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How Do You Improve Leadership Results
How Do You Improve Leadership Results
In our book Bottom Line Focus, we talk about effective leadership being scarce.
There are literally hundreds of books written on the subject, with no shortage of
ideas and programs. Why then is effective leadership so hard to find?
I think first you have to clarify exactly what does effective leadership mean to you
and your organization? In order to improve anything you have to have a clear
understanding of three things.
First and foremost a leader gets results. If he or she doesn’t they may be popular but
they won’t be a leader long. The difference between a leader and an effective leader
is how those results are attained.
In todays highly complex, highly technical, and global environment effective leaders
must learn to make use of all resources around them. This is a change from the days
when the top person was expected to know everything and touch everything.
To do that you need to attract and retain excellent people, you need to create an
environment that is open to communication and innovation, and you must allow
them to fail. Innovation with penalties for failure creates a “don’t rock the boat”
mentality.
So an effective leader gets results, develops great people and is an active listener
and communicator. They are open minded, non –threatening and just as important
non-threatened.
So the next step is where is your organization now? One way to tell other than
simply results is to look for warning signs:
Take an honest look inside your organization. How many of these issues are
present?
In order to be an effective leader of others you must first learn to lead yourself.