Find Your Inner Leader

May 21, 2008


asdamd/photos/stylus/27310-Leadership-250x175.jpg

Photo by iStockPhoto

You're a small business owner. You're a manager. In order to be successful, however, you've also got to be a leader. Consider these pointers for effecting change within yourself, your employees and your entire business.

By: MATT ALDERTON

David Traversi has been reading leadership tomes ever since he was a teenager. The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Pozner. Good to Great and Built to Last by Jim Collins. He's read them all. And in 30 years of reading about leadership, he's learned an awful lot about leaders. He's learned, for instance, that they're self-defined. He's learned that they're forward thinking. He's learned that they're credible and that they're inspiring. He's also learned that many of them are small business owners, and that many small business owners, in turn, are leaders.

"Leadership is described in a lot of ways. I think it's really quite simple, though. Leadership is having a positive impact, or a positive effect," says Traversi, an entrepreneur, executive coach and author of The Source of Leadership: Eight Drivers of the High-Impact Leader. "By definition, anybody who has a small business is trying to create an impact or an effect."

Even so, not all small business owners consider themselves leaders. They call themselves founders, owners, entrepreneurs and managers, but not always leaders. Those who do wear the leadership badge on their scout sash, however, are better positioned for success. They see themselves as trendsetters and they're at once more willing and more able to turn their employees, partners and customers into brand followers.

"Frankly, leadership is in a sense more important to a small business because you do have the direct ability as a leader to affect absolutely every element of your own business," Traversi says. "Because you're young and growing, it has almost a leveraged effect. If you decide to direct the ship 10 degrees to the left, then that's where it's going. It underscores the responsibility upon you to lead effectively."

Of course, before you can steer your ship, you've got to first acknowledge that you're a captain. If you're interested in sailing more successful seas—in getting more energy out of your employees and in realizing more potential in your business—you must therefore look yourself in the mirror and say, "I am a leader."

Defining Leadership
In order to become more effective leaders, small business owners must first define leadership.

For his part, Traversi says that leadership is as simple as having an effect on other people, no matter how large or small. It's having an effect on your children, for instance, if you're a parent, or even on fellow shoppers in the grocery store when you get in line at the checkout. "Leadership should be accessible to everybody and not something that's tucked away on a shelf and reserved for corporate CEOs and elected officials and head coaches of pro sports teams," he says. "Everyone is a leader."

According to leadership expert Noah Blumenthal, founder and president of Leading Principles, a New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based executive training firm, leadership is about more than impacting people, however. To him, it's also about freeing them.

"Leadership is unleashing the talent that's around you," says Blumenthal, author of You're Addicted to You: Why It's So Hard to Change—and What You Can Do About It. "We are in a knowledge economy, so the most valuable resource that any organization has is truly its people. If your people are interested, eager, excited and engaged, and if their talents are being utilized, then you're going to succeed; you're going to win."

Generally, then, effective leaders are people who positively influence those around them. Effective business leaders, meanwhile, are those who positively influence the employees around them, inciting them to productive, innovative action.

Discovering Leadership
Once they know what leadership is, emerging leaders must find out where to get it. No, leadership skills can't be purchased at the leadership store, but they can be mined from within your company. The key, Blumenthal suggests, is in knowing where to look; the worst leaders look within themselves, the best within others.

"Business owners traditionally are very good at telling employees what their organizational goals are and how the employees can help them achieve them," he says. Leaders, he adds, do the opposite. "The flipside of the coin is when the owners of these companies go to their employees and say, 'What are your goals? How can I help you achieve your goals?' When owners and managers ask employees those two questions, they build trust, excitement and motivation that totally changes the equation."

In other words, ineffective leaders build their leadership based on their own goals and their own strategies; they crack whips and give orders. Effective leaders, on the other hand, build their leadership on others' goals and strategies; they form relationships with their team members in order to set mutual goals and to learn—not dictate—what will motivate achievement.

Of course, your employees aren't the only ones who can inspire leadership. You can also turn to other leaders and leadership experts, according to Traversi. When you do, he says, you'll likely find eight "energies" that drive their leadership: presence, clarity—or transparency, of thought, behavior and emotion—openness, intention, personal responsibility, intuition, creativity and connected communication.

"Developing these energies," he says, "makes you a more effective leader."

Developing Leadership
Knowing what leadership is and where to find it is only half the battle, though. The other half is turning your knowledge of leadership into behavior.

"You have to first know where Point A is today," Traversi says. "Then you have to know clearly where Point B is, and how to draw the most direct line from A to B."

Adds Blumenthal, "Everybody knows something they could do to improve as a leader. The question is, 'What's stopping them from actually improving?' It's not knowing what; it's knowing how. How do I get out of my old behaviors?"

In order to ditch old habits and develop new leadership traits, Blumenthal suggests doing three things:

Building awareness. "Any goal that you have that you can tuck away in a drawer or stick in a binder on a shelf, that's going to fade away," Blumenthal says. "It's going to disappear. You're not going to follow through on it." To keep leadership goals from fading, he recommends using visual reminders to raise your daily awareness of them; write down your commitment and post it somewhere where you will read it regularly.
Finding allies. "You've got to build support," Blumenthal says. "If you're working on something, if you're trying to make a change that's going to make you a better leader, ask other people to help you with it. Ask other people to keep you accountable, to encourage you, to challenge you."
Completing actions. "It's one thing to say, 'I'm going to get in touch with the goals of my employees,'" Blumenthal says. "It's another thing to say, 'I'm going to sit down and schedule three meals, breakfasts or lunches, with employees to better understand them.' We do this all the time with things like increasing our sales or starting a new marketing effort or changing our operational strategies. We make an action plan. But we don't do it with our personal development strategies. But the exact same processes are exactly what we need to become better leaders."

"You've got to take all the lessons you've learned about leadership," Blumenthal concludes, "and you've got to translate them into real behavior so that you actually become the leader that you want to be."

Find Your Inner Leader

May 21, 2008


asdamd/photos/stylus/27310-Leadership-250x175.jpg

You're a small business owner. You're a manager. In order to be successful, however, you've also got to be a leader. Consider these pointers for effecting change within yourself, your employees and your entire business.

By: MATT ALDERTON

David Traversi has been reading leadership tomes ever since he was a teenager. The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Pozner. Good to Great and Built to Last by Jim Collins. He's read them all. And in 30 years of reading about leadership, he's learned an awful lot about leaders. He's learned, for instance, that they're self-defined. He's learned that they're forward thinking. He's learned that they're credible and that they're inspiring. He's also learned that many of them are small business owners, and that many small business owners, in turn, are leaders.

"Leadership is described in a lot of ways. I think it's really quite simple, though. Leadership is having a positive impact, or a positive effect," says Traversi, an entrepreneur, executive coach and author of The Source of Leadership: Eight Drivers of the High-Impact Leader. "By definition, anybody who has a small business is trying to create an impact or an effect."

Even so, not all small business owners consider themselves leaders. They call themselves founders, owners, entrepreneurs and managers, but not always leaders. Those who do wear the leadership badge on their scout sash, however, are better positioned for success. They see themselves as trendsetters and they're at once more willing and more able to turn their employees, partners and customers into brand followers.

"Frankly, leadership is in a sense more important to a small business because you do have the direct ability as a leader to affect absolutely every element of your own business," Traversi says. "Because you're young and growing, it has almost a leveraged effect. If you decide to direct the ship 10 degrees to the left, then that's where it's going. It underscores the responsibility upon you to lead effectively."

Of course, before you can steer your ship, you've got to first acknowledge that you're a captain. If you're interested in sailing more successful seas—in getting more energy out of your employees and in realizing more potential in your business—you must therefore look yourself in the mirror and say, "I am a leader."

Defining Leadership
In order to become more effective leaders, small business owners must first define leadership.

For his part, Traversi says that leadership is as simple as having an effect on other people, no matter how large or small. It's having an effect on your children, for instance, if you're a parent, or even on fellow shoppers in the grocery store when you get in line at the checkout. "Leadership should be accessible to everybody and not something that's tucked away on a shelf and reserved for corporate CEOs and elected officials and head coaches of pro sports teams," he says. "Everyone is a leader."

According to leadership expert Noah Blumenthal, founder and president of Leading Principles, a New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based executive training firm, leadership is about more than impacting people, however. To him, it's also about freeing them.

"Leadership is unleashing the talent that's around you," says Blumenthal, author of You're Addicted to You: Why It's So Hard to Change—and What You Can Do About It. "We are in a knowledge economy, so the most valuable resource that any organization has is truly its people. If your people are interested, eager, excited and engaged, and if their talents are being utilized, then you're going to succeed; you're going to win."

Generally, then, effective leaders are people who positively influence those around them. Effective business leaders, meanwhile, are those who positively influence the employees around them, inciting them to productive, innovative action.

Discovering Leadership
Once they know what leadership is, emerging leaders must find out where to get it. No, leadership skills can't be purchased at the leadership store, but they can be mined from within your company. The key, Blumenthal suggests, is in knowing where to look; the worst leaders look within themselves, the best within others.

"Business owners traditionally are very good at telling employees what their organizational goals are and how the employees can help them achieve them," he says. Leaders, he adds, do the opposite. "The flipside of the coin is when the owners of these companies go to their employees and say, 'What are your goals? How can I help you achieve your goals?' When owners and managers ask employees those two questions, they build trust, excitement and motivation that totally changes the equation."

In other words, ineffective leaders build their leadership based on their own goals and their own strategies; they crack whips and give orders. Effective leaders, on the other hand, build their leadership on others' goals and strategies; they form relationships with their team members in order to set mutual goals and to learn—not dictate—what will motivate achievement.

Of course, your employees aren't the only ones who can inspire leadership. You can also turn to other leaders and leadership experts, according to Traversi. When you do, he says, you'll likely find eight "energies" that drive their leadership: presence, clarity—or transparency, of thought, behavior and emotion—openness, intention, personal responsibility, intuition, creativity and connected communication.

"Developing these energies," he says, "makes you a more effective leader."

Developing Leadership
Knowing what leadership is and where to find it is only half the battle, though. The other half is turning your knowledge of leadership into behavior.

"You have to first know where Point A is today," Traversi says. "Then you have to know clearly where Point B is, and how to draw the most direct line from A to B."

Adds Blumenthal, "Everybody knows something they could do to improve as a leader. The question is, 'What's stopping them from actually improving?' It's not knowing what; it's knowing how. How do I get out of my old behaviors?"

In order to ditch old habits and develop new leadership traits, Blumenthal suggests doing three things:

Building awareness. "Any goal that you have that you can tuck away in a drawer or stick in a binder on a shelf, that's going to fade away," Blumenthal says. "It's going to disappear. You're not going to follow through on it." To keep leadership goals from fading, he recommends using visual reminders to raise your daily awareness of them; write down your commitment and post it somewhere where you will read it regularly.
Finding allies. "You've got to build support," Blumenthal says. "If you're working on something, if you're trying to make a change that's going to make you a better leader, ask other people to help you with it. Ask other people to keep you accountable, to encourage you, to challenge you."
Completing actions. "It's one thing to say, 'I'm going to get in touch with the goals of my employees,'" Blumenthal says. "It's another thing to say, 'I'm going to sit down and schedule three meals, breakfasts or lunches, with employees to better understand them.' We do this all the time with things like increasing our sales or starting a new marketing effort or changing our operational strategies. We make an action plan. But we don't do it with our personal development strategies. But the exact same processes are exactly what we need to become better leaders."

"You've got to take all the lessons you've learned about leadership," Blumenthal concludes, "and you've got to translate them into real behavior so that you actually become the leader that you want to be."