Becoming a super leader

By Bill Blades William Blades, LLC Gold Canyon, Az.

Intuition - Experienced leaders, through many victories and defeats, learn to stay tuned to their intuition. When doubt crawls in and your "gut feeling" tells you something is wrong. it probably is.

With the duds come the gems.

Appreciation - You have a lot of quiet, behind-the-scenes people who don't get a lot of attention-and probably don't want any. What they do want and need is a little appreciation. Just a cup of coffee with one new person a week will pay dividends. Listen to them, because they know more about their sector than you do.

Fun - Is it the most fun place in the town to work? When people love what they do, they perform better.

Giving - Leaders gain respect and power by sharing their time and talents and not taking credit from others. Give to get.

Listening - Leaders ask tons of questions and listen intently. Introverts do not usually say much. When they do, hang on to every word.

Cutting-edge - What unheard-of service do you offer that no one else does? Keep the edge on your group to provide suggestions for low-cost, value-added services that will create a niche in the marketplace. Think about a service that creates a partnership with clients.

Succession - If you ran into a telephone pole tomorrow, who would take your place? Never let yourselfor anyone else-be indispensable. Put in everyone's job description that they must recruit, select and train their replacement.

Courage - Many leaders do not tell their chief the truth. Silence is not golden. it is cowardice.

Mission - Everyone needs a reminder as to our mission statement. Eat, sleep and breathe it. Make it real. Get everyone involved.

Resources - Leaders understand that most people have not been stretched enough. Provide targeted training and education and you earn the right to raise expectations from everyone.

Re-energize - Leaders always keep the edge on everyone. They often utilize the word "absolute," so that everyone understands that anything less than an all-out effort is intolerable. Let them see the fire in your belly from time to time. Then furnish unexpected rewards to those who came early. stayed late, came in on Saturdays and to those who spoke out. Give them a day off, a dinner for two or whatever.

Hard/Soft - Managing is usually either a hard or a soft style. Leadership is both hard when you should be and soft when appropriate. Hard means "I'm not going to let you behave in a way that may hurt you down the road." Soft is "I care about you and I want to help you."