, how she defines success, she said, "To

The Tattered Cover, success is doing business in a way that is

true to our own philosophy and is good for the community." She "sweats

the details" of her business. She says problem solving is best accomplishedby pushing the problem down to where it happens and that they empower

people to make judgment calls on their own. Management deals with

problems only when an employee feels uncomfortable handling it alone.

She sees her role as a leader as a joint effort rather than a singular effort. "I

don't spend much time thinking about my role. I just do it."

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Know the difference between creativity and innovation.

Managers attempt to be creative. Leaders strive to be innovative.

The difference? Creativity is a head game, innovation is a doing

game. Leaders combine creativity with an ability to innovate to actually get

something done.

Innovate by daring to be different.Managers try to fit the

mold, but leaders try to create their own mold. Go outside your

industry for ideas on how to improve the way you conduct your

business. If you only do what's been done in your industry

before, you'll never be known as innovative. Next time you have a problem,

ask somebody who doesn't know anything about your area of expertise. A

non-expert can give you an entirely new perspective that will be helpful increatively solving the problem.

Innovate by answering the right questions.In business,

the answers we come up with are often correct but we're

constantly answering the wrong questions.

Innovate by searching for all the right answers.Psychologists who specialize in creativity believe that between

the ages of 5 and 7, a child loses 50% of their innate creativity.

What happens at that age? Right. A child begins school. I am

not saying there is anything inherently wrong with our

education system, except for one unfortunate by-product. Our system

teaches our children to search for the one right answer to a problem.

Creativity is a search for all the right answers. To generate quality

solutions requires options. To be innovative, do not search for the one

right answer. Search for all the right answers and then choose the best

option.

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Innovate by learning to act on incomplete information.

We often problem-solve by gathering information, conducting

research, and doing our homework until its too late to make an

effective decision. Being informed does not necessarily mean we

have complete information. Sometimes incomplete information is

sufficient because we can use our intuition to make the leap fromincomplete information to the best solution to a problem.

Innovate by being willing to make more mistakes.To be

a leader, be willing to learn through imperfection. But it doesnt

do much good to make mistakes if you dont learn from them.

Be daring, not foolish.When leaders are informed, they canleverage problems into the awareness level of followers and then

exercise an option. It's been said that managers are problem

solvers, but leaders teach others to solve their own problems.

Now there's a higher evolutionary phrase: Managers, if they're lucky notice

opportunities, if they're around them, but leaders exploit those

opportunities.

Exploit opportunities.Exploitation is negative when its done

to people, however, it is perfectly all right to exploitopportunities because to exploit simply means to seize and take

advantage. The high impact leader teaches people to solve

problems and then recognizes and helps people exploit the opportunities

that exist in the workplace.

Learn persuasive communication.Managers tell people

what to do. Leaders explain why it should be done. Leaders sell,

and thats persuasion. Persuasion is a learned skill it takespractice and training.

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Dont settle for being impressive be influential.The

impressive salesperson is usually a poor sales person. After an

impressive salesperson leaves the customer's office, thecustomer has been impressed with the salesperson, their

product, their service, their company, but the problem is the customer

didn't buy anything. Impressing people is a head game and changes what

people think. Influencing people is a behavior game and changes what

people do.

Meet the needs of followers.Do you meet the needs of the

people who follow you? The needs they have are (1) solutions tothe problems facing them personally and organizationally and

(2) feeling good about their interaction with you. Leaders

provide both. Relationship building is one of the most powerful skills of

leadership. But, before you can be persuasive as a communicator, youve

got to understand what people need and want.

Sell yourself first.The most important sale youll ever make is

selling yourself first. Thats because only when you have the

passion and the commitment of truly loving what you are tryingto sell can you truly persuade others.

Be positively discontent. In a competitive world, the status quo

is a myth. If you and I stay the same, the people around us will

continue to improve and in a very real sense we will lose ground.

Leaders have to make people uncomfortable with the status quo because in

a competitive world good enough never stays good enough for very long.

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Improve everything. Inevitably, if you tell enough people to

make their job, their products, their services better, you will

hear, Hey if it ain't broke, dont fix it. The high impact leader

responds, If it aint broke, make it better anyhow. Thats the

power of positive discontent and its one of the toughest things about being

a leader. You should be proud of what youve accomplished, but dont

allow yourself to become content.

