“I inherit a mess everyday. As CEO of my company, I inherit a mess. But as CEO, it is my responsibility to fix problems, to get people to work together in harmony for a common goal.”

-Amilya Antonetti-

I saw this quote recently during an interview. I must say that I feel her pain. As a business owner I face many “messy” situations on a daily basis. In addition, I spend a great deal of time with my clients helping them solve problems and fix “messy” situations.

As I think about the great leaders who’ve influenced me – both those I’ve personally encountered as well as read about. They’re all great problem solvers. And as stated by Amilya Antonetti, they did it by getting people together. This point ties into my belief of establishing trust through effective communication. If you’re not trusted as leader, you’ll never get people to solve difficult issues. And if you’re not effectively connecting and communicating you’ll not have an environment of trust.

So I believe great leaders can solve difficult situations only when they are trusted. If they can effectively communicate, connect with people, they begin the process towards establishing trust.

There is more to than trust then simply communication, but it is indeed the pathway. Only when you are trusted as a leader can you get people together to come to consensus to solve problems. Maybe this is why we can’t seem to “solve” the problems facing our country – TRUST!

Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered his final commencement address as defense secretary on Friday. Speaking to the graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy, Gates offered his thoughts on the nature of leadership. The speech was outstanding and really laid some excellent principles of leaders and leadership.

His speech included this passage:

Self-confidence is still another quality of leadership. Not the chest-thumping, strutting egotism we see and read about all the time. Rather, it is the quiet self-assurance that allows a leader to give others both real responsibility and real credit for success. The ability to stand in the shadow and let others receive attention and accolades. A leader is able to make decisions but then delegate and trust others to make things happen. This doesn’t mean turning your back after making a decision and hoping for the best. It does mean trusting in people at the same time you hold them accountable. The bottom line: a self-confident leader doesn’t cast such a large shadow that no one else can grow.

A further quality of leadership is courage: not just the physical courage of the seas, of the skies and of the trenches, but moral courage. The courage to chart a new course; the courage to do what is right and not just what is popular; the courage to stand alone; the courage to act; the courage as a military officer to “speak truth to power.”

In most academic curricula today, and in most business, government, and military training programs, there is great emphasis on team-building, on working together, on building consensus, on group dynamics. You have learned a lot about that. But, for everyone who would become a leader, the time will inevitably come when you must stand alone. When alone you must say, “This is wrong” or “I disagree with all of you and, because I have the responsibility, this is what we will do.” Don’t kid yourself—that takes real courage.

Another essential quality of leadership is integrity. Without this, real leadership is not possible. Nowadays, it seems like integrity—or honor or character—is kind of quaint, a curious, old-fashioned notion. We read of too many successful and intelligent people in and out of government who succumb to the easy wrong rather than the hard right—whether from inattention or a sense of entitlement, the notion that rules are not for them. But for a real leader, personal virtues – self-reliance, self control, honor, truthfulness, morality—are absolute. These are the building blocks of character, of integrity – and only on that foundation can real leadership be built.

A final quality of real leadership, I believe, is simply common decency: treating those around you – and, above all, your subordinates – with fairness and respect. An acid test of leadership is how you treat those you outrank, or as President Truman once said, “how you treat those who can’t talk back.”

Whatever your military specialty might be, use your authority over others for constructive purposes, to help them – to watch out and care for them and their families, to help them improve their skills and advance, to ease their hardships whenever possible. All of this can be done without compromising discipline or mission or authority. Common decency builds respect and, in a democratic society, respect is what prompts people to give their all for a leader, even at great personal sacrifice.

A few weeks back I was asked by columnist Dale Dauten to participate in an interview regarding an experience I had in my first job out of college. My interview was to appear in an article called Leadership Isn’t About Firing Emplyees, But making Them Better (read the article here): 

• http://tinyurl.com/2ce9ldt

The story I shared was about how my successful 20 year corporate career almost never got “off the ground” because of a manager who did a poor job training and developing me. I also talk about this story in the final chapter of my book The Reach Out Approach: A Communication Process for Initiating, Developing & Leveraging Mutually Rewarding Relationships.

Essentially the story is about how my first manager was a very poor trainer and because of this my development as a sales rep suffered and I almost got fired for poor performance. Thankfully, another “up & coming” manager was placed in charge of my development and in a short period my perfomance vastly improved and launched my successful 20-year corporate career. Now you may ask “what did the second manager do to turn my career and performance around in such a short period?” Simply put, he instilled in me the fundamentals of successful sales person. The foundation he laid fell in two areas:

• How to Sell: Using Learn. Penetrate. Sell as the model (to learn more this read my blog titled Learn. Penetrate. Sell: The Three Time-Tested Fundamentals of Successful Selling – it is located under the Selling Skills Category)
• How to build a business based on the 4-P’s of Marketing (to learn more read my blog titled How to Scout Out Your Competition – it is located under the General Category)

These two key areas laid the foundation for my success in sales. In fact I still use these fundamentals in my successful consulting business and still teach them to my clients as their consultant.

The bottom-line point of my story and the article is that leaders and managers should take responsibility for those peole they lead and manage. It is their job to train and develop their people so they become successful. The most important training that takes place should focus on understanding the fundamentals of the business their in and based on the job they hold. These foundations create the building block for future success.

Lastly there is another key reason to train & develop your people – simple dollars and sense (cents). In the book Topgrading author Bradford Smart states that a miss-hire can cost an organization somewhere between 15 & 20 percent of base salary. That is huge. So imagine the cost associated with miss-managing an employee and they leave. Or worse yet, losing a high performing one. The bottom-line, unhappy and/or poorly trained employees affect both your top-line and bottom-line, so doesn’t it make sense to protect this asset? Absolutely.

Steve

The recent passing of legendary basketball Coach John Wooden had me thinking about what made him so great? And he was indeed great – just look at a few statistics:

• Overall coaching record of 664-162 (810 pct)
• 10 NCAA Championships in 12 years at UCLA
• Inducted into Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and coach
• And most important, developing leadership & life skills to thousands of young men and women who crossed his path over 99 years - either directly or indirectly

I believe what made him great were similar characteristics and beliefs found in other great leaders. He taught and instilled fundamentals based on simple messages, timeless values, virutes and principles. His approach wasn’t “out of the box” but based on simple fundamentals that provided his teams with the foundation to be the “best of the best” despite the pressures and adversity that faced them. Yes, he was a master in the fundamentals of basketball. But more importantly he was a master in the fundamentals of life. And he believed that the lessons learned on the basketball court would transition into the “real world”, of life. This is why so many of his players graduated and went on to lead successful lives after college and beyond – and why he is so beloved be nearly all of them.

It also left me thinking, why don’t other coaches and leaders follow the lead of Coach Wooden? In today’s age of what seems like a lack of leadership in our world, you’d think many people would “reach out” to learn about Coach Wooden’s approach, philosophy and implement it. So many coaches and leaders today are trying to reinvent the wheel when there are already proven lessons and examples at their disposal. In fact if you look at any successful sports team, those that are always winning seem to master the fundamentals of the respective sport and have teams that act like teams, not individuals. These successful teams more often than not exemplify the principles developed and taught by Coach Wooden.

With that said, I wanted to share his vision on both leadership and success. You can understand his view on the Pyramid of Success grid and 12 Lessons in Leadership. I listed both for your review – you can view a printable version of both by simply clicking on the icon to the right. This information can provide the formula anyone can use for success in their lives – both personally and professionally. I hope you enjoy and use these principles set by Coach Wooden so you can enjoy the same success he and his teams had during his tenure as coach and beyond the basketball court - and more importantly it is the best way to keep his spirit alive, through all of us and those with whom we interact with on a daily basis.

Enjoy,

Steve

I believe that one of the most important topics of this day and age is leadership. What is leadership? What characteristics make a good leader? Who is considered a good leader, and why?

Despite many great books written about leadership there still remains a great deal of outstanding questions yet to be answered. Personally I enjoy reading about great leaders and then come to my conclusions about what made them great – one of my all time favorite leaders is Winston Churchill. I would urge anyone who does not know about Churchill and his accomplishment’s to pick up two outstanding books written about him. The first is called The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Alone 1932-1940, by William Manchester and the second called Churchill: A Life, written by Martin Gilbert .

In these books you will see the true greatness of Churchill’s leadership style…his ability to communicate, encourage others in the face of great adversity, to be a forward thinker, to be able to learn from history and most importantly his past mistakes…For anyone interested in true leadership I highly recommend reading about Winston Churchill.

On another note, with my interest on the topic of leadership, I have been publishing a monthly newsletter on leadership called the Leader Insights Newsletter. Over the past 2-1/2 years I have had the opportunity to interview a variety of leaders across many job related fields. Basically the newsletter is a seven Q&A format which answers such questions as; What motivates them? What is their leadership style? Who do they consider as good leaders, How do they lead during times of adversity?  What do they read to become better leaders and etc.

The information gathered in the newsletter has been helpful, insightful and encouraging! The insights have been so robust and full of gems of valuable information that I created an ebook which captured all of my interviews. So with that said, I wanted to share the Wisdom of Leaders ebook with you.

This eBook is a recap of 28 leaders I have interviewed. You will see first hand in this eBook what exactly makes these “everyday” leaders tick! And also helps you realize that leadership is an art that can be learned and leveraged by anyone and anytime…and not solely by a Winston Churchill in times of adversity.

This eBook is free so just “click” on the book to download…upon reading it, please feel free to provide your thoughts and comments as well. 

I hope you enjoy and if you care to subscribe to the monthly Leader Insights Review newsletter, then just simply click here: http://www.gavatorta.com/newsletter.htm