Why Use Golf To Develop Leadership?
There’s a surprising similarity between playing the game of golf and leadership. Once the analogies are made clear to you, you’ll wonder perhaps why you didn’t see it before. By the time you’ve finished reading this, you’ll know the major connections and feel compelled to find out more.
35% of registered golfers in the UK are senior managers, professionals or executives , according to Mintel. This rises to 43.3% of London Golfers. And 12.8% of all golfers in the UK are senior managers, executives or professionals – that’s about 1.8 million golfers are senior managers, executives and professionals in the UK alone! (Source: GB TGI, BMRB Quarter 4 2006/Mintel) 44% of senior managers executives and professionals in the UK have played, do play or would like to play golf. (Source: BMRB/Mintel) Add another 1.4 million managers (Source: GB TGI, BMRB Quarter 4 2006/Mintel) and you realise just how big a sport golf has become – and it id predominantly ABC1 who play the game, and still predominantly male – 83%!
In part, business leaders, particularly those with some marketing or sales role, play golf to network with prospects and clients. There’s certainly some social status about being a golf club member, and for sure, in part there’s the ‘coincidence’ of playing golf and being a business leader.
The characteristics of those who play golf and those who are business leaders shows considerable similarities. For example, the desire to score well (even win) a round of golf. To be concerned about one’s personal performance and strive to improve it relates to a strong personal ‘Achievement Orientation’. I want to do well because I want to do well!
There are differences too, and important ones. On the golf course, the golfer is playing against the course. It is one of very few sports where the play of others has no effect on the golfer’s performance at all… unless he (and it is predominantly still ‘he’) allows it. This is not the case for the majority of business leaders where personal performance can be impacted by the performance of others. So the golf course is the place where a player can assuredly adopt the attitude, it’s MY performance that matters and only their actions change the result. This suggests the desire for control – or Directiveness.
76% of golfers play for social reasons (GMI/Mintel) – this demonstrates a desire, if not ability, in the competencies of influence and communication.
So why use golf to develop leadership?
The game of golf attracts business leaders more than other groups – & perhaps the conclusions above suggest why. So it became increasingly obvious to our team that golf could be both an attractive idea for development within this group, and that the game of golf itself could be deliberately used to develop the competencies and behaviours associated with great leadership. Indeed, many of our clients confirm the attraction of golf for our senior management training programmes by requesting training to take place at golf clubs.
Our research into using simulations has shown that given a truly safe environment to practice the tools and techniques of leadership and management, participants not only learn more (23% greater learning) than using more traditional methods like case studies, they enjoy it more (17% greater) and demonstrate greater transfer of new behaviours to the workplace (26% greater transfer).
Not only this, but studies in societies where females are considered disadvantaged in management showed a greater improvement in demonstrated management and leadership competencies after a simulation based programme than a traditional programme over their male counterparts 16% greater improvement in demonstrated competencies. The key to the success of using simulations is that they provide a realistic, safe environment to practice the tools, techniques and behaviours of great leadership (Kenworthy 2005)
Is golf a safe, realistic environment?
The great thing about golf is that it is one of the very few activities that provides a genuinely level-playing field – through the well-established handicapping system. It may not be perfect, but it’s very close. This means that a scratch golfer competes fairly with a complete beginner. There are also rules within which the game must be played – these represent the constraints of doing business. There are established game rules that encourage pairs or foursomes to work together, and there are rules to foster individual competition -sometimes in business we want our leaders to be entrepreneurial and ‘go-getters’ – leading by example, at other times, we want them to be team leaders, or team players.
Caddies, provide a perfect metaphor for coaches and mentors. The course itself provides a varied environment, shifting according to things beyond the control of the player, but observable by them. The hole provides a target, the course provides for a strategic plan to achieve the real goal. The points scored can directly relate to revenue or profit. The clubs and balls are resources – even the golf pro can be a consultant resource.
The game of golf provides a fantastic platform to learn leadership – its safe and fair, it’s as realistic as you need it to be and it’s fun!
Can you just play golf to develop leadership?
There’s certainly something about the game of golf that shares characteristics of great leadership, but whether it’s the playing golf that develops the person as a leader or that the leadership capability makes for a golfer is an unanswered question. Like any powerful training programme, leadership development needs a supporting, robust model of development. Unfortunately it’s not much use telling someone to BE Jack Welch, or even to tell someone what it is that Jack Welch does – that doesn’t make you a leader. Nor, can we simply seek to develop the 10 principles, 7 habits, 12 big things etc. of the best leaders in the world – leadership is personal – the first step in becoming a leader is to take charge of yourself and align your personal values to achieving what you want to achieve. If it were that simple then there wouldn’t be a leadership issue anywhere in the world today.
