70 Ways To Be A Better Leader

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

The Five Critical Roles You Need To Build A Winning Team

The new book, Team Players , by leadership expert and New York Times bestselling author, Mark Murphy , explains why a team needs more than strong leaders—it needs the right mix of five roles and talents to succeed. In addition, Murphy reveals that the secret to extraordinary teams isn’t making everyone the same—it’s embracing and leveraging fundamental differences through those five distinct team roles. No amount of teambuilding, trust, or cohesion can overcome having the wrong mix of people in the room. The five essential roles and talents are: The Director assumes a leadership role within the team, guiding its direction and making important, difficult, and even unpopular decisions. The Achiever immerses themselves in the details of accomplishing tasks and getting things done, with a keen eye for delivering error-free work. The Stabilizer keeps the team on track with meticulous planning, processes and procedures, clear timelines, and organi...

Bite-Sized, Daily Notes For Contemplation, Inspiration, Connection, And Clarity

Everyone can benefit from the new book, Dear Friend , which features bite-sized, daily notes for contemplation, inspiration, connection, and clarity. Busy and stressed business leaders can particularly benefit from the 365 profound, heartfelt reflections from author Michelle Maros , founder of Peaceful Mind Peaceful Life and cohost of the podcast, Life Happens with Barb and Michelle . Dear Friend invites readers to go deep and use the notes as a daily practice that compounds over time, nurturing strength, resilience, and clarity. In just a few minutes each day, this book will offer you a daily reprieve when you feel burned out, beaten down, or overwhelmed by the strains and stresses of modern life. The heart of Dear Friend began in the quiet mornings Michelle shared with her mom, Barb. Every day, they would sit together, reading affirmations or passages from Barb’s beloved books. These small rituals—simple but powerful—set the tone for each day, grounding...

How To Be An Inspirational Leader

Today, I bring back one of my most-read blog posts from 2017. It read as follows: At the end of each year, I select my choice for the best new leadership book for that year and then highlight that book on my blog. Well, we're only five months into 2017 and there is a new leadership book so good that I can't wait until year-end to share it with you. And it's likely to be among the select few options for best new leadership book of 2017. It's called, The Inspiration Code , by Kristi Hedges . Perhaps now more than any other time, the need for inspirational leadership is critical in the workplace. Filled with profound insights and compelling data and based on a commissioned survey on who and what inspires people, Hedges uncovers a set of consistent, learnable behaviors that dramatically enhance leadership success. And shows you how to inspire those you lead. And, how to energize people every day . Kristi Hedges But, first, what exactly is inspiration? Hedges ex...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

How To Break Through The Beliefs That Limit Your Potential

As a leader, do you find yourself frustrated, wondering why employees don't meet expectations, peers are slow to act, or pressure from your boss falls unfairly on your shoulders? It's easy to point a finger at others and double down on getting results. But have you ever considered that the problem might not be them—that it might be you? “Your mindset may be the only thing standing between you and your potential. It’s time to break free from the beliefs that hold you back,” says Muriel M. Wilkins , author of the new book, Leadership Unblocked: Break Through The Beliefs That Limit Your Potential . Through countless hours coaching executives over the past twenty years, Wilkins has pinpointed the biggest reason behind these common leadership challenges: hidden blockers . These unconscious beliefs can actively stall progress if leaders aren't aware of their existence, preventing them from seeing a situation clearly, solving problems effectively, and advancing their caree...

The Phoenix Encounter Method For Leaders

“All businesses sooner or later face the need to reconstruct their future,” explain the authors of the new book, The Phoenix Encounter Method . “They will need to destroy part or all of the incumbent business model in order to build their breakthrough, future-ready organization.” Therefore, this book shares a new method of leadership thinking – the Phoenix Encounter – relevant to all organizations in today’s ever-changing environment. Readers will learn how to proactively bridge the gap between perceiving a threat and doing something about it. Written by three INSEAD professors ( Ian C. Woodward , V. “Paddy” Padmanabhan , Sameer Hasija ) and Rum Charan , you’ll learn the steps needed to create a wider range of options to: Defend your organization Fortify its core business Build specific renewal initiatives The steps are grounded in transformation that includes these three elements : The Phoenix Attitude : a set of mindsets, habits, and behaviors that allows a leader to ...

How Businesses Hone And Also Avoid Drift

“Honing, not sharpening is a metaphor for how successful businesses keep their competitive edge,” explain authors Geoff Tuff and Steven Goldbach , authors of the new book, Hone: How Leaders Defy Drift . “Today’s leaders seem to be highly focused on increasingly frequent transformation (akin to knife sharpening), when in fact they would be better served by building daily habits to hone their organization like a chef hones a knife.” Sharpening : This process restores a dull knife edge by removing material to create a new, sharper edge. Honing : This process realigns the existing edge of a knife, maintaining its sharpness without removing material. The book is a call to action for leaders to build the capability and mindset to hone their organizations, minimizing—but not eliminating—the need for transformation. “Choosing and honing the set of management systems that promote an organization's desired outcomes (and uninstalling them when they are past the...

The Inspiration Code

At the end of each year, I select my choice for the best new leadership book for that year, and then highlight that book on my blog. Well, only five months into 2017, I had already found a new leadership book so good that I couldn't wait until year-end 2017 to share it. Reflecting back, and sharing again, that book is, The Inspiration Code , by Kristi Hedges . Perhaps now more than any other time, the need for inspirational leadership is critical in the workplace. Filled with profound insights and compelling data, and based on a commissioned survey on who and what inspires people, Hedges uncovers a set of consistent, learnable behaviors that dramatically enhance leadership success. And, shows you how to inspire those you lead. And, how to energize people every day . Kristi Hedges But, first, what exactly is inspiration? Hedges explains that psychology professors Todd Thrash and Andrew Elliot have determined that inspiration is :...

How To Become A Leader

Here’s another must-read book to add to your list as you transition from manager to leader. It’s The Leap to Leader , by Adam Bryant . As the creator of the iconic “Corner Office” column in the New York Times , Bryant has spoken with more than a thousand leaders over the years about the challenges and nuances of leadership. Many of his discussions are included in his interview series on LinkedIn. “The goal of this book is to provide an intensely practical guide to making that transition by sharing insights, stories, and approaches from hundreds of leaders to build the skills you will need to make the leap to leader,” explains Bryant. He adds that the book is useful to everyone who is interested in leadership, regardless of where they are in their career. The book covers: The central paradox of leaders: selfless vs. self-centered. How to perfect the do-to-say ratio. Ways to navigate office politics. Tactics to making better decisions. The cruc...

Discover How Ken Blanchard Changed The Way The World Leads

I would be hard pressed to find a leader, someone who studies leadership, or an aspiring leader who during the past 43 years hasn’t read the iconic and business classic The One Minute Manager (1982) or the updated new addition, The New One Minute Manager (2015). For decades, these two books, both co-authored by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson , have helped millions achieve more successful professional and personal lives. Now, in Chapter 9 of the new biography of Ken Blanchard, you’ll discover the story behind the idea and ultimate launch of the original The One Minute Manager . Chapter 9 is in the insightful and intimate biography, Catch People Doing Things Right , authored by Martha C. Lawrence . In it and through extensive access to personal papers, letters, and interviews spanning six decades, she reveals how Blanchard became a leadership guru and bestselling author of more than 70 books. Lawrence shares insights and intimate details about Blanchar...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog