If leadership is about influence, what is the conduit of influence? How do great leaders gain the support and commitment of their followers? How do they convey their ideals, goals, and strategies to the people who can help them bring it all to fruition?

Simply enough, it all begins with outstanding communication. Superb communication is the cornerstone of great leadership. Whether you are a corporate executive, a team leader, or a front line manager, whether a teacher, a community leader, or a parent, you can get superior results by effectively honing your communication skills.

The following guidelines will help you get your message across clearly and convincingly.

• Command the language. Be supremely articulate, even eloquent, in all written and spoken communication.

• Be yourself. Authenticity is a vital element of credibility. If you try to sound like someone else, your message will be diluted or lost entirely.

• Invite dialogue. Communication involves more than simply relating facts or your particular point of view. Let your listeners respond, question, and contribute to the conversation.

• Speak with confidence. Your honest display of conviction and passion will earn the respect of your audience.

• Walk your talk. Don’t just say it. Do it. Live it.

• Say it again. And again. Even the most powerful and important message must be repeated to get into the hearts and minds of your listeners.

• Take a stand. Inconsistent or wishy-washy communication will be quickly discounted. Better to take an extreme or unpopular stance than to waver from one position to the next.

• Say it in different ways. Speak to individuals, small groups, large audiences. Write powerful memos. Send timely emails. Issue press releases. Use the Internet. Today there are myriad venues for delivering your message. Use them.

Great leaders know: it’s not just what you say, it’s also how you say it. Communicate with authority, conviction, authenticity, and poise. That’s the way great leaders get results.

Liz Bywater, PhD, is president of Bywater Consulting Group, an organizational consulting firm based in the Philadelphia area. Dr. Bywater helps her clients dramatically improve individual and organizational performance, resulting in enhanced job satisfaction, maximized productivity, and heightened profitability for the organization.

Dr. Bywater is a specialist in human behavior and behavioral change. She brings her sophisticated understanding of people, relationships, and communication to the corporate environment to help her clients effect meaningful and lasting improvements in job effectiveness. Dr. Bywater writes and speaks on a variety of workplace topics, including the power of collaboration, effective workplace communication, and outstanding leadership. She has been published and has been quoted in the NY Times, Executive Decisions, on Yahoo! Hot Jobs, and more.

Dr. Bywater earned her PhD at the Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies and her AB at Cornell University. She is one of only 100 worldwide graduates of Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Consulting College.

In today’s work environment we are seeing incredible stress and tension, especially in Canada due to the price of oil and resulting monumental task of building all of the oil sands facilities and related infrastructure.

According to some recently published statistics, there are 400,000 new jobs being created in Alberta between now and 2010 and an additional 100,000 jobs being created as the baby boomer generation begins to leave the workforce. Where are these workers going to come from? Alberta businesses are already experiencing shortages of workers to the point that some businesses have closed their doors. Some fast food restaurants have closed except for the drive-through windows. Turnover rates are skyrocketing. It is not uncommon for engineering firms to be experiencing 30% turnover rates and higher.

In “normal” work environments in North America statistics show that businesses loose between US$45 and $100 billion annually due to lost productivity caused by stress in the workplace. In today’s marketplace this cost could end up substantially higher. It can cost well over $100,000 to recruit, train and get a senior level engineer integrated into a new firm and onto a new project. Add in moving cost, signing bonuses, stock options, referral fees, moving expenses and other miscellaneous costs, the total expense can be absolutely staggering. And this is just turnover cost and doesn’t take into account the decreased moral and productivity each time another person resigns and walks out the door of a company.

So how do companies alleviate some of this stress, financial loss, turnover and low productivity? How can companies keep their employees happier and make them more productive, effective and efficient? How can companies slow the turnover rate?

According to the Gallop Organization and Marcus Buckingham (author of First, Break All the Rules) one of the most powerful things an employer can do is to ensure that their employees have the chance each day to do what they do best. This is one of 12 factors that Buckingham and the Gallop Organization found to directly impact employee retention and attraction. This one factor was found to be huge in keeping people motivated, satisfied and productive in the workplace. But how can you discover what each employee does best without spending loads of money and time on each employee?
One powerful way is to ensure that employees are placed into roles that take advantage of their strengths. But this begs the question, “How does one determine the individual strengths of each employee?” The answer is not as onerous as it would seem.

