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

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