Five Must Have Leadership Skills

Organizations spend over 50 billion dollars a year on leadership training. Much of it misses the mark. When pressed for a full pipeline of leaders they spend even more money to find new "potential" leaders only to find that many they believed had leadership potential exhibited little or no leadership qualities at all. No wonder corporations spend so much money on leadership. They are constantly involved in a non-productive cycle of hire-fire-hire again hope for a better outcome.


The vicious cycle of hiring, developing, firing, and costing even more money is for the birds and unnecessary. We too have spent a lot of money, (over a half-million dollars) but we have spent our money seeking to find out why, seemingly good, leadership candidates fail to live up to expectations.

A half-million dollars and 30 years later we believe we have a handle on what we call "Leadership Wilt." Leadership Wilt is an insidious disease that attacks organizations from the inside out. It attacks even the best leadership candidates among all organizations, worldwide. The disease attacks without warning and transforms potential leaders into managers that are weak, ineffective and even dangerous.

So, what did we find that would allow us to do a better job of identifying real leaders and helping them advance their skills? Through arduous research, trial and error, real commitment and perseverance we have identified five skills that leaders must have to function at the highest level. Those five skills are: Self-Awareness, Optimism, Empathy, Reality Testing and Followership. The good news here is that 4 of these essential leadership skills are measurable and the 5th is discernable. That being the case, lets visit the four that are measurable, first, and then address the one that is only discernable.

In the early 1980s Ruevon Bar-On and Howard Gardner began raising the issue of emotional influence and discussing how emotions played a larger role than originally thought regarding personal performance. Later John Mayers and Peter Salovey officially gave that influence a term-Emotional Intelligence and in 1995, Dan Goleman wrote the best selling book, Emotional Intelligence. From that early work sprang many tools designed to measure Emotional Intelligence, defined generally as "one's ability to recognize your own emotions and those of other and work the two together for good." Today, a tool called the EQi has become the most scientifically validated instrument for measuring Emotional Intelligence and because of its validity, the most popular tool used for that purpose around the world.

The EQi measures many fine skills but none more useful than Emotional Self Awareness, Empathy, Reality Testing, and Optimism. This is not a commercial for the EQi, so let’s talk about those 5 essential leadership skills.

Self-Awareness

Self Awareness may be the single most important of all five essential skills. You can not create that "presence," so critical to leadership, without being deeply, self-aware. Knowing yourself is the first step to understanding others and without others, there is no leadership. Emotional Self Awareness is large part of Self Awareness but, not all of it. To be sure, a superior leader must be emotionally self-aware but, also aware of your other strengths and weaknesses.

Empathy

Empathy is almost an extension of Self-Awareness, in that it requires you to see and feel emotions, but through other peoples shoes and eyes. It requires listening to others versus listening to self. Empathy requires you to understand others but even more, it requires you to emotionally connect with others. High Empathy levels indicate an individual has the ability to build the relationships necessary to grow spans of influence and create a more effective leadership bond with people. When people know you care for them, they begin to care about you.

Reality Testing

This is a term is really jargon used by the EQi people to describe one's ability to recognize the real from the not likely. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, the writers of the Leadership Challenge share that people admire people with vision, and that is certainly true. But to lead you need to have a vision and be able to communicate it an inspirational way, but you better be able to explain the practicality of that vision. People are quick to abandon ship once they sense the leader's vision is not very practical or, at least within reach. The skill of Reality Testing is not a nice to have, it is a must have quality.

Optimism

Well, what can I really say about optimism that better expresses the need for it than ask the question; How many people do you know who rush to join a pessimist in an important journey? Probably not many, if any, I would think. Few wish to be a part of anything viewed in a negative light and to gather followers, one needs optimism. Most of us need a positive view of where we are going. Everyone want to be a winner!

Followership

I am saying that you can not be a good leader unless you have been a good follower. All leaders are followers and have been followers. So don't expect those who have been poor followers to morph in to exceptional leaders. They will not.

Now a word about my earlier comments regarding measurability and that Self-Awareness, Empathy, Reality Testing, and Optimism are measurable and Followership is not. At least, it is not measurable before you hire the person unless you have observed them, in action, at a previous employer.

For the most part, Self Awareness, Empathy, Reality Testing and Optimism can be measured as they are subscales within many Emotional Intelligence assessment tools. Followership can only be judged through observation, in action. Often we do not have the opportunity to observe a potential leader before we hire them but they can be observed immediately after the hire and from there on. Regardless of the method you develop for measuring the potential followership skill, training and direction needs be given to all to improve their contribution to the organization and their potential for leadership.

Previously, we have identified Four Essential Leadership skills that can measured before you make a hire and one that can be judged very early in the employment cycle. Organizations that insist upon the presence of these 5 qualities in their every hire have a leadership pipeline full of quality candidates with fewer surprises. They have profits that far exceed those who have no focused and validated selection system and On-boarding policies. Screen all potential leaders for Self-Awareness, Empathy, Optimism and Reality Testing and watch you profits rise. Offer followership training to all hires, early in the employment cycle and watch leaders grow. Avoid "Leadership Wilt," hire with a plan.

Seven Steps to the Creation of a Great Workplace

Have you ever wondered; "What does it take to create a great workplace?" It is the workplace or the environment of the workplace that determines the level of engagement, productivity and profits of an organization. How and who is responsible for creating the environment of an organization. Some may say "everyone" and while everyone within an organization does contribute to the environment, it is the primary job of the leader.

The number 1 job of a leader is to create an environment where people are motivated to be the best they can.

If this job is done right, it just may justify the exorbitant compensation that often goes along with that job. Even doing it right does not mean that it is an easy task. Just ask someone who works and is working. Let's face it, most work is boring, no matter how hard the leader tries to create an exciting and encouraging environment, you just can't make lemonade from oranges. Finding and keeping people motivated to be their best requires an ongoing and thoughtful effort. It is in this effort that the challenge of leadership is at its greatest. You see people want to be happy with their work and people are happy doing things they like to do, things that actually satisfy what they value. But, people are different and have different values. Almost every one of us has some little nuance that makes us different. Appealing to all or even most is a task that often eludes even the most capable.

It is motivation that drives people to be their best and when they are at their best they are happier.

Contrary to what many of us have thought at one time or another, achieving important goals are not the thing the make us happy. It is the journey toward the goal where the real gold is found.

Right there is a "nugget"-people are happier moving toward the goal than they are when they reach the goal.

One might even conclude that the journey is better than the destination. Hummmmm???

So how do leaders perpetually motivate their people? The answer is they don't, at least they don't for very long. Most lasting motivation comes from within not from without.

Dr. Steven Stein, a previous guest on Internet Radio show, Entrepreneurs R Us, in his book, Make Your Workplace Great gave us some insight into steps leaders might take to make a GREAT WORKPLACE.

1. Be a Feedback Fanatic: Have you ever known anyone who began a job or a project with a specific goal to fail? Well neither have I. People usually begin a job with a plan to succeed or be happy, but something happens along the way. Often time they do not know what went wrong but those of us around them do but we fail to share that information for fear of hurting the person. Be Fearless! GIVE YOUR PEOPLE FEEDBACK -ON GOING.

2. Provide a Challenge: To perform at the highest level, people need to be challenged. If they are bored they will disengage. To keep your people "running at the most efficient pace keep them challenged.

3. Embrace Flexibility: Time is said to be more valuable than money and I believe it. Money we can always get, but time, once used, can never be reclaimed. Missing your son's ball game or your daughter's recital is often more than stressful, it is depressing. The time has come to base work and compensation on results not time spend working. Go to a 4 day work week or install a "flex-time" policy. Observe the difference in attitudes and performance.

4. Be Personally Accountable: Personal accountability is almost as a fly in a snow storm. People just do not want to be accountable for much of anything. Creating a culture or environment that exudes personal accountability is a step in the right direction.

5. Build Trust: People do not trust their leaders today because their leaders talk a lot but fail to do what they say. If you want to build trust in your organization, shut-up and listen. The evidence is compelling leaders who listen are more respected and trusted than those seldom listen.

6. Develop a Participative Management Style: With the rising complexity of problems there is a greater need for input from other sources. Seek the ideas of others, develop a team mind.

7. Stop and Celebrate: Celebrate as a team but even more importantly celebrate with your people in private. Studies show that personal, one-on-one praise is the most effective recognition. Find out what your people are good at and praise them for that, enjoy even the smallest achievements. Everybody loves a winner.

Earlier, we talked about happiness and that it is often found in the journey, more often than in the destination. If that is true, then it makes perfect sense to say "it is the journey that counts for each of us not so much the destination"

Lets talk about some general areas that impact the workplace environment and make the journey even better. Steve Stein, in his book "Make Your Workplace Great" named seven areas that have the greatest impact on performance. Lets take a quick look at each.

Job Happiness: Nearly 30 percent of the workforce are unhappy with their jobs. Why? Some people have great skills but not the ones needed for their job. Their job challenges them beyond their ability, or their job is so easy they devote time to looking for ways to appear busy.

Compensation: Most people are satisfied with their compensation. Pay your people 10 percent more than the competition and you will be a Champion.

Work/Life Balance: The costs of work overload? More mistakes, Absenteeism (300 billion a year in costs), Lack of desire to advance and Losing top performers to competitors, to name just a few.

Organizational Cohesiveness/Teamwork: Develop a shared purpose with the employee in mind involve the employee in important decisions.

Leadership: Possibly the weakest link in the leadership of any organization is at the middle manager level. Many are ill prepared to manage others and cannot even manage themselves. Maybe the biggest single obstacle to improved performance wrests in 2 areas Assertiveness and Accountability.

Anger Management: Anger is the single most experienced emotion in the workplace and destroys people and things that we can imagine.

Organizational Responsiveness: Many organizations are good about wanting to know what people want but much less competent at acting on the want.

Creating that great environment begins with understand what already exists. If you have been wanting to know what motivates your people, do something different; Ask Them

Steps to Raising Money

There is no single best way to raise money for your new venture. What works for me may be less than effective for you. However, there are some guidelines that can be very helpful if this is your first effort in raising money. Here are a few guidelines that can make the job easier and hopefully, more effective.

First, determine how much money you want to raise. It is likely, if this is your first money raising effort, that you will be talking to angel investors or micro Venture Capital firms and sums of money less than $1,000,000. The amount of money you will need should be determined by understanding the next major milestone in the business growth process, how you believe you can get there, what you will need to reach the goal, and how long it will take to get there. For instance, if you are developing software and are currently in the "beta stage," how long will it take to have a marketable product and what will it cost to run the company until you get there, also know as the burn rate. It may take $30,000/month for 10 months or $300,000 to get that marketable product. One thing you can be sure of is that you will most likely be wrong in the time it will take but you should not be far off when it comes to your monthly expenses. Give yourself a month or two cushion in case you encounter problems and ask for $360,000, first round. Being specific gives the investors confidence that you are reasonable sure of achieving your goal and reasonably sure of reaching it in the estimated time frame.

Second, you will need a few documents that describe your business. One being the "One Line Pitch" like "The patented Grey-Spook widget is recommended by Doctors at the Madness Clinic and designed to reduce the pain of surgery by simply holding it between your teeth for 14 minutes immediately after you awaken from anesthesia." Another being the Business Summary, a paragraph that explains the business process and what your product does, like: "Grey Spook, pain relief widgets are used everywhere to reduce pain and discomfort from surgery. Patients rave about the effectiveness of this simple, yet effective tool for managing pain. The "Grey-Spook" is priced at only $25 and we estimate the market to be three billion annually. There are no known competitors." Finally, you should have a Management Summary, something like: "Robert E. Nuff, invented Grey-Spook and has had 15 years managing pain relief at Robert E. Lee hospital in Houston TX as head nurse. Tammy Toogood has 30 years manufacturing experience with the leading manufacturer of pain management devices in Galveston, TX. " These tools are intended to impart maximum knowledge in the shortest possible time.

Once you have gotten the attention of a potential investor be prepared to deliver a more detailed Executive Summary, possibly as long as 3-4 pages. This short, focused description should be carefully crafted and void of anything that resembles "fluff." It will likely be the first substantive information several investors will ever see regarding your company, so make it good. In this summary, you should include the problem you are solving, why it needs solving, how your product solves the problem in unique and intriguing ways and finally why you and your team are the best choice to "deliver the goods." End with a "hook" about the financial end-game and how your approach will distance you from any competition. Don't go overboard here, but do be aggressive. Have this summary prepared and send to any VC that requests it. Wait, however, until it is requested. Be a little hard to get, not too much so, but a little.

Lastly, build a 7-15 page Power-Point Presentation. This should be your most detailed description, yet. Understand that, on average each page (I still call them slides) will take about 3 minutes to present. So, on average a 7 pager will take 21 minutes to present and leave 9 minutes for questions in a 30 minute presentation and a 15 pager will take 45 minutes and leave 15 minutes for questions in an hour presentation. It is good to have at least 2 versions as you are often time limited and 2 versions will allow flexibility to meet most needs. Remember in preparing your pages (slides) keep the information on the slide at a minimum. Never have to say, "I know you can't see this very well." The Power-Point presentation should be practiced using key words and leveraging "attention getters." Be certain you include summary financials and how you will use them. Most good presentations are the shorter versions.

This brief, and certainly not "all inclusive" commentary is intended to give a quick overview of what investors ask for and need to make decisions about investing in your company. Follow them and increase your chances of success.

Entrepreneurs and Success Strategy - Five Steps to Good Strategy

 Strategy is a military term referring to the process of deciding the best environment, in which, your assets may be deployed to gain the maximum benefit. Obviously there is both good and bad strategy. Were that not the case there would be little demand for the book attributed to Sun Tzu, a ranking military general and strategist during the Chinese Wu dynasty in the late sixth century. It makes sense then that if one is fighting a war or engaged in business that good strategy would be a good objective.

Few need good strategy as badly as Entrepreneurs. Often success or failure depends upon the quality of strategy Entrepreneurs build to grow their businesses.

What does good and bad strategy look like, is a good question? Richard Rumelt posted a good article on the subject of strategy in the McKinsey quarterly, recently. He proposes that bad strategy has, at least 4 recognizable characteristics: Failure to face the problem, making goals strategy, bad objectives, and fluff.

Failure to face the problem

All too often leaders are more interested in surface appearance and rely upon the premise that few people read or care about the real problem, they simply want the problem fixed. So, they pen and present strategies that are surface and short-term centered. They often attempt to overwhelm those that might implement the strategy with "texture and detail," as Rumelt puts it.

Occasionally, executives will just ignore problems and try to replace them with past achievements. They may replace strategy with amazing goals and hope the problems go away, but we all know, hope is not a strategy (good or bad).

Making goals strategy

Many executives are great at setting audacious goals, goals that will "take your breath away" also hoping that the goals will take your mind off the need for strategy. One great warrior we are familiar with was George S. Patton. One of Patton's favorite quotations was from Frederick the Great: "L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace." Translation: Audacity, audacity, always audacity. But George S. Patton knew audacious goals were a tactic, not a strategy. He knew that choosing where to be audacious was more important that being audacious. So do not be tempted to dazzle others with audacious goals as a substitute for good strategy.

I am sure you have had experiences where leaders attempt to overwhelm followers with goals like: If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete (paraphrased and attributed to Jack Welch) or Win one for the Kipper (attributed to Knute Rockne). Both are goals but not strategy.

Bad strategic objectives

For those who do not believe in or understand the value of strategy, one of the most frequent ways they approach the process is to make sure the objectives are fuzzy. With fuzzy or unclear objectives you can hope that getting close to the goal will get you where you wish to go, but it will not. The most frequent way bad objectives are presented is through the planning process and having too many objectives.

Instead of identifying a few of the most important goals and developing a strategy to achieve them, executives are gathering all the goals and presenting them in need of strategy. the problem that presents is not all goals are achieved with the same strategy and unless an organization clearly knows those that are most important, it is very likely that bad strategy will be employed.

Fluff

This my favorite and possibly one of the most frequently used. Fluff is simply saying something that can be said in a few simple words with more and bigger words. Using jargon to express something simple. An example given by Rumelt, and I can site none better, is the bank that expresses its strategy as customer-centric intermediation. Look beyond the fluff and you get the bank's strategy is to be a bank. The customer-centric part is jargon and intermediation is a big word for taking deposits and then lending out the money. Bad strategy is often disguised by fluff. Another place where you will often find a lot of fluff is in an organization's vision and mission. Sounds good, but does it really mean anything? If you have to ask that question, it is not good strategy.

So what, then, is necessary to craft good strategy. I believe there are 5 important steps to crafting good strategy:

1. Carefully analyze the current condition- You can't know how to get to where you want to go unless you know where your are.

2. Vision where you want to be - Have a picture of where you want to be.

3. Understand - that tomorrow is not likely to resemble today. Assuming that next year, next month, next week will be just like today is a big mistake. Accept that we live in a world where change is exponential.

4. Develop a big picture plan - Coping with a changing world requires certainty of destination but flexible plans to get there.

5. Implement tactics - engage the people, equipment and capital to reach the destination


The key to good strategy found in these 5 points: analyze, visualize, know things change, get the big picture and implement. Follow these 5 steps to good strategy and enjoy the victories.

Stephen J. Blakesley is the host of the weekly Internet radio show: Entrepreneurs R Us http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sjb340. He is an Author and Speaker, His most recent books include: Strategic Hiring, The Target-The Secret of Superior Performance an How to Make the Next Hire Your Best Hire His blog is found at http://www.entrepreneursrus.com, please visit and comment.

Thank You!



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