Solid Foundations
Effective leadership development (indeed for adults to learn anything effectively) needs the learner to go through three learning processes according to Bloom -cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning. That we need to develop knowledge about leadership, associate a feeling or emotion with the desire to learn the knowledge and physically put that knowledge into practice.
Most business leaders have some knowledge about what constitutes ‘good’ leadership – though few practice it all the time. They may have seen ‘good’ leadership exemplified by others in their past or present. They may have read a book on leadership – such as the 7 Habits. Where these most often fail to become new behaviours is twofold – Firstly, most examples of ‘good’ leadership are often carried out ‘naturally’ by the person demonstrating them -we often refer to them as ‘born leaders’. They are ‘good’ leaders, but they don’t consciously know what it is that they do – and therefore they are unable to share with others what they should or could do. Most books, on the other hand, tend to focus on one of two aspects – how to be a leader – here is Mr Great CEO and this is what he did, you must do the same. or they distil ‘best’ behaviours and provide a checklist for you to do ‘good’ leadership.
In the former situation, the ‘born leader’ is unable (or unwilling) to give you the requisite knowledge to learn. In the latter (books), they often fail to make an emotional connection to implement the knowledge (other than you’ve bought the book therefore you must want to learn), or they provide simplistic implementation checklists, do this, then this then this at work. If the new ‘habit’ doesn’t work first time, the book provides little or no guidance as to what you should do now.
What people need is a synthesis of the tools, techniques, attitudes and attributes of ‘good’ leadership within a structured model supported with templates that enable you to physically learn the behaviours. And one way of ensuring an emotional learning hook is by using the game of golf as a metaphor, and golf provides a means for you to put your behaviours into physical practice for yourself first – i.e. self-leadership, then you can use the templates at work. All practised within a safe and realistic environment that is fun.
Build on this foundation the safe and realistic learning environment of a business simulation on the golf course and you have leadership development that actually does what it says on the box.
Author: Gainmore Advantage – www.celsim.com
Leadership Development Training
July 8, 2009 by admin
Filed under Leadership Development
Leadership Development Training is just one of the leadership development articles at Leader House™. In this article, we will be taking a brief look at what leadership development training is, how much it costs, whether it’s a worthwhile investment, and whether there are any cheaper alternatives.
What Is Leadership Development Training?
Leadership Development “refers to any activity that enhances the quality of leadership within an individual or organization“. Therefore leadership development training is the formalisation of these activities into a structured plan to develop leadership in employees. Leadership training has taken centre stage in recent decades as managers across the world have turned their attention to nuturing and encouraging leadership skills in their staff. Modern day leaderhip development training is the manifestation of that attention.
Leadership development training includes activities such as seminars, leadership coaching, leadership classes, and other leadership services. More often than not, these are provided by external leadership training specialists. Even Fortune 500 companies seem to prefer to outsource their leadership development training rather than keep in-house dedicated staff.
How Much Does Leadership Development Training Cost?
Pricing varies wildly per employee depending on which type of training solution you adopt. One-on-one leadership coaching will cost between £100-£300 per hour, and hence will only be a cost effective leadership development training solution for senior management.
For middle management – small seminars of 5-10 participants are often used, that cost roughly the same (£100-£300 per hour) but naturally provide for a far greater number of employees to benefit from this same fixed cost.
The cheapest or ‘best value’ leadership development training for organisations are hired motivational leadership speakers who can literally speak to hundreds of your employees at once. Logistical problems aside, this solution is common in the USA due to its simplicity and low cost-per-employee. However the drawback with such events are that the package cannot be personally tailored to a specific job role, nevermind an individual person. And as such – these events can be largely ineffective in actually improving the real leadership skills of employees.
So as you can see, there is a very clear trade off between cost and quality of leadership development training. You quite simply get what you pay for.
Are There Any Cheaper Alternatives?
Currently if you are an individual – even motivational speakers can be well out of your budget range. If you’re interested in personal development, and wish to further your leadership skills, then I suggest you spend your money on ‘Apply Leadership‘, which I review on my site through that link.
Simon Oates – Leader House
My Journey & The Secret To My Success
June 6, 2009 by admin
Filed under Leadership
Welcome!
If you are interested in attracting wealth and success into your life using the law of attraction, then I’m confident you will find my own personal development story of at least ‘some use’ in your own journey. It’s a little longer than my average post, but you owe it to yourself to read it all and learn from my experience!
About 11 months ago I was in a terrible place. I felt like I was going absolutely nowhere. After being an employee for so long, I had become conditioned to feel like this was my only route – my only choice.
It turns out I was thankfully mistaken
Whether you’re a graduating student or a manager of 20 years, it’s likely you feel that you have very limited control over your life. Joining a graduate training scheme, or bidding for the next promotion seems like the natural path we should take.
Have You Accepted Defeat? Or Are You Ready To Learn and Grow As A Person?
But how often do we solemnly stop, think and weigh up whether the ‘obvious’ course of action is the right one? I had never really done that, and as a result I felt powerless and unhappy with where I was.
But June last year, I uncovered a resource that held the secret to the success that now fills my life with happiness (and wealth) just one year on. It is a powerful secret that I am more than happy to use Leadership-Expert.co.uk to share with you all and hopefully enrich your life as a result. It helped me to destroy negative thoughts and even create serious wealth in a short period of time.
“I Finally Found The Courage To Do What I REALLY Wanted For A Change”
The powerful resource I am about to tell you about should take all the credit for helping me to get to where I am today.
It taught me that almost everything that happens in your life is a result of your manifested thoughts and feelings. This is the fundamental theory behind the law of attraction. It’s an incredible theory and principle that I uncovered along with 10 other natural laws one year ago. The laws sounded simple at first, but contained such meaning and relevance to my life, that I was able to apply them, use them, and take advantage of them to improve my own success. They were taught with so much enthusiasm and wisdom that I couldn’t help but use them to achieve greater heights the moment I stepped back out into the world.
So what is this special resource that I discovered used to change my life for the better? Which course inspired me to create Leadership-Expert.co.uk, and to reach out and grow in other areas of my life?
It’s a downloadable course called The 11 Forgotten Laws
The Full 11 Forgotten Laws Package - The Key To My Success (Click To Visit Site)
The 11 Forgotten Laws is a revolutionary audio course, taught by Bob Proctor, who starred in the hit personal development feature ‘The Secret’ and went on to receive international acclaim. The course contains 12 digital discs with 95 tracks that cover all elements of the 11 Forgotten Laws. These tracks are so enjoyable and empowering to listen to, and yet while having fun, you’ll also be re-shaping your future.
The course de-mystifies laws such as ‘the law of receiving‘ and ‘the law of supply‘. They underpin everything that happens in our lives, and conquering the concepts behind them will allow you to achieve more than you ever have before. If you will it to happen, it will happen if you can master these 11 forgotten laws.
Have you ever wondered why some people just seem to be ‘destined’ for a richer and more successful path than you? Why, even though they aren’t actively seeking wealth, they stumble into fortune and opportunity again and again?
That Isn’t ‘luck’. The Ability To Use The 11 Laws Simply Comes Naturally To These People
Mastering the law of attraction and the other 10 laws will allow you to craft a life in which success and opportunity appears to present itself to you in a similar way. Soon you will be the envy of your friends for your apparant good fortune.
Also included in the course are a bounty of bonuses, including a video seminar, an exclusive membership invitation and an entire bonus course focused on increasing your prosperity. I don’t have room in this post to discuss all the bonuses, so you’ll have to head over to the site to see them for yourself.
http://www.the11forgottenlaws.com/products/special/dollar-trial
Implementing The 11 Forgotten Laws is easy, and practical steps are suggested for you to start working on right away to:
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Destroy doubt and anxiety and start to replace it with courage
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Develop an hunger for opportunities and start grabbing them now
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That’s right – for a limited time only, the 11 Forgotten Laws is available for a $5 one week trial. If you’re not completely happy with the product then you just need to send a quick email to the publisher and you will never be charged another penny and you can still keep all your bonuses! How’s that for a deal?
It’s risk free, and is yours to try for only $5/£3. That’s the tiny price of a Big Mac. If you’re ready to start taking control of you life and opening the floodgates for success, your journey begins NOW. £3 is nothing, visit the Forgotten Laws website now – you owe it to yourself to give it a try, as I did.
Take Action – Visit The 11 Forgotten Laws NOW by Clicking Below!
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To Your Success,
Simon Oates – Leader House
The Ultimate Guide to Leadership Communication
May 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Leadership
Change is all around us. Effective leadership communication during times of change creates stability and trust. Leaders at all levels must communicate change and share information as soon as possible. Here are tips for a communication-rich culture.