Learn the skill of diplomacy.You cant always tell people

what they want to hear, but you can always tell them in such a

way that theyll be willing to listen. Thats the key to tact and

diplomacy. We need leaders who are brave enough to tell us not

only what we want to hear, but what we need to hear.

Learn the art of storytelling.Storytelling makes the

intangible tangible. The reason why storytelling works is (1) it

gets people to commit to values and principles, not just facts and

statistics, and (2) its a way of giving people examples.

Learn the three keys of storytelling.Three of the best waysto accomplish storytelling are analogy, metaphor, and breaking

preoccupation. Analogies are figurative language. Its using two

things that are otherwise dissimilar to make a point. Using a

metaphor is using something people already understand to help them

figure out what they dont understand. Before you can use metaphors,

analogy, or storytelling, youve got to remember to break preoccupation.

All listeners are preoccupied with the circumstances of their own life.

Before you can inform or persuade, you must first capture the listeners

attention.

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Learn to grab their attention.Here are five specific

techniques for breaking preoccupation. Number One: Begin with

a challenge. Number Two: Ask questions. Number Three: Begin

with a shocking statistic or illustration that gets people into the proper

frame of reference. Number Four: Make a personal disclosure. Number

Five: Use a relevant news item.

Work from a persuasion checklist.The ancient Greeks,

who studied the art of persuasion extensively, knew that the

leader delivering a message must include three elements: ethos,

pathos, and logos. Ethos is character, credibility, and support. Before we

can convince another person to see things our way, we must earn their

respect and trust and make them feel comfortable and at ease. The nextingredient is logos, or reason. Logos is telling people information that

makes sense to them. The third ingredient is pathos, or emotion. Emotion

is essential because the persuasive communicator has to get a followers

passions running in the direction of what they want and need to do.

Sell followers on what is good for them.One of the

paradoxes in society today is that as people expect more options,

they also expect an expert to guide them in exercising those

options. Thats the role of leadership. Make it easy for people to do the

right things.

Create an immediate sense of legitimate urgency.If theydont, youll find your people have no real compulsion to beaccountable in time. Accountable in time means evaluatingpeople not just on what they get done, but on how long it takesthem to do it.

Call for action!I call it whats next thinking. After every

conversation, after every encounter, after every meeting, end by

asking the person that youre communicating with, Whats

next?

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Love people.The first step in empowering people is taking

time to get to know them and to understand them. If you really

love your people, if youre really committed to them, it then

becomes your objective to create value for them in every

interaction.

Deliver delight.Number One: If they got less than they

expected from you, they feel cheated. Number Two: If you only

give them what they expected, they feel satisfied. And thats it.

My challenge to you today is Number Three: whenever you interact with

another human being, leave them feeling delighted. Peopleboth

customers and colleagues who are delighted feel that they have received

more than they expected at a time when they least expected it.

Clarify values.Roy Disney put it eloquently when he said,

Decision making is easy when values are clear. We cant create

rulebooks and policies and procedures that will dictate how an

employee acts or behaves on the job because there are too many

unknowns, too many unforeseen circumstances. The best we can hope for

in leadership is to clarify the values that shape the decision-making

process for employees.

Be trustworthy.How does an employee evaluate whether a

leader is trustworthy? Tellingthe truth, even when it isnt easy,

is essential.

Dont be a mind-reader.One of the dangers a leader faces is

thinking she or he knows what someone wants or needs without

asking. Weve got to listen because employees believe and trust

managers who listen.

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Be a champion for your people.A champion is a leader who

will go to the wall for their followers so their followers dont have

to. A champion is a leader who will put himself or herself at risk

so the people who follow them dont have to put themselves at risk.

Leaders need to remember that they actually have two jobs. The first is to

represent the needs of the organization to the followers. The second is to

represent the needs of the followers to the organization.

Create commitment through involvement and

participation.Ownership obligates. Here are four questions

you can ask the people you lead to keep them involved andcommitted. The first question: What have you learned this

week? Question number two: What do you think encouraged

dissention? Question number three: How do you feel about what

happened? Question number four: When theres a conflict or a problem

and you have yourself in the difficult position of disciplinarian, ask that

person who you must discipline: What would you do if you were in my

shoes?

Appreciate, recognize and encourage.Managers try to beheroes. Leaders try to make heroes. Leaders have found thatwhen you focus the spotlight on your followers, the reflection onyou is even brighter. When a leader gives credit where credit is

due, more credit is given to the leader who was the catalyst for making ithappen in the first place.

