Business Development Strategies

Posts Tagged ‘motivation’

25 Leadership Maxims

“We will never know how really good we are as leaders unless we are leading people to be better than they think they are.”

“Poor performance is less harmful to a leader than mediocre performance disguised as good performance.”

“Most leaders are striving to get the wrong results or the right results in the wrong ways.”

“The lowest forms of leadership involve rewards and punishments.”

“Getting along is not necessarily getting results.”

“If you can’t feel it, you can’t lead it, and they won’t do it.”

“Leadership is the trim tab of all careers.”

“Leadership is seeing hope in any adversity.”

“To make a difference, be the difference.”

“In leadership, you don’t have to expect the worse, you just have to make the most of it when it happens.”

“The best leaders make use of the simplest of ideas.”

“If you are always right, you are usually wrong.”

“The best way for a leader to communicate an idea is to bundle it in a human being.”

“The most persuasive art of leadership is to hide your leadership.”

“Refraining from action is sometimes the best action.”

“It’s not so much what you say as a leader that’s important; it’s the action the people take after you have had your say.”

“In leadership, the value of every need is in its use.”

“Leadership is not about living a easy life for ourselves but a hard life for others.”

“We ourselves are our own biggest obstacles to becoming better leaders.”

“Leadership is showing people not that they must take a certain action but that they GET TO take that action.”

“Half the art of listening is waiting.”

“To get the best out of people, embrace the best in them.”

“People are often unaware of the best that’s in them. When you show it to them, you are half way down the road to motivating them to be your cause leaders.”

“Achievement needs three things, the leader, the cause leader, and the moment.”

“In the long run, the most important results of leadership are not what we achieve but what we become in that achieving.”

10 Reasons Why Friendliness Is A Leadership Necessity
by Brent Filson

We’ve heard it many times, “It’s a dog eat dog world.” The trouble is, some leaders actually believe it. They conduct themselves like the alpha dog in a pack, holding sway through intimidation. This instinctive behavior helps insure survival in a dog world, but applied to the human world of organizational dynamics, it can lead to disaster.

Alpha dog leadership can eventually turn out to be destructive to the people, their organization, and the leaders themselves. To use another common metaphor, “That dog won’t hunt.”

After all, leaders do nothing more important than get results; and the best results are what I’ve been teaching for more than two decades, “more results faster, continually.” An alpha-dog leader might chew up people to get more results and get them faster, but I submit that it takes a far different personality trait to engender the “continually” aspect of the imperative. That trait isn’t the despot modeled by so many leaders, it’s … well, friendliness.

Having a friendly attitude as a leader means eschewing the alpha-dog way of leadership. It means being gentle, kind, helpful, and cordial in your relationships, even in times of anger and stress — ESPECIALLY in times of anger and stress. Here are 10 reasons friendliness gets far more results than an alpha-dog way.

(1) We stay in control. Apha-dog leaders seek to control others. But they misconstrue what control really means. In truth, such leaders are really out of control much of the time, since they’re at the mercy of their emotional outbursts and the reactions of others to those outbursts. In leadership, the best way to control a situation, i.e., the best way to get great results, is to put the people in control. Don’t constrain them through short-term compulsion but liberate them by playing the “longer game.” Unleash their initiative and creativity by allowing them to make free choices, and they will be under your “control” in more profound and effective ways than the alpha-dog leader could imagine.

(2) People respond more openly and positively to friendliness. Humans seek happiness; and friendliness is a great way to spread happiness. It enables you to communicate much more effectively because it bonds you with others in ways that anger, coercion, intimidation can’t. And that bonding is the stuff that great results flow from.

(3) We are modeling good interactions, bringing the future into the present. Whether leaders know it or not, their words and actions are carefully watched by the people they lead. People have an instinctive need to model those words and actions; or if they disagree with them, speak and act in opposite ways. By radiating friendliness, leaders are being the means that are the ends in the making.

(4) We make real issues relevant factors, not false issues like anger and intimidation. Friendliness tends to clarify issues; intimidation, because it is associated with fear, obfuscates them. So often intimidating leaders make themselves and their tormenting ways the issue. Whereas the real issues should be, how do we get results, how do we get more results, how do we get faster results, and how do we get “more, faster” continually? The fear they provoke is like crack cocaine, temporarily stimulating but addictive and in the long run destructive to the leader and the people.

(5) With friendliness, we set the agenda. “A good offense is the best defense” applies with friendliness. You should be on the offense with friendliness, displaying it even in challenging circumstances when it may take an act of disciplined courage on your part. This helps you set the agenda in terms of how people respond to one another in these circumstances. Of course, your friendliness will not affect some people who may be determined to subvert your leadership no matter what your attitude is; however, friendliness can, like the clearing of brush-lines to contain a forest fire, keep rancor from spreading deeply into the organization.