1. Communicate change as soon as possible. People do not want to hear about a merger or acquisition through the grapevine. Communicate even when you don’t have anything substantial to say. This lets people know you are aware of their need for information and you will provide it as soon as possible. Provide frequent updates to keep their need for information satisfied. People who do not have useful information in a timely manner feel confused, stressed, scared, and insecure.
2. Explain what is changing, how, and why. Let people know the business reasons behind the change and how it impacts them. Anticipate any questions they may have and give them detailed, valuable answers.
3. Let people know what they can do. Empower people to make a difference during volatile times. Inspire and motivate people to own the change and to be innovative in helping to resolve issues. Provide them with a specific call to action to make them feel included and important to the process.
4. Be visible during times of change. Be accessible and allow people to ask questions and offer ideas. Schedule meetings to communicate up, down, and across the organization. Follow through with your commitments to follow up with people.
5. Be a role model for change. Demonstrate high levels of emotional intelligence during uncertain times. No one wants to see a leader have an emotional meltdown. Your actions and leadership presence will speak volumes about what is really going on and help others deal with their fear and resistance.
6. Use a variety of methods to communicate. Select the most useful and effective channels to communicate. These methods can range from town hall meetings, to small group meetings, to newsletters and e-mail updates. Create a trustworthy, communication-rich environment that is reliable and effective leadership communication will follow.
7. Communicating bad news is often uncomfortable for both the sender and receiver. However, direct talk is often the best choice. But always deliver your message with tact and diplomacy. Demonstrate empathy when delivering bad news. Understand the emotion, resistance, and discomfort toward change.
Alternatively, smart people have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to better leadership and communication. Leadership professionals such as myself often recommend industry leader; ‘Apply Leadership‘, which I consider an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your career or leadership skills and even find happiness in other areas of your life.
There’s no perfect way to communicate during uncertain times. Transition makes most people uneasy, and behaviors and long-held habits are not easy to change. Communicate clearly, openly, frequently, and most important, honestly.
Leadership Model
May 2, 2009 by admin
Filed under Leadership
There isn’t much doubt that most effective high impact leaders are driven by a model. This is true even when that effective leader doesn’t take the time to define his personal unique model. A model is a tool that leaders use to predict future outcomes of current decisions; a tool that not only enhances personal creativity but encourages creativity in the minds of their employees. An executive’s model is built from the sum of their experiences, knowledge, deeds and, in fact, many of their mistakes. Best practice alone will not get the job done. Effective model driven leadership utilizing best practice is a combination that is an absolute must. Different leaders create their models through different approaches. Each model is unique to the individual but the following three examples explain the platform that models are built on.
The Competitive Desire Model
Some leaders strongly shape their model by working in every aspect of the business and also from learning the business from the ground up. They always carry a strong desire to compete and win. The Leaders competitive instincts are generally tempered by personal humility and respect for the individual managers on his team. Listening skills and genuine interest in what is right for the business are key tools in building a consensus. Belief in the employees is a guiding principle in leadership style. This same approach is used with both suppliers and customers to find the innovative win-win solution. Make no mistake; this approach is very different than typical negotiation approaches used in many wholesaler-distributors.
It becomes a discipline. This discipline circumvents growth mistakes so common in the industry. The other implication of this model is providing significant autonomy to the executive team. The leader makes sure the executive team has a detailed and shared vision of the business objectives and goals. He believes his role as chief executive is to provide the shared vision and make sure that it is clear and also current.
The Elegant, Powerful Win-Win Innovation & Creativity Model
Another variation of the servant style of leadership models is the elegant, powerful, and simple model. This model starts with an open and clear balance between the various stakeholders whether they are customer/owners, employees, or suppliers. It is a truly win-win model without the destructive negotiation experienced by many other distributors. Using this foundation and a long established set of core corporate values and best practice the leader consistently reminds each stakeholder group of the key messages while continually focusing the organization on innovation and creativity. Innovation becomes a key strategic initiative for growth. It is exciting to see the accumulated economic power that can be developed by a constantly evolving innovative business model and effective leadership combined with best practice utilization.
The Strategic Shift Model
A third example of leadership modeling is about managing a strategic shift from being a traditional box-moving wholesaler with limited growth prospects to a logistics powerhouse that provides significant value in the supply chain.
Strategy is said to be obvious once you’ve had it explained. It is also said that customers don’t see strategy, they only see execution. This model like the other examples platform a strong sense of curiosity about other companies and how to apply lessons learned in their own organizations. The answers needed for major change and organizational renewal lie outside the enterprise and effective leaders using this model are able to take prior “lessons learned” and bench marking to generate success.