Lead through contribution.What motivates the leader?

Heres one of the most important things I know about humanmotivation wrapped up in one sentence: Everyone has a passion

for significance.

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Be a victor of circumstance. Regardless of what happens we

can choose to be victims of circumstance or we can choose to be

victors of circumstance. You cant always control what happens

to you in life, but you can always control how you respond to the

event. Thats what it means to be a victor of circumstance.

Recognize your responsibility as a steward.There is an

Indian proverb that says we do not inherit the earth from our

ancestors, we borrow it from our grandchildren. It is possible for

leaders working through their organizations to make a positive

difference in their facility, community, and in their country. The goal is not

simply to take from the system, but to repay the debt, to put something

back into the system.

Change something. You arent going to read an ebook and

then change everything thats wrong in the world. The tragedy,

of course, is that you read this ebook and then change nothing.

We know were not going to help everybody in our organization, but the

tragedy would be not helping somebody. Martin Luther King, Jr. said,

The greatest tragedy of our social transition is not the noisiness of the so-

called bad people; it is the appalling silence of the so-called good people.

Do something significant.The premise of leadership is

simple: leaders are people who respond to the challenge, take up

the reins, and set the course for themselves and for their

organizations. Along the way, you can face some deadly

assumptions that, if put into practice, can cause you to lose control. Id like

to share some of those assumptions and then offer the realities in which

leaders operate.

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Copy carefully.Many employees are so busy trying to survive

they leave no time to contribute to the bottom line. Typically, we

look at what leadership and management are doing and try to

emulate them. We assume that if those behaviors have made

them successful, they will in turn make us successful. In some

organizations this creates a perpetuation not of success, but of stupidity. If

we have poor leadership role models and if we emulate those poor

behaviors, then those behaviors perpetuate themselves over time. One

common false management assumption is that customer service is the

strategic edge. Thats just not the case. Service itself is the strategic edge.

Dont do service, be service.There is an important

difference between customer service and the service ethic. Oneof the reasons organizations are in trouble is because we have

lost all sense of the service ethic. Sometimes the phrase

customer service suggests that unless somebody is a customer they do

not deserve to be served. Therefore, we find that we are not tuned in to

serving coworkers, employees, managers, vendors or the people we live

with each day. Service is the heart of leadership. Those who lead best are

the people who have a desire to serve not just the customer, but all the

people that they come into contact with each day.

Relationship rules.The soft skill of relationship building

translates to the bottom line. Leaders are those who want to

better serve the people they live and work with.

Let your customers and employees make you smarter.

Heres another false assumption that creates havoc in businesses

across the country: we are smarter than our customers. I call it

the trap of the expert. We think that because we are in a

particular business we know what our customers want or need better than

they do. Here is the important reality: our customers are at least as smart

as we are. But together, leader and follower, salesperson and customer, we

are even smarter. There is a certain synergy that occurs when we combine

what we know about our product or service with what the customer wants

and needs.

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Educate employees and customers on the value theyre

receiving.If people dont understand the benefits theyre

provided, they wont appreciate and value them. Make sure your

people know about the things that you and your organization do

for them.

Focus on the possible.Anyone can achieve the probable.

Leaders aim higher. They survey their situation and look for the

biggest and most exciting possibilities to pursue.

Break down barriers that keep people from doing

better.Identify the obstacles your team faces and use your

leadership to remove them. If you want to know whats holding

your people back, just ask them.

Design your systems and procedures for people.Examine the systems you have created and ask, Do thosesystems truly leverage the knowledge and skills of the peoplewho make the products and services we provide?

If your employees arent learning, you arent leading.Developing those you lead should be a top priority. People rarelyget better by accident.

Coach everyone.In many organizations, new employees comeon board with little or no coaching. One of the key roles ofleadership is surrounding ourselves with talent and that beginsat the recruiting and hiring phase.

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Learning is NOT achieved through osmosis.We assumethat because someone is competent at what they do, they shouldbe competent at teaching other people how to do it. Performanceis not achieved through osmosis. Performance is achieved

through coaching and practice. Probably the second greatest weakness inAmerican business leadership is the lack of time devoted to coaching. Youcan immediately improve the performance of the people you lead by (1)devoting more regular coaching time one-on-one, and (2) spending timeon skill development so that theyll have a chance to apply what theyvelearned.

Asking for help is NOT a sign of weakness.In reality, notknowing when to ask for help is a sign of stupidity. There is a

difference between independence and interdependence.Americans believe highly in the concept of independence, in the

self-made individual and yet, independence has its limitations. Anorganizations success is endangered when people are unwilling to ask forhelp. The key for the future will be interdependence, which is shareddependency.

Training is NOT a luxury.Training and development is anecessity, and the best leaders and organizations know it. This

dedication to improvement is reflected in their calendars and intheir budgets.

Teach people to do things that cant already do.Sometimes training and development is about teaching peoplehow to do what they already do better. Good training is teachingpeople how to do what they arent already doing. There is adifference between what we call adaptive and generative

learning. Adaptive learning means learning how to solve day-to-day

problems. Its problem-solving skills as they relate to the workplace. Inother words, its problem-solving the same ol way weve done it forcenturies. Generative learning is about teaching people how to create andexploit opportunities.

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Dont promote people to their level of incompetence.

There is the assumption that a high performing employee will

automatically make an effective manager. Often this just isnt

the way things work out. The reality is that some of the bestperformers make some of the worst managers. The best organizations

today are creating dual career tracks for employees so that people can stay

in their area of expertise and make more money by assuming more

responsibility without necessarily managing other people. That in itself is a

prime example of leadership.

Employees value control over their environment.

Personal control over environment is empowering. When your

employees voices are heard, everyone wins. Their sense ofownership is increased, and you may just learn something

valuable.

Lead change. First, make change a requirement, not an option,

or people will opt out. The second step is to clearly identify the

outcome of change. Paint a vivid picture of the destination. The

third step addresses this fear of the process of change. Involve

people in how the change will take place. Step number four is to sell thebenefits of the change. Last, but certainly not least, the cornerstone of any

good program of improving performance is to reward those people who

change.

Dont waste time: yours or your followers.Frequentlyask the question, How do I personally (or how do weorganizationally) waste our employees time?

Give people a chance to use their strengths. In realitypeople are created with equal value, but certainly they are notcreated into equal circumstances. Everyone has special likes,dislikes, skills, and abilities. Make sure people get to shine bydoing what theyre good at and enjoy doing.

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Direct competition outward.Harness competitions powerby directing the people you lead to compete outward, notinward. No team ever gets ahead by competing against itself.

Promote the future.That means getting followers excited

about what the future holds in store and believing that no

matter how good things are now they can always be better

Demonstrate directness, openness, and honesty.This

idea may be the single quickest way to improve not only theresults that you produce with your followers, but also the

relationships that you enjoy with them as well.

Ask for what you need.What a radical idea! Be specific

about what you need from another person. Dont expect

followers to read your mind.

Mark is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea lab for

leadership development. Leadershipgurus.net lists Mark as one of the top 30

leadership experts in the world. In addition to his experience leading at a

local and national level, he has written or co-authored 8 books and is the

author of more than two dozen videos and audio training programs on

leadership, change, teamwork and customer service. He has presented over 2400

speeches and seminars in every state and a dozen countries.

Mark's book, The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn theOrdinary Into the Extraordinary is an international bestseller and was on the

New York Times, Business Week and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. His

latest books include You Don't Need a Title to be a Leader: How Anyone,

Anywhere Can Make a Positive Difference and The Encore Effect: How to Achieve

Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do and Up, Down or Sideways: How

to Succeed When Times are Good, Bad or In Between.

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Mark holds the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) from the National Speakers

Association and is a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE).

In 2007 Mark was awarded The Ambassador of Free Enterprise Award by Sales &

Marketing Executives International.

Follow Mark at:

Twitter: @mark_sanborn

Facebook:www.marksanbornspeaker.com

Additional Resources from Mark Sanborn:

The Sanborn Store: Marks best selling books, e-books, video tapes and

training materials are available in our online store and at finerbookstores everywhere.The Fred Factor eCoach: An extraordinary training program availableonline.Mark Sanborns Email Newsletters: Monthly insight for those who wantto learn to lead and server better at work and in life

Bring Mark to Your Organization:

Mark is a Hall of Fame speaker whose impact extends well beyond hispresentation. To discuss having Mark take your next event to the highestlevel, call us at (703) 757-1204. Email us at [email protected] us on the web.Electronic Press Kits available upon request.PreviewVideos available online.

Sanborn & Associates, Inc.10463 Park Meadows Dr.Suite 213

Lone Tree, CO 80124(303) 683-0714(303) 683-0825 faxemail: [email protected]
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