2006 Leader Tips..

In a knowledge-intensive world of continuous innovation and change, I assert, every professional must be a real leader. There are no generally accepted, prescribed 'steps' to becoming a great leader. Rather, there are key leadership Tips that, in my opinion, all successful leaders demonstrate, and that you will need to follow:

1. Respect the organization and focus on building trust by talking honestly. There is nothing like people respect and being honest. Keep in mind that being honest frees us to be real. Not only do honest people have stronger, better relationships with others, but their honesty makes them better people and it makes our world a better place.

2. Make vision and values your priority. By paying attention to both of them, employees will understand what’s important in the business. You should assess people according to two criteria – their current performance and their values. These values - are vital to establishing an effective organization. Employees want to be part of an organization that has purpose, direction, and values, and offers useful work.

3. Learn to deal with ambiguity, to be able to change your model and to have an ability to be innovative, creative and adaptive to change. You can start by creating a change management team or lead position to select and adopt a methodology and improve the organization's understanding of the value of change management. Empower these individuals to educate managers and project team members on change management techniques.

4. You must connect with customers, partners, and front-line employees. If you really want to solve a problem, go to the front line people and give them your ear. New ideas are born here and should be nurtured to provide the business with continual sources of new approaches.

5. Understand everybody's strength and everybody's weakness. Your job as a leader is to know how to play to those strengths and lift the game of the others on the team.

6. Be technically proficient - As a leader, you must know your job and have a solid familiarity with your employees' tasks. This will help the employees understand how they contribute to achieving key business objectives. In addition, good leader should show appreciation for good points made by others.

7. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Search for ways to guide your organization to new heights. And when things go wrong, analyze the situation, take corrective action, and move on to the next challenge.

8. Sign up to big, bold goals. A bold goal provides a preliminarily measure of success for everyone in the company. Goals must be realistic, easily understood, achievable, and the result of team work. No one wants to be stuck in a dead-end company going nowhere...or a company headed in the wrong direction. They want to be involved with a winner! And your people are the ones who will get you to that goal. You cannot do it alone!

Good luck in your efforts!