Values

Every person has a unique set of values that are different from the corporation’s values and probably different from the values of the person sitting next to them. This is a fact that most people are aware of but seemingly few people give a second thought. However, people become very uncomfortable when their values are continually challenged as values are like a person’s moral compass. This compass points to what a person’s values determine is correct. Every decision that a person makes is driven by their values. When a person is asked to head in a different direction than their moral compass is leading them it will cause stress and turnover.

In a corporation, this can happen when the corporation insists that its needs are more important than those of an employee. For example;
• Family versus career – This is a well recognized situation when an employee’s perception (rightly or wrongly) is that the corporation is demanding that they spend too much time at work and away from their home and family.
• Quality versus quantity – In today’s marketplace there can be an emphasis on getting as much work as possible out the door as quickly as possible without spending the time necessary to review quality.

What needs to happen? First, the corporation has to ensure that its values are well defined and modeled by everyone in the organization from the CEO down through the organization. Second, the corporation has to realize that it’s values cannot violate the values of its employees. This does not mean that values cannot be different. It just means that it cannot violate the values of its employees. Second the employee has to realize that while at work their values need to be aligned with the corporate values. They need to “share” values. This does not mean that an employee has to sell out their values when they walk through the front door, but it does mean that the employee has to align their values with those of the corporation while at work and on company business. If there is a values conflict then the employee is going to have to decide if they should leave the corporation (e.g., an animal rights activist may not have a future at a meat packing plant).

An example that illustrates this concept is the Disney corporation.
Disney’s values are safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency. Most family-oriented people would not choose efficiency over spending time with family. However, working at Disney does not force a family-oriented person to violate the value of family. It simply means that the person’s values must be aligned with Disney’s values while at work. Disney understands that an employee may have to leave work should a family member become injured or sick. The company would never force that employee to remain working so it could operate a show more efficiently. Disney understands that would violate all their values (safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency would all be negatively affected due to the employee’s concern about the family member). This is what shared values are all about.
The values goal for an employer is to model the values of the corporation in every situation and to understand the values of each of their employees and ensure that they do not violate these values.

Personality

Each person also has a very unique personality. Personalities have a profound impact on an employees performance because personalities determine things like how people;
• Communicate with others
• Deal with stress
• Deal with challenges
• Prefer to be managed
• Make decisions
• Deal with problems
• Deal with power and authority
• Perform when placed in a leadership role
• Perform when placed into a team environment

Without a detailed working knowledge of each employee’s personality, a manager is at an extreme disadvantage. He doesn’t know if his employees prefer to work individually, in a group or as a leader of the group. He doesn’t know when engaging each employee in conversation if he should start with small talk and friendly banter, get to the point or be prepared for a detailed discussion.

If the manager places an employee that is risk adverse but a strong steady producer with a great history onto a project that is fast tracked and full of last minute changes, the employee may fail dramatically or may leave the corporation due to the imposed stress. However, another employee may “wither” on a longer duration steady project as they prefer the fast tracked dynamic projects.

The goal here for an employer is to ensure that they understand the personality types of each of their employees and strive to communicate with them in a style that matches their personality and to place them in roles conducive to their personality strengths and weaknesses.

Talents

According to the Gallop Organization and Marcus Buckingham in his book Now, Discover Your Strengths, everyone is gifted with five dominant talents. A talent is described as “a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior”. An individual may have secondary talents but they are not nearly as strong as the five dominant talents. Gallop provides a list of 34 individual talents ranging from Achiever to Communication to Intellection to Strategic and they provide an on line assessment tool that assists individuals to determine their dominant talents.

Each individual needs to determine their five dominant talents and then work to build their roles around these talents. Jim Sundberg stated “Discover your uniqueness; then discipline yourself to develop it.” The goal for the employer is to work with their staff to help them to define their talents and to develop these talents and to apply them to the roles to which they have been assigned.

