Leadership

Leadership

What is Leadership? 

Leadership is a unique trait that only a few people possess.  Leaders are enablers.  They have the ability to see things other people don't.  They can see through mounds of unrelated data and see a path to success. They are looking at the big picture and want to help everyone achieve mutual success. They can 'read' people.  People want to follow them.  People want to learn from them.  People trust them.  They (the leaders) want to serve the organization and the people in the organization, not the other way around where poor leaders (not really leaders at all) think that the organization and people must serve the leader.

Good leadership in the 21st Century Company requires attitudes and behaviours that relate to humanity.  Of course leadership involves decisions and actions relating to all kinds of other things as well.  However it is unique in its special relationship to people - the people who follow leaders.  The leader is always serving these people and looking out for their welfare and the company's.  Leaders' followers trust and respect them (the leaders) rather than the skills they possess.  Skills are important but not the most important factor.

Leadership traits can be learned to make you a better manager - but only a few people actually possess the true innate ability to be leaders.  When you are going about your everyday work look for the people who seem to automatically become the team leader on any team they are assigned - they rarely possess any more skills related to the assigned task than most other team members.  So why are they chosen to or automatically assume leadership of the team?  Or  how about the person that you feel you can trust or that their organization seems to be always ahead-of-the-curve? Or the 'manager' who is more concerned with their people than with his/her standing in the organization? These are people in your organization that need to be sought out and moved into roles where they can feel comfortable helping people and the company succeed.  They are the visionaries.  They have a positive attitude that is infectious. They are the enables to success. They look for mentors that can guide them, not manage them.  They must enable, that is what they must do or they will move on to other companies where their rare talent may be used by your competitor to negatively affect the fortunes of your company.

Leadership is absolutely essential to the success of any company today!  There must be one or more leaders to lead the managers and every successful company will have, must have, one or more leaders in the C-suite.  A company led by managers will not be successful in the long term. Generation X and Y employees need managers with leadership skills and love to work for Leaders versus Managers.

Leading, Coaching, Praising - R. Hibbard

Competitive Advantages - What? How? Knowing?

Sharpen your pencils - everyone has one or more competitive advantages.  Businesses, departments, private organizations and any host of other entities have (or should have) some competitive advantage.  If you do not have one or any you better come up with some!  You generally need more than one.  You must be constantly looking for your 'killer-app'.  Even if you are in a commodity market you want to have some differentiator(s).

What are some differentiators?

1. We have all live (verses dead or robo) phone operators.
2. Six distribution centers across the country verses three for the competition.
3. Triple redundancy for power supplies at our co-lo facility verses two.
4. All personnel are Microsoft certified in each of our service offerings.
5. We serve only fresh beef, produce, etc.
6. Our factory is in full compliance with Six Sigma standards.
7. We are ISO certified.
8. Each of our doctors has done post-graduate work at the Mayo Clinic.
9. We offer the product in ten colors.
10. Each of our recruiters is focused on a specific industry and skill set.
11. My hand-to-eye coordination rate is in the top one hundredths percent in the world.
12. Our food servers have more than 30 hours of customer service training.
13. etc.

How do I determine what mine or our competitive advantages are?

You could start with a SWOT analysis.  A focus team and BRAINSTORMING session will be very useful.  You should have a cross-functional team if you are looking at a business area, product, delivery, etc.  Look to have at least sales, marketing, production, quality, training, service, and even financial on the team.  It can be amazing what types of advantages can be discovered and then exploited as a result of these team efforts.

Knowing your real competitive advantages is critical?

Things like more sales personnel may or may not be an advantage, for example.  True competitive advantages must be sought out on an on-going basis.  Once you know your advantages you must take action to make them tangible to your clients and customers. In other words you must act upon them.  Build on your strengths.  Build products or services based on these advantages - in that way your competitors are at a disadvantage. It is always good to keep in mind that your competition has competitive advantages too - how do you circumvent them?

21st Century Organizations

“On the road to exceeding customer expectations in the 21st Century organizations must be  flexible, fast learners, adaptable,  know where they are headed, and how to get there. Yet, everyone from the CEO to the hourly employees must be aware that everything could change in the blink of an eye and are prepared to meet any new challenge faster than the competition.”                                                    

Richard R. Hibbard

How can I implement Lean Leadership principals and programs with limited consulting services?