Over ninety percent of the reasons companies fail can be traced to ineffective leadership. It’s not because of the economy and it is not because of the competition. It is a failure to learn. Effective leadership will overcome these obstacles, and they’ll be looking down the road at what needs to be done to grow the current model once the model is no longer ‘grow-able. Attention is paid to the lessons learned.
What is a High Impact Leader?
High impact leaders, regardless of their personal model demonstrate a curiosity that can not be satisfied without personal examination of what exactly were the causes of any failure to meet expectations. Non-performance is just not acceptable. Leadership is a key in every instance to creating an attitude, structuring an environment and developing employees as the very essence of success. Although individual leadership models differ in some specific approaches the common thread that links every model together is respect for the individual employee and the willingness and ability to listen with an understanding that embellishes their own leadership contribution to the organization. Best practices are a part of every successful leadership model but best practice alone will not create the level of success demonstrated by the high impact upper quartile performers. Effective leaders create a culture where employees can express themselves and fight for what is right; employees become responsibly fanatical about aligning their resources to add value to the customer and the company. That’s what high impact leadership is all about.
Alternatively, smart people have often forgone formal models and instead sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, most tend to be rather disappointing, but one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself is the current industry leader: ‘Apply Leadership‘, which I consider an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your career or leadership skills and even find happiness in other areas of your life.
Author: Dr Eric Johnson – http://www.ceostrategist.com
Team Leadership
One of the most difficult tasks that a company’s management team has is building effective communications within their departments. Effective communications with all levels of management as well as co-workers is essential to employee morale as well as increased productivity. The rationale behind that is that a lack of communication skills within the business leadership structure causes stress and tension among the workers. These feelings then develop into feelings of worthlessness and into feelings of inadequacy and inferiority.
Smart people often seek out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and team leadership. These days, most tend to be rather disappointing, but one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself is The 11 Forgotten Laws which I consider an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your teamwork or leadership skills and even find happiness in other areas of your life.
Team leadership skills are essential to the creating a work environment that is both productive and loyal. If the management team leaders are tuned in to the needs and feelings of the workers on their team, the workers are going to care more about the productivity and quality of the work they are assigned to do. Communication involves everyone within a management team, both supervision and employees. A lack of communication in any area within the management team structure will break down the morale, and once moral has decreased for the team, they will no longer be interested in doing any more than the minimum that is expected. In a production environment this may not be as noticeable since there will always be those who don’t pay attention to anything that is going on around them, concentrating solely on their own work; however, in a sale environment, the results can be disastrous.
Unfortunately, some management styles or leadership characteristics prohibit the thought of developing a rapport with employees, let along communication, but be assured that this is the least productive management style and does nothing to help with the moral of the department or the efforts of the corporation in increasing productivity or sales volume. The manager who continually uses this approach without seeing the detrimental effects will certainly be on the losing end of the bonus list at year’s end when it’s too late to turn things around.
What is your management style? Do you tend to rule the department with an iron fist or do you effect communication between workers and supervision? Look at the statistics of your team leadership and see if there are areas needing improvement, and if so, decide if communication that is more effective is the answer to that improvement. The better a team communicates with management, the more equipped each is to understand the need for meeting and improving goals. If you are not communicating effectively with your team, now is the time to improve your communication skills.
Thanks For Reading – Now It’s Time To Act
We mentioned ‘The 11 Forgotten Laws’ audio, reading & video e-course in this article. If you’d like to stop merely thinking and start actually doing then you can read my full review here and see what it did for me, and more importantly – what it can do for you.
Leadership Quotes
April 28, 2009 by admin
Filed under Leadership
Quotes can be pretty influential on our life. Little did we know that just a few strings of words could really make a difference in our life. There are quotes on friendship, relationship, leadership, success and many others that can be pretty inspiring and impactful on us. But is it true that quotes on leadership can make you be a real leader?
Some people are still skeptical regarding the hidden potential of the leadership quotes. You are definitely not to be blamed if you are one of them.
Quotes actually serves more than just the purpose of inspiring someone. These quotes are actually very useful tool in offices and schools. Good quotes on leadership are the ones that are able to move you. Not all quotes can be inspiring as such it is important that you choose one that is able to leave an impact on you after you finish reading it.
As well as use leadership quotes, effective leaders have never been afraid to invest in themselves, and have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, but I’m pleased to recommend one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself:
The 11 Forgotten Laws
. It’s generally seen as an essential and core ‘crash course’ in the laws and secrets you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life. Its an excellent base upon which you can build your personal development.
