Positive Leadership: The Job of a Leader

Leaders “do” people.

You take care of the people.

The people take care of the service.

The service takes care of the customer.

The customer takes care of the profit.

The profit takes care of the re-investment.

The re-investment takes care of the re-invention.

The re-invention takes care of the future.

And at every step, the only measure is EXCELLENCE.

(Thanks to Tom Peters for this timely reminder!)

Positive Leadership: The Job of a Leader

Positive Leadership: Investing In Your People

“If you are all alone at the top, you are not a leader. You are a hiker.” John Maxwell

No one creates success alone. To win in business, you must win with people. Running over people will only get you so far. To create true and lasting success you must nurture and invest in your people. Here are 3 essential ways to do this.

Care about them - The main question every employee in every organisation is asking is, “Do you care about me; can I trust you?” Employees want to know if you care about them. If you do, they will be more likely to stay on the bus and work with you. Employees are more engaged at work and will work at their highest potential when their manager cares about them.

Develop a relationship with them - Author Andy Stanley once said, “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” Far too many managers and leaders share rules with their people, but they don’t have a relationship with them. So what happens? The people rebel and they disengage from their jobs and the mission of the team. To develop a relationship with your employees, you need to build trust, listen to them, make time for them, recognise them and mentor them.

Appreciate them - The main reason why people leave their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated. For example, Doug Conant, the CEO of Campbell Soup, has written more than 16,000 thank-you notes to employees in the past seven years and created a very positive business in the process. It’s as easy as saying (or writing) “Thank you.”

It’s a simple truth: When you care about your employees and the people you work with, they are more likely to stay with you and work harder, with more loyalty and greater positive energy. In turn, they are more likely to share their positive energy with your customers, thus enhancing service and the bottom line. The greatest customer-service strategy has nothing to do with customer service, but it has everything to do with how you treat your employees. If you model great service, they will provide great service.

Remember, leadership is not just about what you do, but what you can inspire, encourage and empower others to do. Instead of running over the people in your team/organisation, invite them along with you and engage them to help you create an amazing and successful ride.

Positive Leadership: Investing In Your People

Friendships

No friendship is as crucial to your self-esteem as the friendship you maintain with yourself.

There's no doubt about it, friendships are an important part of life. However, all your other friendships combined aren't as important as the one you have with yourself. Every day of your life you send yourself thousands of messages that determine how you elevate your own worth.

The evaluation you make of your worth is what determines your level of self-esteem. Of course, the messages of love and acceptance we get from our family and friends affect our self-esteem, too. But they don't send even a tiny fraction of the number of messages that we send to ourselves. They don't have the opportunity to affect you.

Besides, if you're continually sending yourself negative, devaluing appraisals, you'll drown out the other messages, even if they're as positive as they could possibly be. It's important that you, yourself, become the source of these positive messages. When this happens, the leverage you'll have from your "inside" position will make enormous change possible in an incredibly short period of time.

Unfortunately, most people spend much more time focusing on their faults and mistakes than they do on their strengths and successes. But it's a skill that can be learned and perfected, and you have a lot of options to help you learn this skill. 

Friendships

Friendship and Compassion

Friendship and Compassion are values of Positive Leadership.

‘Friendship comes from mutual esteem, respect and devotion. A sincere liking for all.’John Wooden

‘Make no judgements where you have no compassion.’ Anne McCaffrey

Here are some reference materials which speak to these values:

Friendship and Compassion