How To Be A Better Leader: 70 Tips

Back by popular demand...

The 70 tips below make for a good list for learning how to become a better leader when you don't have a lot of time to read books about leadership.

And, if you've been a leader for a long time, how about taking a few minutes to run through the list and scoring yourself on how well you carry out each leadership skill?

1. Don't micromanage
2. Don't be a bottleneck
3. Focus on outcomes, not minutiae
4. Build trust with your colleagues before a crisis comes
5. Assess your company's strengths and weaknesses at all times
6. Conduct annual risk reviews
7. Be courageous, quick and fair
8. Talk more about values more than rules
9. Reward how a performance is achieved and not only the performance
10. Constantly challenge your team to do better
11. Celebrate your employees' successes, not your own
12. Err on the side of taking action
13. Communicate clearly and often
14. Be visible
15. Eliminate the cause of a mistake
16. View every problem as an opportunity to grow
17. Summarize group consensus after each decision point during a meeting
18. Praise when compliments are earned
19. Be decisive
20. Say "thank you" and sincerely mean it
21. Send written thank you notes
22. Listen carefully and don't multi-task while listening
23. Teach something new to your team
24. Show respect for all team members
25. Follow through when you promise to do something
26. Allow prudent autonomy
27. Respond to questions quickly and fully
28. Return e-mails and phone calls promptly
29. Give credit where credit is due
30. Take an interest in your employees and their personal milestone events
31. Mix praise with constructive feedback for how to make improvement
32. Learn the names of your team members even if your team numbers in the hundreds
33. Foster mutual commitment
34. Admit your mistakes
35. Remove nonperformers
36. Give feedback in a timely manner and make it individualized and specific
37. Hire to complement, not to duplicate
38. Volunteer within your community and allow your employees to volunteer
39. Promote excellent customer service both internally and externally
40. Show trust
41. Encourage peer coaching
42. Encourage individualism and welcome input
43. Share third-party compliments about your employees with your employees
44. Be willing to change your decisions
45. Be a good role model
46. Be humble
47. Explain each person's relevance
48. End every meeting with a follow-up To Do list
49. Explain the process and the reason for the decisions you make
50. Read leadership books to learn
51. Set clear goals and objectives
52. Reward the doers
53. Know yourself
54. Use job descriptions
55. Encourage personal growth and promote training, mentoring and external education
56. Share bad news, not only good news
57. Start meetings on time
58. Discipline in private
59. Seek guidance when you don't have the answer
60. Tailor your motivation techniques
61. Support mentoring - both informal and formal mentoring
62. Don't interrupt
63. Ask questions to clarify
64. Don't delay tough conversations
65. Have an open door policy
66. Dig deep within your organization for ideas on how to improve processes, policies and procedures
67. Do annual written performance appraisals
68. Insist on realism
69. Explain how a change will impact employees' feelings before, during and after the change is implemented
70. Have face-to-face interaction as often as possible

Comments

How To Survive, Reset And Then Thrive

“Uncertainty is here to stay. Rather than seeing it as an obstacle to overcome, integrate it into your strategic approach to invigorate your high-growth potential and outperform competition under any market condition,” explains Rebecca Homkes , author of the book, Survive, Reset, Thrive . “Most books aren’t honest enough about how hard it is to reset ,” adds Homkes. Yet, resetting and leaning into change is essential. “If you are ready to embrace change as a central element of your growth strategy, this book is for you.” Homkes’ book is a timely, comprehensive, and essential read for business leaders looking to take the next step toward ensuring high growth for their companies. The book brings together more than 15 years of Homkes working directly with high-growth companies of all sizes and across a wide variety of industries. Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) is a practical and innovative interconnected three-mode approach : Survive : Stabil...

Why Your Middle Managers Are So Important

The book, Power To The Middle , shows how managers are the crucial link between a company’s ground floor and top brass. “Too often company leaders view middle managers in a negative light as expendable employees who can slow down productivity and overall strategy,” explain the book’s authors and McKinsey partners Bill Schaninger , Bryan Hancock , and Emily Field . “However, new KcKinsey research reveals that this outdated perspective needs to change and that well-developed managers are the strategy that companies must prioritize to succeed today,” they add. Most importantly, by the end of their book, the authors sum up their insights and provide a playbook that will help senior leaders let go of the command-and-control mindset that has hobbled their managers for so long. The authors define middle managers as the people who are at least once removed from the front line and at least a layer below the senior lead...