(6) We increase the chance that others will support our cause. The truth is that leaders can’t motivate anybody to do anything. The people make the choice to be motivated or not. Friendly leaders have the best chance of creating an environment in which the people make that choice. As Abraham Lincoln said, “If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one.”

(7) Our opponents can be put off balance. As a leader, you’ll often have people working against you, spoiling for a fight; and when they encounter a friendly attitude on your part, they may be thrown off balance in benignly effective ways. Furthermore, your friendliness can encourage others to take up your cause against them.

(8) With friendliness everybody has an opportunity to win. Unfriendly leaders often win battles but lose wars. They may compel others to get on board; but if those others do so out of compulsion and not genuine conviction and motivation, the fruits of any victories can become ashes. Most people welcome friendliness — even if they disagree with and even dislike the leader. Furthermore, our friendliness can prompt the people we interact with to reflect on their own character, a prerequisite for their choosing to be motivated. In an environment of friendliness, all parties have an opportunity to achieve something positive.

(9)Friendliness is fire prevention equipment against your burning bridges behind you. An opponent may seem to be your opponent today but in the future you may need him to be your partner in implementing changes. Friendliness gives us an opportunity to have productive relationships even with those who oppose us, enriching both the present and the future.

(10) Getting results through friendliness can take a lot less energy than getting results through coercion and intimidation. Friendliness isn’t an absolute necessity in leadership. I’ve seen great leaders who were terrific curmudgeons. It’s just that unfriendly people have to go through a lot more trouble getting people motivated.

Two caveats. One, friendliness can be mistaken for weakness. In fact, friendliness can BE weakness if it manifests as a way of avoiding challenging people to do the hard things to get great results. In leadership, friendliness has a clear function which is to people achieve constantly improving results. This entails your challenging people to do what they often don’t want to do. Anybody can be nice to them and let them do what they want. But a leader must continually be challenging people to struggle mightily for extraordinary results. If friendliness doesn’t help you fulfill that function then it’s simply a lifestyle choice, not a leadership tool, and ultimately in terms of leadership, a weakness.

Two, even if you do use it as a strong leadership tool, you certainly can’t be friendly 100 percent of the time. If you try to be, you’ll find yourself becoming a rather one-dimensional leader. One of the most difficult accomplishments facing any leader is simply being who you really are – especially under pressure. To force-fit friendliness in a situation where you might not ordinarily exhibit it or to use friendliness to manipulate people into conforming to your wishes is not the best leadership uses of friendliness.

It may be a dog-eat-dog world; but by progressing in the Way of friendliness, leaders can invest their lives and this world with moments of beauty and meaning — and get more results in the bargain.

An important part of success in life is the ability to lead. It is important that we not only be able to lead others but be willing to lead ourselves. No one succeeds in life by simply following others. Sometimes we simply must strike a bold new path for ourselves.

Being a good leader is more than simply being at the forefront of the crowd. A leader must act. Too often in America, we simply accept that someone looks or sounds like a leader and too rarely do we actually look at the actions that leader performs — and that is the true test of leadership.

However, in order to become good leaders ourselves, we need to concentrate on actions rather than simple appearances. The title of this article refers to eight steps, but do not think of these as progressive steps like so many recipes or instruction manuals describe. Instead, think of these as actions that you must take on a regular basis.

First, be alert to new potentials. “Reality” is not absolute but rather subject to constant change. Think about inventors, explorers, and agents of social change who have achieved greatness. Some might simply say that certain people are successful because they are lucky to be in the right place at the right time. Maybe so, but if they hadn’t had their eyes open for the opportunity, then it wouldn’t have mattered if they were in the right place.

Second, accept inspiration from wherever it comes; even your opponents. The wisest leaders constantly study their competition. In war, politics, and business we constantly see examples of this research and reconnaissance. Too many times though a certain study, many concentrate on finding a weakness to exploit. If you want to a be a leader of positive change don’t fall victim to this trend. Instead, if you find a weakness, make sure to avoid that pitfall yourself. If you find the strength then find a way to strengthen your own qualities to match.

Third, learn something new and promote in new ways every day. This means you must continually seek to expand your horizons, internally and externally. Feed your mind with new lessons and knowledge, but constantly expand your social horizons as well. Seek out and meet new people and immerse yourself in new social situations. You never know when these new experiences will help you in your leadership role.

Fourth, search for and find answers in subtle clues. Look beneath the surface and constantly question. This is an extension of the third step in that you are seeking new knowledge. But this also means that you will need to step off the traditional paths of knowledge. Don’t simply read books in the literary canon or the bestsellers list. Take seminars rather than classes as there is more room for questioning and debate. Seek out the unconventional thinkers, teachers, and writers.

Fifth, improvise if no existing solutions are available. No excuses. Necessity is the mother of invention. How do you know it won’t work if you’ve never tried it before? Remember, not all approaches need to come from the front. Look at your problem from all sides and systematically attempt different solutions in various combinations.

Six, make at least one person you care about happy every day. If you make it a point to be thoughtful and caring for one person every day then soon this thoughtful, caring behavior will become a habit and that habit will spread to the others around you. Making someone else happy also feeds your own personal happiness. Just imagine how much better the world would be if we all did a little bit more to spread happiness.

Seven, offer help, even if there’s no apparent advantage to you. This means more than writing a check. It means giving of your time and energy and yourself. Sometimes it will mean helping someone you don’t know and sometimes it can be a very personal action.

Finally, never let negativity be your last word on the subject. If your final words are negative than no matter how hopeful you may be about the potential of a project or action the lasting impression you give to others is one of negativity. Accentuate the positive and you are more likely to see a positive outcome.

If you follow these eight action steps not only you will be a better leader but also lead yourself to a more successful life.

The 1980′s business culture in the USA and internationally put a considerable emphasis on personal reward on the basis that highly motivated individuals could transform organisations and societies. The extreme example in film was Gordon Gekko in Wall Street stating that greed was good. The 90′s, however, have seen companies traumatised and bankrupted by the inappropriate use of remuneration as a motivator. Yet major corporate successes have been built on reward based remuneration systems. Phones4U recently and Allied Dunbar in the financial services market is an earlier example.

The notorious Barings Bank had individual traders on bonuses in the millions yet in the long term these motivated individuals were not fulfilling the company’s objectives. Moreover even when an individual’s reward system is based on entirely appropriate performance indicators, resulting in the organisation’s success and he or she is rewarded, there may still be problems arising from the large differential between salaries of senior people and those of middle management. A payment system that depresses or demotivates 10 people for every one it motivates may not be the best for the organisation.

Wise organisations are therefore trying to reward and motivate all staff so that staff act energetically to further the corporation’s interests both short and long term and feel they have been treated fairly. However there must be properly in place the link between the items on which they are being rewarded and the actions they are able to take to influence the desired outcome.

A wise organisation accepts that:

• It is reasonable for the individual manager to act in his or her own interests.
• Managers work for people not organisations and want to please the superiors closest to them, or failing that, their peer group.
• Managers want to achieve and will be attracted to those tasks at which they know they can succeed, usually favouring the short term at the expense of the long term.

The clear implication is that an organisation should lay some groundwork before relying on a remuneration structure to change performance and behaviour. In other words the management and organisation system must be in balance with the remuneration system.

There are 5 major pre-conditions to the installation of an effective reward structure.

1. Measurement: “If you don’t measure it you won’t get it”. There are various measurement systems of which Balanced Scorecard, which sets multiple objectives and is used by Tesco, is perhaps the best known.

2. Monitoring: If the performance measures are not monitored properly or only monitored in a review at the year end, it can give the manager signals that they don’t really matter or, worse still, that failure is acceptable providing all the managers fail together.

3. Control of the tools for the job: The organisation must ensure that the individual is not over dependent on factors outside his control to achieve the performance measures set out (this is the ‘how’ part of the equation).

4. Consistency: Ensuring that short term organisational factors don’t over-influence managers or drive them from their real objective. The organisation must also ensure that its own design (be it bureaucratic or loose) is appropriate to what is being asked of managers.

5. Reward and strategy in line: An organisation’s achieving a clear strategy is not an event that will take place in the future; it is a journey. A remuneration system can be put into an organisation even when it has a relatively muddled strategy providing that organisational and management disputes are resolved by reference to strategy and the “balanced score card”. Only then will there be pressure on the organisation to refine its strategy, structure and remuneration systems.

Based on these 5 pre conditions, there is a checklist of 10 factors that the effective remuneration and reward structure must achieve:

1. Support the business strategy
2. Encourage the desired behaviour
3. Reward relevant performance
4. Be fair
5. Be substantial
6. Be tax efficient
7. Be timely (The reward must take place close to the achievement)
8. Incorporate non financial rewards (Recognition can be as important as cash)
9. Be firm (A bonus lost through missing target should not be recoverable whereas a salary increase should only be delayed until target is reached)
10. Be crystal clear