LEADING YOURSELF AND OTHERS: IT ALL BEGINS WITH YOU

By Susan Young

Leaders come in all stripes and shades. They represent broad varieties of personalities and styles and characteristics. You find them in all kinds of organizations and in most levels of an organization. They may lead large organizations or gangs of one. There’s one thing they all have in common – leaders get results.

We’ve all seen instances where someone has risen to the occasion and accomplished something extraordinary. People we recognize as leaders tend to do that consistently over time. So why do only some people emerge as leaders?

Is it true some people were born to lead? Or does it just let us off the hook of responsibility for developing ourselves? What are the characteristics of great leaders? Visonary? Trustworthiness? Integrity? Good communicator? Good listener? Caring? Risk-taker? Ability to get things done? Persistance? Continue the list. Then ask how many of these characteristics are we born with? How many are directly related to our attitudes?

According to research, the average person uses only 3 to 25% of their potential on a day-to-day basis. Imagine what would happen if you tapped into that other 75 to 97%!

Perhaps the “leaders are born” argument is so pervasive because the characteristics, attitudes, personality that contribute to or constrict leadership are formed at an early age. Wasn’t much of what we were exposed to early intended to keep us safe and contain our behavior rather than encourage us on to bigger and better things? Sheds new light on the question of how much of our potential we use as adults, doesn’t it?

We see success as the continual achievement of our own predetermined goals. So if we are not as successful as we want to be, then we have to ask, “What parts of my personality are taking me closer to success and what parts are taking me further away?

The good news is that our attitudes are developable. Begin by defining who you are compared to who you believe you have the potential to become. Be brutally honest with yourself. And give yourself permission to change.

Leaders know what they want and go for it, rather than accept whatever comes along. If they don’t like the circumstances they are in, they create new ones. So get clear about what you want. And then look at which of your attitudes, your habits of thought, are taking you closer to your goals and which ones are taking you further away.

Think of leading others in terms of needing others to help you achieve your goals or those of your organization. Consider these skills as essential:

• Bring out the best in others
• Include people in what’s going on
• Create an environment in which people can excel
• Give people a mission to accomplish

In First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently, authors Buckingham and Coffman describe their research to determine what makes managers great. They found that managers in organizations with high productivity, profit, retention and customer satisfaction had created workplaces where employees:

• know what’s expected of them and that their opinions count ;
• feel their work is important and have the right equipment to do it;
• know their supervisor cares about them as a person;
• often receive recognition for good work and feedback on their progress;
• have co-workers who are committed to doing quality work;
• have opportunities to learn, grow, and do what they do best everyday.

They found that the employee’s immediate manager was the critical player in building a strong workplace. On retention in particular, they found that turnover is a manager issue.

Lastly, successful leaders recognize the difference between external and internal change. External change involves things outside of ourselves or our organization. The economy tanked. Interest rates are going up. The labor market has dried up. Fuel prices are skyrocketing. Wal-Mart is moving in. People aren’t buying.

Internal change comes from what we choose to do about those external changes that affect us, IF we choose to do anything.

In other words, external change is a fact; internal change is a choice.


About the author:
Doug Brown is the CEO and Chairman of Paradigm Associates LLC, a strategic and executive leadership development firm based in Cranford, NJ. He combines an innovative thinking style with his conversational questioning ability to help organizations recognize and breakthrough their existing paradigms. This naturally leads them to solve stubborn problems and work through difficult situations. A Certified Facilitator for the Total Quality Institute (TQI), Brown understands the distinction between simply conducting “training sessions” and facilitating meetings with potentially complex subject matter. Visit www.ParadigmAssociates.USor call (908) 276-4547.


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