How To Be A Leader

In our last post we discussed “Motivation” and more specifically motivating our employees. We covered the subject of motivation before but in our last post we gave a very clear and specific way to start motivating your employees. It was just the first step but it was a good one so if you haven’t read it please go back and do so now. In this post we are going to discuss Leadership and specifically “How to be a Leader.”

Many people want to be a leader for many reasons. Some feel they have something to offer, others feel they can do things better, others are inspired by someone else and still others just want the perceived prestige that comes with being a leader.

We all have to examine our motivations as to why we want to lead and make sure they are coming from an honest place. If being a leader is only for the perks that come with the job (assuming you do it well), you won’t have a very long career and risk ruining your reputation.

If however, you feel like you have something of real value to offer or you have a better way, a cheaper way, a faster way to do things, then you should look further into it. But please keep a few things in mind:

If you have it within you, you will find outlets for your abilities to shine
If you are a true leader, others will take notice
If you are going to be an effective leader you don’t blame others

This last point above is a big issue. We work with many businesses that are having morale problems that they can’t seem to get straightened out. Once we begin to work with these companies we can quickly pinpoint the problem areas and many times it is those in “Leadership” roles.

Some of these people:

Will not accept responsibility
Throw their people “under the bus”
Look for excuses
Allow issues to go on way too long
Many times are more interested in how they look rather than doing what is right
The list goes on and on

If you are going to be an effective and successful leader, you have to be willing to step up and take the heat. You do not blame those that work within your organization because they are taking direction from you.

If you have people that are not performing well because they won’t take direction or are causing problems, this is also on you. Do not waste the precious time that you have with these people. If you have genuinely sat down with them and tried to figure it out but they are not going to budge, you need to remove them from your team immediately. Do not wait as you may not be able to overcome the damage they cause.

You are the one that has to have the vision of where you are trying to go and CLEARLY communicate that to everyone involved. The issue of communication is an extremely important one which we will cover in our next post.

These are just a few of the traits that a good, effective, successful leader must have in order to reach the top. We will cover this again down the road so for now, take a look inside of yourself and honestly decide what you may need to work on to become the Leader that you believe you are meant to be.

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Until our next post – we wish you all success!

Dean Marchese