How To Energize Your Work And Life

Tom Rath is the author of the incredibly popular Strengthsfinder 2.0 book . His latest book is, Are You Fully Charged? The book draws on the latest and most practical research from business and psychology and identifies the three keys that influence most of our daily well-being, as well as our engagement at work : Meaning : doing something that benefits another person Interactions : creating far more positive than negative moments Energy : making choices that improve your mental and physical health "This book will challenge you to stop pursing happiness and start creating meaning instead ," explains Rath. And, by doing so, you will rethink your daily interactions with the people who matter most. "The actions you take throughout every single day accumulate to shape your years, decades and overall life," adds Rath. Even brief interactions count, says Rath, such as exchanging a smile or greeting while passing someone on the s...

Read Good To Great

Near the top of virtually every list you'll see of the best leadership books, you'll find, Good To Great , by Jim Collins . The book, five years in the making, and published in 2001, addresses the all-important question of: Can a good company become a great company, and if so, how? Some of the lessons from the book are: "Leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted." "Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights." "Good-to-great companies use technology as an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it." "Engage in dialogue and debate." Good-to-great companies are those who have the ability to get and kee...

My Favorite "Moral Of The Story" Tips From Harvey Mackay

I'm a big fan of best-selling author Harvey Mackay . He writes about business, sales and leadership and typically ends his articles with a moral of the story. Culled from his writings of the past few years, here are some of my favorites of his moral of the story endings: Change your thinking, change your life. It's not enough to know how to do things - you must know why you do them. If you live in the past, you won't have much of a future. If you want to outsmart the competition, you have to outthink the competition. Don't be afraid to make a decision. Be afraid not make a decision. What you learn on your first job will last through your last job. Minds are like parachutes - not much good unless they are open. If you can't be an expert, hire one. People have a way of becoming what you encourage them to be. It only takes a little spark to ignite a great fire. Doing the right thing is never the wrong thing to do. Mackay's best-...

Dig Deep For Ideas

The next time you are looking for ideas for how to grow revenue, streamline processes and procedures and/or reduce expenses, dig deep within your organization . Don't ask only your direct reports for their suggestions. Instead, ask everyone at all levels . Some of the best ideas will come from your lower and mid-level employees who are interacting with your vendors, customers and co-workers every day in the very areas that, if improved, could make the most dramatic impact. Be sure to acknowledge receipt of each idea . Keep everyone informed of the types of ideas you've received . Perhaps update them on a monthly basis. When you implement a suggestion, recognize and reward the submitter , including possibly financially. Feel free to accept ideas anonymously. But, if employees know you are sincere about wanting their input, and witness you acting upon suggestions, most of your team members will be proud to tie their names to their ideas. Finally...

Frustration In The Workplace Is A Silent Killer

" Frustration in the workplace is a silent killer," claim authors Mark Royal and Tom Agnew in their terrific book, The Enemy of Engagement . Further, "in an organizational context, frustration is not as simple as failing to get something you want. Rather, it involves the inability to succeed in your role due to organizational barriers or the inability to bring the bulk of your individual talents, skills, and abilities to your job." Royal and Agnew further explain that a staggering number of highly motivated, engaged, and loyal employees quit trying--or quit, period---because they feel frustrated . And what's causing all that frustration? It's lack of enablement . According to Royal and Agnew, as employees grow in experience in their roles, they begin to focus less on learning the ropes and more on achieving desired results. In the process, they are increasingly confronted with enablement constraints that limit their ability to get their ...

Mission Versus Vision

Here's a good definition of the difference between a mission and a vision by leadership book authors George Bradt, Jayme A. Check and Jorge Pedraza: Mission - A mission guides what people do every day. It informs what roles need to exist in the organization. Vision - A vision is the picture of future success. It helps define areas where the organization needs to be best in class and helps keep everyone aware of the essence of the company.

The Questions To Ask During An Interview To Identify A Leader

The next time you are interviewing a candidate and you want to access their leadership skills, consider asking the candidate these questions: What personal qualities define you as a leader? Describe a situation when these qualities helped you lead others. Give an example of when you demonstrated good leadership. What is the toughest group from which you've had to get cooperation? Have you ever had difficulty getting others to accept your ideas? What was your approach? Did it work? Describe a situation in which you had to change your leadership style to achieve the goal? One leadership skill is the ability to accommodate different views in the workplace, regardless of what they are. What have you done to foster a wide number of views in your work environment? Thanks to Sharon Armstrong, author of The Essential HR Handbook , for these helpful questions!

4 Questions To Ask An Employee When He Quits

As a leader, it's critical that you understand the real reasons employees leave your company. To do that, you need to ask specific questions that may not be ones you currently include in your exit interviews. Fortunately, Richard Finnegan , shares in his book, Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad , four key questions you should include in your exit interviews : Why did you decide to leave us? Of all the things you've told me, what is the top thing that caused you to resign? It's great that you've found such a good opportunity, but why did you look? What one thing could we have done that would have caused you to stay? Your goal is to learn the most important leave reason rather than learn which three or five things contributed to your employee's decision to leave. The four questions above will help you learn the most important reason.

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog