Sunday, May 15, 2005

Contagious Leadership Special Report

THE TOP 100 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO BECOME A CONTAGIOUS LEADER

What you do as a leader is extremely important. Why? Because you are contagious! (Or you will
be if you follow the steps in this special report) Leaders have an attitude that other want to catch. Leaders have a charisma that others want to catch. They have skills that others want to have rub off on them and on and on and on and on. So what you do, more so than what you say, rubs off on those that follow your leadership abilities. And since the one key critical thing one has to have in order to be a leader is … well, you guessed it, FOLLOWERS, then let’s keep the focus on those folks and make sure that as leaders we are doing what makes the most difference to them. After all, leadership is all about the followers!
Just think, what would you be if you had a great many leadership skills that made you tremendously effective, but no followers? Well, if I am thinking straight here, you would be incredibly skilled standing out there all by your lonesome. Not exactly how we picture a leader. A Contagious Leader is the guide on the side, not the sage on the stage and that is what any number of these steps will help you to achieve!

1. Call employees “those that work WITH you”.
2. Stop calling employees “my employees”, “my people”.
3. Realize that employees do not work “FOR you”, but rather what you, or the $, provide.
4. Set goals with others.
5. Write your own goals down.
6. Teach others to write his (or her) own goals down.
7. Ensure goals are measurable.
8. Celebrate the achievement of each goal.
9. Create goals that are both realistic and unrealistic.
10. Provide goals with a timeline that is subject to be changed upon the goal author’s approval.
11. Hire the right people for the right jobs.
12. Encourage mentors at all levels.
13. Provide value to someone before you need value from them.
14. Be genuinely interested in the needs of others.
15. Have sincere desire, authenticity, and integrity in what you do or you will fail.
16. Know that all endeavors will not be easy and will not happen the way you wish.
17. Recognize that all followers will not agree with or “be on board” with what you want.
18. Allow for the opinions and ideas of others in all matters.
19. Show respect for differing opinions and ideas.
20. Find the leaders on the team you lead that have no leadership title.
21. Cultivate the natural gifts, skills, and abilities of those individuals.
22. Infuse a need to grow by teaching, rather than giving, the answers.
23. Allow for errors and missteps and mistakes at many levels.
24. Inspire persistence even after the first, second, and third rejection of an attempt.
25. Keep a cool head even in times when the world is falling apart.
26. Avoid engaging emotions until all angles have been examined.
27. Communicate assertively, but not in an overpowering fashion when issues are heated.
28. Act reasonably in even the most unreasonable situations.
29. Express opinions and ideas professionally and openly.
30. Avoid sucking things in until they become dangerously like a volcano of explosive readiness.
31. Realize that “home is not where you go when you are tired of being nice to people!”
32. Maintain an awareness of just how much your body communicates.
33. Remember that your body continues talking long after your lips stop moving.
34. Adhere to the ratio that you have two ears and a mouth and use them proportionately.
35. Talk less, listen more.
36. Ask more questions then you give advice.
37. Seek input from those closer to a problem than you are.
38. Be interested in the growth of others even more so than the others are at times.
39. Listen to the grapevine often and regularly.
40. Connect to the first brain in the first 30 seconds.
41. Build rapport with someone by finding overlapping frames and reference.
42. Fuss over others’ events, achievements, families, and friends.
43. Be entertaining, humorous, or at the very least, fun to be around.
44. Engage serious behavior on serious subjects when warranted.
45. Communicate with others in a language that they understand.
46. Avoid assuming that your communication or personality style is the one everyone else has.
47. Learn to modify your communication style to the style of others.
48. Adhere to the principle that “communication is not what was said, but what is received.”
49. Inspire creativity.
50. Require yourself often to think about something from a different angle or perspective.
51. Use crayons to draw out a problem.
52. Instruct those you lead to brainstorm using smelly markers on flip charts around a room.
53. Allow the team to pick the team leader using a point/plus system. (see #54)
54. Count to three; have them point at the leader of choice. Then let that person pick the real leader.
55. Ask people you lead to describe a problem using something from nature.
56. Ask people you lead to describe a solution using something from nature.
57. Replace nature with a canned good, a color, a piece of furniture, an animal, or anything…
58. Promote impromptu brainstorming sessions with the leader present.
59. Promote impromptu brainstorming sessions with the leader present.
60. Engage in active learning every day.
61. Have a LIFE!
62. Encourage all those you lead to have and or get a LIFE!
63. Reinforce the idea that work and life must be balanced or both will be out of whack.
64. Share you expectations clearly and consistently and early.
65. Give yourself permission to leave things undone.
66. Let go of needing to be perfect.
67. Let go of needing everyone else to be perfect.
68. Relinquish the need to always have others like you.
69. Become clear and comfortable with the fact that leadership does not mean “Be favorite on one the playground.”
70. Know that sometimes peers will become former employees when you are promoted.
71. Show gratitude to those who can transition from peers to employees.
72. Recognize those who perform their job consistently day in and day out.
73. Learn the different types of recognition: public, private, tangible, and intangible.
74. Avoid giving a public person, private recognition; they will see little or no value in it.
75. Praise public people in front of many, many, others.
76. Share kudos and praise in public, yet discipline and reprimand in private.
77. Give tangible people stuff they can feel, hold, and hang on to.
78. Balance your recognition with those you work with and their multiple preferences.
79. Be spontaneous, as well as scheduled in your recognition efforts.
80. Only give private people, public recognition, if you want de-motivation.
81. Spend most of your time with those who are performing the way you have asked.
82. Observe what people do for others to learn what they would like done for them.
83. Focus on the end result: Motivation for performance.
84. Remember that money does not motivate for the long term and becomes expected.
85. Grow courage to have the tough conversations.
86. Address only areas of behavior and performance when being critical.
87. Maintain clarity on the fact that attitudes are not taught or changed without the owner’s consent.
88. Criticize someone’s attitude at your own risk.
89. Never assume – well, ANYTHING.
90. Know that your crisis does not constitute urgent action from others if you are at fault.
91. Micro-manage only those who need it and only until they prove that they do not.
92. Be kind to new hires if you used to do what they are being taught to do.
93. Remind yourself that if you have done it for 30 years, you no longer remember the steps.
94. Make mentors out of those who still remember the steps even if they need a checklist.
95. Believe that people do what they get paid attention for.
96. Micro-manage problem employees until there is only one option.
97. Free up for new opportunities those who are unable to perform at the established standard.
98. Trust that managers are often promoted for no good reason.
99. Recognize that managers have to have a title and leaders do not.
100. Exhibit leadership traits as part of who you are, not what your title says.