The thing to remember and I think we sometimes forget is that leadership, in essence, is about achieving a common goal. With that, everything a “leader” does should be working toward this goal. And, unfortunately, this is not always the case. Some are attracted to leadership because of the “power” it affords them. Well, as a leader, one of the most important things is to utilize that power responsibly, wisely, and morally. A leader should be like the conductor of an orchestra, making sure everyone is in-step and correcting if they are not. To lead is to leave no one behind and to give your team equal attention and consideration. Favoritism can be toxic for morale. And this is hard as human behavior leads us to favoritism, but we must do our best to remain unbiased; it’s called exercising discipline. Here are my top 10 leadership traits, behaviors, and practices:
1. A leader must be competent and knowledgeable in the area or business that their company or organization operates in
2. A leader must be able to clearly, concisely, and effectively communicate the mission, goals, and objectives in all ways
3. A leader must be able to relate to their people on many levels
4. A leader must be considerate and understanding to their team’s needs, priorities, concerns, values, and overall health and manage in a way that allows for a fair and balanced compromise between business operational demands and the team’s needs.
5. A leader must be consistent for the most part in their message, their management techniques, and how they direct operations and initiatives. Yes, of course pivots are needed as trends can change things rapidly (such as a global pandemic), but if a leader changes her/his management style, message, etc. too often, your people are going to be confused as to what message to follow, what management philosophy or style they should replicate, and how you want them to operate. This goes back to the conductor analogy; yes she/he may change the tone, pace, and/or intensity now and again, but if they do it too often, it’s not going to be a pleasant or rhythmic result.
6. A leader must be courageous (in terms of standing up for their employees, customers or clients, and/or stakeholders), steadfast (in achieving the mission, goals, and objectives), and the ability to motivate their people, even during the most difficult or trying times.
7. A leader must know the environment that they are working in and have the pulse of their market. They must be able to identify key market trends, or at least have people with the ability to do this exceptionally and then the willingness to actually listen to them and then act swiftly and effectively in capitalizing on these trends and/or defending their interests.
8. In all actions, decisions, and communications, a leader must exercise and demonstrate integrity, goodwill, consideration, honesty, strength, clarity in purpose, and responsibility. The buck stops with them. I like the plaque that Ted Turner (founder of CNN) keeps on his desk, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
9. A leader must be able to identify talent (in all functional areas), build and strengthen that talent (must be committed to training & development), and effectively utilize and leverage that talent in achieving the said mission, goals, and objectives.
10. When things go “south” or major unexpected actions by competitors that significantly affect your interests occur (hostile takeovers, a competitor’s innovation that makes your product or service irrelevant, etc.), there are major missteps by your leadership or management team, or your company just fails to execute their business plan effectively or fails to deliver on promises to customers, vendors, investors, partners, and/or other stakeholders, they take responsibility for these failures and missteps. And then they require the willingness and competence to develop and activate a well thought-out and clever damage control, recovery, and counter-offensive plan.
Thanks very much for reading this piece. I wish you and your company or organization the best in incorporating some or all of these tenets of leadership! I am also a strong believer in the power of positive thinking and exercising a positive mindset for positive change and achieving marked results. At the end of the day, that is what it’s about; that is, achieving results. And these results can be both quantitative and qualitative. I recommend making your vice president level executives, departmental or functional manager heads, second level managers, supervisors, and team leads cognizant of these tenets and then ask them to develop and document a proposed plan to incorporate and actualize these plans into their respective functional areas. And then review, evaluate, adjust, and approve these plans. Following their release and execution, it would also be advised to set-up 3 week, 2 month, and 6 month evaluations of how effective, practical, and sustainable these plans are and to what extent they are motivating and empowering employees in the way of achieving the targeted mission, goals, and objectives.
I also believe this is true, “How a company treats its employees is a direct reflection of its values and operating mantra.”
If you, your company or organization requires help developing and documenting a leadership or business operational plan, job coaching, process improvement or the like, I would be happy to help as I am available for related management consulting projects. I can be reached via email at: clifford.thornton@gmail.com
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