Intersection of Values, Personality and Talents

The intersection of an employees Values, Personality and Talents is their Strength Zone. This is what employers need to understand about each of their employees. Once this Strength Zone is defined, an employer can work with an employee to help them define or redefine their role in the organization or on a project so that they are making the best use of their strengths. The manager must ensure that he assigns all his staff to roles where they can be apply their strengths successfully. This allows the employee to have the chance to do what they do best each and every day.

For more detail and associated tools on how to help employees define their values, personalities and talents see the recently released book Strength Zone: Discover Your Place of Maximum Effectiveness by David M. Taylor, P.Eng. It is available on line at http://www.strengthzone.ca

A graduate from the University of Alberta in 1989 with a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, David M. Taylor is a professional engineer with seventeen years of electrical engineering and project management experience. Over the past ten years, he has held project management and leadership roles, working with management and staff to improve overall performance in the development and implementation of business and project execution standards.

David is the author of Strength Zone: Discover Your Place of Maximum Effectiveness and the CEO of Strength Zone Inc. (http://www.strengthzone.ca)

Certain beliefs, convictions and statements keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions with managers and leaders. What follows is Part Four of our series dealing with beliefs that are critical to success in the areas of Leadership and Hiring and Selection.

Leadership

In a new job, three things you need to do right away are; get to know your boss and his top three expectations; take action on an issue that you have inherited; and identify your “universe” – the people and processes that have direct impact on your job.

Step up to situations you instinctively feel are issues the first time they happen – once you have let them go the first time it becomes more difficult to approach them the second time, and the third time, and on and on - practice Constructive Confrontation.

90 to 95 percent of the answers to any organization’s issues lie within the people within the organization – getting that “collective genius” to work is a source of huge competitive advantage and one of the top leadership challenges.

Replacing assumptions with expectations is critical – and it is done through the establishment of goals that align individual effort with organizational goals.

Personal savings and investments buy you independence and the freedom to make choices – and make you much more effective as a person not compromised by need when you have to take a stand – on anything.

Recognize that only 17% of the population learns by reading. That means 83% learn by observing, doing or a combination of the two. Ensure your processes and programs reflect this reality.

The biggest mistake is making a mistake and then not admitting it. Leadership is the ability and willingness to step up to mistakes and fix them and be accountable, while others simply wring their hands and hope for the best.

Your set of skills, experiences and accomplishments have broad application to a variety of opportunities – place a high value on how much you bring to the table.

Encourage constructive, “what if” dreaming – encourage turning dreams into goals that lead to action that lead to the dream being fulfilled.

Opportunities will be presented to you - some will be more obvious than others. Train yourself to think in terms of opportunities – particularly if you instinctively think in terms of consequences. 30% of the population thinks in terms of opportunities and 70% in terms of consequences.

Avoid putting your boss in the position of having to choose between you and another person - bosses don’t like being put in that position. If a choice has to be made, there is a good chance your boss will resent having to do it, and even if you win, you may lose! Better to work out your peer level issues with your peers.

If you have a manager who constantly communicates they could do better if only they had better people, you have a leadership problem, not a people problem.

Hiring and Selection

In every successful organization, every hire and selection is seen as an opportunity to improve the organization.

Hiring and selection is the job of the leadership of successful organizations. Staff functions can provide help, but the leadership of the organization must lead.

“A” players are defined as the right persons in the right jobs. That fit is defined by the organization, not by the flow of applicants.

Spend at least as much time and effort on ensuring the success of new hires and selections as was spent on their acquisition.

The manager of the person being hired must be accountable for the hire decision – it is amazing how many managers do not consider themselves accountable for the decision to hire.

Make sure you have a hire process, and insist that it is followed – sloppy hiring leads to all kinds of things – all bad. Most employee lawsuits arise out of poor selection processes and practices.

Other things being equal, select the smarter person. Make sure your process can identify applied intelligence as part of the selection process.

Leaders will know within 90 days whether or not a person is going to make it. If they are not going to make it, they take action quickly.

Share these beliefs, convictions and statements with your own universe of people and be amazed at how effective they can be as a tool to begin discussions on the issues in your organization.

Andy Cox is President of Cox Consulting Group LLC. The focus of his work is on helping organizations and their people increase their success in the hiring, developing and enhancing the performance of leaders and emerging leaders. Cox Consulting Group LLC was started in 1995, and has worked with a wide range of organizations, managers and leaders - helping them define success, achieve success and make the ability to change a competitive advantage. He can be reached at http://coxconsultgroup.com

Certain beliefs, convictions and statements keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions with managers and leaders. What follows is Part Three of our series dealing with the beliefs that are critical to success in the areas of Change and Self Responsibility and Accountability

Change

There are Four Stages in the life of every successful Change process – from the smallest to the largest. They are: 1 - Enthusiasm, 2 - Frustration, 3 – Renewal, and 4 – Success. They always occur in this order. Stage 2 – Frustration, is the graveyard of most failed Change initiatives.

Resist the impulse to create change in too many areas at once. Let success in one area create motivation for success in the next change area – and then watch the momentum build!

The single best way to create commitment and alignment of effort in change situations in any organization is through a goal setting process that starts with macro goals and creates the opportunity for every person in the organization to set individual goals that support the big organizational goals. You gotta take those Big Hairy Audacious Goals and size them so everyone can get their arms around them if you want success.

People don’t resist change – they really resist attempts at being changed!

The most difficult kind of change is to change behavior – but it is the most effective, longest lasting and the highest leverage kind of change.

The ability of an organization’s people to support and embrace change is its single biggest source of competitive advantage. The middle 80 to 90% of the people in any organization represent the biggest single opportunity for increased competitive advantage – and the most challenging.

Follow the 24 Hour Rule! When faced with a life altering piece of news, or any other event that demands a response – be it about health, career, family – step back for 24 hours and process it – do not make decisions during this period of time. If others press you to – resist. There are a very few situations that won’t allow a 24 hour period for processing.

Small changes lead to big changes. Identify the big change demands– then start with small incremental changes. Most people think in terms of big change – lose 100 pounds; quit smoking; learn a language; get a new job. Those are great, but they are made up of a series of small changes – the snack we replace with a 10- minute walk, the book we read every month instead of watching TV. And the sum of those small changes is huge!

The key to any change is to act - today.

Choice – to about 30 percent of the population the idea that personal choice is part of every action is a very liberating and exciting concept. It is of equal importance to realize that for the remaining 70 percent it is a scary and threatening concept!

When starting anything new, write down your first impressions, how you feel, the way you look at people and problems —whatever you think is important. Put it away – don’t look at it for a month – then read it and be amazed at how much progress you have made and how your perspective has changed. Write a new letter and wait another month to read that one. Prepare to be amazed at yourself!

Self - Responsibility and Accountability

Always assure that accountability is clear. There must always be a single person accountable for every project, function and responsibility. Where accountability is not clear, the risk of failure is high and the opportunity for recognition in success is low.

You do not have to pay someone else’s dues – only your own. Beware the vague “You gotta pay your dues” advice. That advice is usually just code for “You’re not going to be successful faster than I have been.”

You are responsible for your own choices, actions and decisions – in all cases – without exception – always.

Victims blame others for problems; leaders fix the problem. Find the lessons to be learned and see the same thing doesn’t happen again, and press on.

You are responsible for your own success at work. It may be tempting to turn that responsibility over to someone else, but remember, assuming you can find someone willing to take that responsibility, their idea of success for you and your idea are probably very different!

By the time you realize you have been complaining about your job or your boss or your career, be aware that you have been behaving like that for some time, and you may be “toxic” to others around you. If you can’t change that behavior, get out and start over somewhere else –with the experience having taught you something.

Share these with your own universe of people and be amazed at how effective they can be as a tool to begin discussions on the issues in your organization.

Andy Cox is President of Cox Consulting Group LLC. The focus of his work is on helping organizations and their people increase their success in the hiring, developing and enhancing the performance of leaders and emerging leaders. Cox Consulting Group LLC was started in 1995, and has worked with a wide range of organizations, managers and leaders - helping them define success, achieve success and make the ability to change a competitive advantage. He can be reached at http://coxconsultgroup.com.

Many people think that communicating with others involves transferring a precise piece of information from one mind to another; in reality nothing could be further from the truth, words, gestures and expressions do not, in themselves have meaning, however people have meaning for them.

Successful Leaders have developed the skill of being able to express themselves

It has been said that communication is a two-way process a sharing of ideas and thoughts between people; for communication to be effective we must not only learn how to send our message but also how to receive a response.

Communication, the fundamentals

• Reading
• Writing
• Listening
• Speaking

The basic reason for any type of communication is to prompt some form of behavioral response or action; quite often we discover that what we say or do does not always bring out the kind of response that we want. Before ideas can be accepted, they must be known and understood clearly by the listener.

The role of Emotions in effective communication

Exchanging facts is only a part of the process; the feelings and emotions that develop during the course of conversation strongly influence the behavior of all involved and ultimately the very outcome of communication.

Emotional factors that affect a conversation / communication

• How you feel about the other persons ideas.
• What you believe the other persons feels about your ideas
• How the other person feels about your ideas
• What the other person believes you fee about their ideas

Empathy, the KEY to successful communication

Empathy is understanding; once you understand the role that emotions play in communication, you will begin to put yourself in the other persons shoes, if you really seek to understand, you will be amazed at how positively people will respond to you. When you can present your ideas clearly, specifically and in terms that breed acceptance and understanding and by focusing on the needs of others you will develop empathy in your communications.

Fundamental principals of successful communication

• The human mind functions in a very orderly fashion. It can only concentrate on one thought at a time.

If you attempt to communicate a number of ideas rapidly and in illogical sequence, the listeners mind will have great difficulty trying to follow and understand what is being said.

• The human mind transposes words into pictures.

Because words mean different things to different people, the responses that they produce may not be the same for everyone. As you better understand the needs of others you will use words that elicit an emotional response in harmony with those needs, thereby enhancing communication.

• Too many words will clutter up communication

When we fail to condense and simplify our communication, we leave the door wide open to time consuming misunderstanding and undesired response.

Always take care to insure that your objective in communicating is to develop mutual understanding, not to impress someone, or to make yourself appear smart by making someone else look stupid.

As Steven Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People says, Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

My name is Dominick Borzomati. Since 1993 I have empowered and enlightened individuals and organizations to greatly improve their performance, expand their capabilities and enhance their ability to achieve worthwhile purposes. All of my clients achieve the outcomes they have set for themselves. I deliver RESULTS!

I am a BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COACH

Certain themes, statements and beliefs keep being repeated in our conversations and seminars and feedback sessions with leaders and managers. What follows is Part Two of our series dealing with the beliefs that are critical to success.

People Relationships

-Become an observer of behavior – first your own behavior, then the behavior of others. Understanding how your behavior is perceived and how others act and interact is a powerful asset – a top 5% asset.

·Creating and maintaining positive relationships with people is the most important behavior in determining your success.

·Technical ability in your chosen career is necessary – the ability to work effectively with people is absolutely necessary, regardless of your career.

·People rarely fail because of a lack of technical knowledge. Many people fail because of their inability to work effectively with others.

·Judging others based on your own experiences is a recipe for failure - you will be wrong about their motivations because you will use your motivations, experiences, attitudes and beliefs as the basis for judging – and yours are not theirs.

· Listening beats speaking 70% of the time. When you are talking, unless you are the rare person skilled in accurately reading body language, you are learning very little.

·You cannot change the way people treat you – you can change the way you treat them.

·Be sure you perform at a personal level of conduct that meets or exceeds what you expect from others – placing higher standards on the conduct of others than on yourself is a sure way to lose the respect and trust of others.

·30% of the population thinks in terms of opportunities; 70% thinks in terms of consequences. Neither is better or worse than the other – but opportunity people and consequence people can have a really hard time understanding and dealing with each other. Yet both are absolutely essential to the success of any enterprise – creating synergy between their behaviors creates competitive advantage.

·When you receive an abusive or stupid or poorly written E Mail, and you are tempted to fire off an answer – remember – there is nothing easier for someone to do than to forward that response - and guess who looks bad. When using E Mail, stick to the facts and keep your emotions out of your writing. Always write as if you are writing to a boss you do not know, have never seen, but who has complete control over your career. If you need to react, pick up the phone or, better yet, meet face to face.

·Become really good at the art of Constructive Confrontation – a top 5% behavior. Learn to deal with the issues without defensiveness and with an end in mind.

·There is nothing more devastating to a person than to have their boss communicate by their actions that they don’t expect too much from them. Low expectations are the root of low performance. If you expect little, you will get little.

·Tell people by your actions that you expect the best from them – people will respond positively 99% of the time and will exceed your expectations.

Time – Trust – Respect

·Assumptions are the destroyer of trust. Whenever possible, replace assumptions with clear expectations and goals. In doing so you will create the path to trust.

·Time is a variable – based on the level of trust you have with your boss and your organization and the members of your “universe.” The higher the level of trust you have with your “universe” the more freedom you have to use your time for the important, high leverage things.

·Trust comes from meeting or exceeding commitments, expectations, goals and keeping your word – there are no other ways to get and keep trust.

·There is no more disrespectful action a manager can take than to be wasteful with the time of his/her people – when meetings start late, run late; when time commitments are not kept; when performance and pay reviews are late; all proclaim loudly that the manager is more concerned with things other than his/her people.

Share these statements of conviction and belief with your own universe of people. Use them to define the issues in your own organization.

Andy Cox is President of Cox Consulting Group LLC. The focus of his work is on helping organizations and their people increase their success in the hiring, developing and enhancing the performance of leaders and emerging leaders. Cox Consulting Group LLC was started in 1995, and has worked with a wide range of organizations, managers and leaders - helping them define success, achieve success and make the ability to change a competitive advantage. He can be reached at http://coxconsultgroup.com

Imagine you are getting ready to cook a roast dinner with gravy. You have all the ingredients available for roast chicken, steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes, but you follow the instructions to make home made brown bread. Do you think it would work out successfully??

Preparing and cooking a roast dinner in the same manner as home made bread would obviously result in failure. You cannot treat all ingredients and meals as the same thing - they are all different, requiring different methods and techniques to achieve their particular result.

This is the same in management.

The people on your team are all different ages, males and females, different backgrounds and maybe even from different cultures. They each are going to be motivated by different things. Maybe one will respond with excited action and others with boredom or even anger.

It’s up to you as a leader, manager or coach to discover what drives each one of your team members. What elements excite them? What elements turn them off? It may take a little time and effort on your part, but uncovering the powerful motivators that drive your people will be the best thing you can do for you and your team.

Remember, you may be motivated by a financial reward, but that does not mean everyone on your team will share your sentiments. A overbusy single Mum may be motivated by a day off, a free golf weekend may motivate others. Listen to your people. Recognize and utilize their motivators. You are dealing with a wide assortment of ingredients but by following this principle, you can discover how to motivate and keep people motivated.

Is there greatness on the inside of you but you don’t know how to achieve it? Jason has just completed his brand new 7 part e-course, ‘Find Your Greatness’

Get it free when you subscribe at: Find Your Greatness

Jason and Rebecca Osborn have dedicated themselves to changing thousands of lives by helping people find their greatness and true potential through their Find Your Greatness Newsletter.

Also log onto http://livingword.ie for more inspirational messages.

EDUCATION

This may seem like a very simple solution, but everyone wants and needs to learn and to grow. One of the strongest human needs is to grow. It is like water. When it is still, it becomes stagnant, it smells, becomes unattractive and good for nothing. People need constant change and motivation to grow and learn. If people do not feel like they are growing as a parent, employee, leader, spouse, then they feel like they are dead. People need to grow in order to fulfill their potential.