Quotes comes in all length and personally, I would prefer the ones that are short and to the point. Succinct and to the point – that should be your ideal quote.
But why use quotes? Well, quotes are actually great sources of inspiration when you are down in the dumps. Quotes on leadership can give back the life in you and spur up all determination to lead again.
Being a leader is not an easy task and that is why you will definitely got to have all it takes to be one. Quotes of leadership are just like your back up support that reminds you of who you are and what exactly do you do in life.
“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” -Dwight David Eisenhower
Quotes such as this helps to remind you of certain traits or qualities that might have brushed past you while you were leading. Humor, decisiveness, care and concern towards fellow co-workers are just some of the attributes that these quotes posses to keep you reminded of your role and responsibility as the leader.
But the question is, does this quote really work as well as it should do? As aforementioned, not all quotes are worth remembering. Some quotes are just too long winded such that you lost the meaning halfway through reading it. Just choose one of your favorites and know it like it’s the back of your hand.
These quotes are just like positive affirmations that get registered into your brain if you keep on repeating it to yourself. This is a good thing of course as over time, you will realize that you will soon base your leadership on the set of leadership qualities that are said within the quote. As such, it will definitely be handy to know a few quotes.
You do not need to memorize the thick book of quotes just because you think that with more quotes you memorize, the better you will be. Unfortunately it does not work that way. Quotes are meant to the left as it is, and not as a bible that you should read and remember by hard. Quotes on leadership and management can make you be a real leader indeed.
Go grab a quote and make it yours today!
Leadership Qualities
April 27, 2009 by admin
Filed under Leadership
Webster says that leadership is “the position or function of a leader; the ability to lead; an act or instance of leading, guidance, direction.” Do you enjoy leading, guiding or directing? Do you look forward to making decisions that impact the lives of others? Would you rather give the responsibility for making choices to someone else? Most of us have been in a position of authority and all of us have met someone who possesses the qualities of an effective leader.
Being a leader is a difficult task especially if you are given responsibilities that you are not familiar with. If you accept this position, you are going to be scrutinized by how you act, the way you look and the way you talk. It is important to be conscious of your actions because the goal is to project an image of influence. Good leaders possess certain characteristics that can help them gain the respect and recognition of others.
Be A Good Example. The first concept is to lead by example. You need to work harder than those who surround you in order to gain their respect. Demonstrate your dedication by being early and staying late. Distinguish yourself through character and integrity when situations are difficult or they are not going your way. Go the extra mile for those who are in your circle of influence.
Be A Good Listener. The second quality of an effective leader is the ability to listen more and talk less. It is more important to listen to the issues that are being raised instead of expressing your opinion about them. Some individuals have the misconception that a good leader talks as much as possible. Effective leaders realize that listening provides them with a deeper understanding of the needs of those that surround them. It also gives them a greater insight into the issues that must be addressed.
Don’t be afraid to invest in yourself. All excellent leaders regularly invest in themselves – they realise that the payoff will always be positive in the long run. Leaders have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, but I’m pleased to recommend one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself: The 11 Forgotten Laws. It’s generally seen as an essential and core ‘crash course’ in the laws and secrets you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life. Its an excellent base upon which you can build your personal development.
Be Concerned. The third concept for effective leadership is the ability to ask the appropriate questions. Analyzing information provides the opportunity to probe the concerns and issues that confront those around you. Express sincerity and as you examine the regards of others. Asking penetrating questions provides the possibility to discover the root causes of problems so that they can be addressed.
Be Decisive. The fourth quality of an effective leader is the ability to make decisions. Make a choice and stick to the plan. A conscientious leader will have options if the original solution is not working. With leadership comes the responsibility for making selections that affect the lives of others. If one has taken the input of those who surround them before making a decision, other considerations can be developed. It is important to examine all of the options thoroughly to avoid unnecessary mistakes and failures.
Not everyone wants to lead. If you are the owner of your home business, the head of your family or the director of a social group you are wearing the hat of a leader. Effective leadership is not necessarily an inherent quality. It can be learned and applied to the different areas of your life. Consider these four qualities as a foundation for developing your leadership skills.
“People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.”
John Fortner lives in Oregon and works from his home through his online pursuits. He is the owner of Best-Income Opportunities which offers free information and proven opportunities for creating work at home businesses. To learn more about this topic please visit his website at: http://www.best-incomeopportunities.com