No-nonsense laws for new leaders

by Dave Anderson

Most businesses are over-managed and under-led. They are heavy on systems and light on people development. The following points help put leadership in its proper perspective and are especially valuable when shared with newer managers who may excel in the technical aspects of their job, but lack a leadership mindset. 

It won’t hurt to share these ideas with your veterans either. Many seasoned managers who were once leaders, are now simply administrators.

Leadership is an opportunity
The title of manager doesn’t make you a manager; it merely affords you an opportunity to become one. In fact, all a title does is buy you time: time to gain influence or to lose it, to get results or to fail. It’s a foolish notion to believe you’ve suddenly become more competent by virtue of a promotion.

Leadership must be earned
A manager doesn’t automatically have followers; he or she has subordinates. How you act as a leader determines whether subordinates become followers. Subordinates only follow you as far as they have to. They comply but never commit. Followers, on the other hand, go the second mile.

Leadership requires results
Ultimately, leaders are measured by results, not good intentions. You must prove yourself over again each day because tenure and experience don’t substitute for results. There comes a day when you have to stop belching out the baloney and bring home the bacon.

Leaders must help their people grow
The truest way to measure your leadership is by whether or not you improve the people on your team. Your job is to make your people smarter and better. If you can’t develop and grow people, you forfeit the right to lead them.

Leaders must work on themselves
You have an obligation to grow personally. It’s not enough to work hard on the job; you must work hard on yourself.

Leaders lead by example
The No. 1 way followers measure you is by whether your talk and walk match. You can talk your talk and walk your walk, but your walk speaks louder than your talk. When you talk right and walk left you leave your team behind.

Leaders can be fired
Followers must buy into you before they buy into your vision and it’s up to you to do the selling. Buy-in is not automatic just because you occupy a leadership position. It is earned and not assumed. In fact, there are two ways followers can fire you, even if your name is on the sign. They can fire you by not performing and they can fire you by leaving. Either way, you lose.

Leaders are held to a higher standard
You are held more accountable and to a higher standard than followers because to whom much is given, much is required. It’s the price of leadership. Every day you are on display and whatever you say will elevate or devastate, earn respect or lose it, enhance your presence or cheapen it.

Leaders are servants
Leaders serve their people. You must add value to team members rather than waiting to be served by them. Keep in perspective that, ultimately, you are not measured as a leader by how far you go and how much you get but by how many people you bring with you.

Leadership is an acquired skill
Leadership is not genetic. History is filled with droves of deposed monarchs and heirs who lost family fortunes that substantiate this. Leadership is developed, not discovered.

Leadership abilities are revealed in crisis
It’s easy to lead in good times, steering the momentum and leading the parade. But a downturn will expose any sins you inflicted during the good times. When you squeeze a lemon, lemon juice comes out. When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out. When you get squeezed, whatever is inside will come out as well. You are not made in crisis, you are revealed in it.

Leaders stretch their people
You aren’t paid to maintain people, to administer them or to merely manage them. Leaders are paid to stretch others, to develop them, to impact them. If you’re not stretching you’re not leading.

Leaders hold their people accountable
You must hold people accountable. You can show no greater respect for a follower than when you let them know exactly where they stand and where you stand. Care enough to confront.

Leaders delegate
You must build a team. If you can accomplish your goals by yourself they are too small. One of the key transitions you must make is focusing less on how much you can do personally and shifting your efforts to getting more done through others. Once you do this you multiply your effectiveness. Until you do, you are simply another overloaded lone ranger leader that plateaus and then plunges.

Leaders lean on their strengths 
and outsource their weaknesses
Know your strengths. Look in the mirror and face up to your strengths and weaknesses. Then, spend as much time in gifted areas as possible, delegating, outsourcing and training your weaknesses away. When you work in an area of strength you can attain excellence. Working in areas of weakness is simply a form of damage control. Endeavoring to become a jack of all trades is a recipe for mediocrity.

Leaders discriminate by results
You must discriminate. Not on the basis of race, religion or gender but on the basis of character, capability and performance. Give your best to the best and less to the rest because there is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals.

Leaders constantly raise the bar
Maintain pressure to perform. People are not at their best when life is too safe. A heightened bar raises adrenaline levels and evokes creativity. Prolonged equilibrium in your business dulls its senses and makes it less responsive to changes occurring around it. In this state, your organization is at maximum risk.

Leaders give people what they earn
Run a meritocracy. Give people what they deserve. Eliminate the entitlement welfare mentality underachievers cling to. Unplug the entitled from financial life-support and make them earn continued membership on your team.

Leaders strive to make their organization great
The enemy of great is good. There are so few great businesses precisely because there are so many good ones. Far too many organizations get good, hit the snooze button and stop doing the things that got them good in the first place. To make the leap from good to great you must keep changing, growing, risking and following the diligent daily disciplines that separate the merely interested from the truly committed.

Leaders aren’t complacent
Don’t rest, celebrate or reflect for too long. Complacency doesn’t attack failing businesses. It’s already worked its evil there. Complacency attacks successful businesses and turns them into failing ones. In fact, if you are successful, you have a bulls-eye on your back. Complacency is coming for you.

Leaders are humble
Despite what you might think, you’re not indispensable. Get real; you’re not that good and you can rest assured that life in your enterprise will go on without you. Keep this in perspective and build a team to help share the load. The best leaders balance a strong personal humility with a voracious ambition for their organization.

One last thought, new leaders: leadership is not a perk and it’s not about privilege. It’s an awesome responsibility. You have human capital and potential in your hands and are obligated to make it grow. Betray this trust and your days as a leader are over.

Dave Anderson is the author of No-Nonsense Leadership. He is a peak performance author, trainer and speaker and an expert on leadership and sales. For more information call or go to: www.learntolead.com.

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