The first step in the process to introduce education to the people you influence, is to create or maintain a program that constantly educates about the latest trends, techniques, and methods available in your industry.

There are countless resources out there to help you complete the first step. Purchasing books or having other compile their books to create a work library is an excellent way to educate your people.

You can also send your team members to live seminars or workshops. While these can be more expensive, they can deliver a much higher return. Industry newsletters, magazines, etc. are an quick and easy way to keep your people growing without spending a great deal.

Classes and teaching sessions are great, but one of the most effective methods to educating your employees or team members is to learn the information yourself and share it with power and passion. To be a great leader, you have to be willing to know your industry inside and out before you can expect your people to do the same.

Is there greatness on the inside of you but you don’t know how to achieve it? Jason has just completed his brand new 7 part e-course, ‘Find Your Greatness’

Get it free when you subscribe at: Find Your Greatness

Jason and Rebecca Osborn have dedicated themselves to changing thousands of lives by helping people find their greatness and true potential through their Find Your Greatness Newsletter.

Also log onto http://livingword.ie for more inspirational messages.

There are thousands of techniques, principles, and ideas to be an effective and efficient manager, but one method still stands above the rest. Every great manager, coach, and parent needs to know this secret and put it to use every moment of every day.

This method not only trains but also inspires others to achieve greater results.

Lead by example.

As Emerson wrote, ‘Who you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear what you’re saying.’ It does not matter what you want others to do, they will do anything when you are leading by example.

If you’re really interested in improving the performance and experience of the people you rely on, the changes have to come from the head down. This is not exactly good news for lazy manager that barks orders at their employees all day and then wonders why they do not achieve the results they are expecting.

You cannot expect employees to turn up early for work, stay late, work overtime hours, if you are not willing to do the same. As a parent, you cannot expect your teenager to heed your instructions not to smoke, if you do. Be an example to the people you are leading and you will be amazed at the respect you will gain. Your behavior speaks so much about who you are as a person and what you want out of life.

Examine not what you say to your people but who you are and what you communicate with your own behavior. Be the example of what you wish to see in others.

Is there greatness on the inside of you but you don’t know how to achieve it? Jason has just completed his brand new 7 part e-course, ‘Find Your Greatness’

Get it free here: Find Your Greatness

Do you want to learn how to create successful habits and goals? Download Jason’s new FREE ebook here: Goal Setting

Jason and Rebecca Osborn have dedicated themselves to changing thousands of lives by helping people find their greatness and true potential through his Find Your Greatness Newsletter.

As a leader you will always be striving to get the best results in everything you do, but it’s not always easy to accomplish. There can be many reasons why you don’t always get the best results. But I want to share with you a success principle that will help you achieve your goals with the most success possible.

As a leader, you know that it can be very easy to get stuck into a routine of doing things they way they have always been done. As some people say, if it’s not broke why fix it? However, we would never have the huge number of innovations that we have today if people like Henry Ford, Bill Gates, and Albert Einstein had thought like that. Even if you don’t agree with everything that they have done, they all had one thing in common that has changed the way we live today. They all considered things in their next largest context.

Let me explain. Eliel Saarinen once said, ‘Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context — a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.’ You see, all of these people thought much larger than what they could see at the present moment. They saw how things applied in the next largest context.

As a leader, you have to use this success principle to be able to reach your highest levels of leadership success. How does the work that you do as a leader affect those that are closest to you? How does it affect the families of those working with you? How does it impact your town or community? How does it affect your country? How does it affect the world?

If you can answer these questions you will be able to do things in a way that will produce the best results for your short term and long term goals. Understand fully what you are doing as a leader, and how it affects people on all levels, and you will start getting better results with all of your efforts.

Is there greatness on the inside of you but you don’t know how to achieve it? Jason has just completed his brand new 7 part e-course, ‘Find Your Greatness’

Get it free when you subscribe at: Find Your Greatness

Jason and Rebecca Osborn have dedicated themselves to changing thousands of lives by helping people find their greatness and true potential through their Find Your Greatness Newsletter.