Leadership Skills - The Tools of the Trade

What is one of the key skills every lead member of a company possesses? I'll even give you a hint...this feature is generally found in those that currently lead a team or department. Give up? Why, leadership skills of course! Obtained in our childhood days, and honed throughout our adult life, you need to become a master of your own version in order to gain the trust of those you seek to lead. If you are unable to find that common link between your team members, creating a cohesive atmosphere for all will be that much harder. True leadership skills are much more than leading the proverbial horse to water and making it drink. The skill lies more in leading them, and trusting in what they have learned to kick in and come to their own aid. You have to have faith in them, for them to have faith in you.

Second on the list of desirable top business traits is a mastery of communication skills. In today's technologically advanced world, this does not simply boil down to being able to string a few words together. No, it goes much deeper than that. You need to be able to speak well, type well, write well, and sometimes even text well to make certain you are in contact with everyone at any given time. You may be a supervisor with a team of twenty, or a platoon leader watching out for "Charlie", but if you can't keep it together, you may fall victim to a tragedy due to lack of communication.

Two of the many key business traits looked for in today's world, yet two of the most important. Take advantage of each opportunity that comes your way. If you don't end up sharing an interest in the business, then perhaps it is not the right fit for you. I doesn't make you a bad person....merely someone that knows what they don't want and is discovering what they have had inside all along.

Leadership Lessons From a Five Year Old

I recently wrote an article about how leaders focus on things a little differently than others and that it's not that they engage in different activities, as much as it is how they engage. Leaders tend to think differently about their daily activities and focus on a different outcome, so they get exactly that. One example that I used was that some of the best leaders I've worked with enter a meeting thinking about what they need to learn from their team and how to help them find solutions, while others may enter a meeting thinking about what they need to tell their team about how to execute better. Both leaders had a meeting, but only one actually moved the business forward and increased the capability of the team.

One of the key points I was trying to get across is that leaders are typically thinking about how to best help others improve as they go through their daily activities, while many managers are focused more on what they need to get from others during those same activities. There's plenty of time for leaders to focus on what they themselves need, but that should be done when they aren't around others in the business. That's precious time to learn and to understand different perspectives that others have. The more leaders understand the perspectives of those around them, the more they are likely to broaden their own view, look at problems in new ways, and find new solutions and new avenues to greater success.

A few days after I wrote the article, I was taking my 5 year old son fishing and caught myself making the very mistake that I was asking leaders to be aware of. I was standing there while he was fishing, but I wasn't engaged in what was going on with him at all. I was thinking about my own business and the things I needed to do to accomplish my own goals. I was missing a leadership opportunity. And although it wasn't about business, it was still about leadership. Becoming a leader isn't just about business; it's about others.

I wasn't focused on helping him build capability, cast better, learn patience, or even build a better relationship with his Dad. I was thinking about clients and projects and deadlines and business momentum. It's impossible to lead others, in business or in any area of life, while I'm focused on my own needs but that's exactly what I was doing.

I go through a lot of days thinking about what I need to get done and there's a need for that. I should be focused on goals and growth and making a difference in how the business succeeds. But as leaders, we need to recognize when we should be focused on those things, and when we should be focused on helping others build their own capability and fuel their own success. Those are the times when we really make a difference for others and build a business that's capable of accomplishing more.

It doesn't matter whether it's in business, a family, or a community. Leaders who understand when it needs to be about someone else and make the most of those opportunities are the ones who create capability. They understand that real success is about helping those around them become able to accomplish more. Not just because it's fundamentally a better way to go about things, but also because it will take any group of people to a higher level. In business that means success and growth. In a family or a community it can have even more impact. I need to remember that when I'm working with others, or fishing with my kids.

Develop a Personal Growth Plan

Leadership can be defined quite simply as the ability to influence. Your ability to lead has a direct effect on your level of influence. For instance, if your leadership skills rate an 8 out of 10, then your level of influence will be 7 at the most. There is a direct correlation.

As a network marketer, your goal is to lead your followers, develop them into leaders and then lead leaders. If your leadership skills are limited then your effectiveness is also limited. So it is critically important that you develop and grow your leadership skills regularly. Doing so can dramatically increase your effectiveness and, ultimately, increase the level of success that you achieve.

Successful leaders are learners. They integrate a plan of continuous learning into their daily activities. They may set aside an hour a day devoted to personal development or they may set aside a few hours one day a week. Whether you use the time to read books, listen to audio or attend leadership seminars, it is the best investment you can make in yourself and in your business. Developing and improving these skills on a regular basis is a major factor in differentiating leaders from followers.

Remember also that you want to develop your team into leaders. Let them know that personal growth and leadership development are valued and rewarded. By encouraging growth and development you will end up attracting high achievers and people with great potential - a win/win situation for you and your team.

To become great at anything in life, you need to practice every day. Leadership doesn't develop in one day; it takes a lifetime.

Leadership Coaching - A Continuously Changing Education

In terms of leadership coaching, people are an important asset. However, this is not used and known by everyone. Since there are still businesses which lack the correct leadership and treats the workers as part of the disposable variable cost on the subject of the economics of things.

With leadership competencies changing as the competitive environment changes, leadership coaching likewise changes with it. As the new international environment brings with it higher ambiguity and also skepticism, other important forces also have an impact on businesses and corporations. A great deal of, if not completely, facets of management will need a shared approach to leadership. Today's model of productive leadership is a learning environment which capitalizes the whole company's workforce asset potential.

The failures in conventional methods of training and also coaching have happened as a result of leaders and managers that are merely outdated in the learning vehicles of time. These are also affected by the unchanging habits, patterns as well as outcomes. As a solution, a kind of leadership coaching may be used, one of which is known as behavior-based coaching.

The important value produce by behavioral-based coaching is high opinion for others and a method of communication that stimulates real exchange. This kind of unadulterated openness results in not only a larger self-awareness as well as a increased understanding of other people. There's also several important behaviours or psychological-based diagnosis tools a leadership coach needs. Being a leader, you must manage to improve the employees as well as draw out the best inside them.

For you to hasten the procedure, there's a requirement of more skillful leaders to be able to realize success in making a tomorrow which will sustain the business or firm. In addition, there exists a need for leaders that have focused on inner mastery, who know themselves and deliver their best selves onward in a day-to-day basis. You can never lead if you haven't followed. Leaders are likewise examples.

To be competent to coach leadership into a person and also produce a leader among followers (the employees), we will need to continuously mold them as a person. As somebody who has not still drawn on all his / her latent potential, as someone who still has a great deal of qualities to deliver forward. Employees are persons too, not merely some disposable variable cost. Leaders ought to figure out how to clarify their visions, beliefs, and values, and realize how to stretch their capacity to lead and influence. Moreover, using the proper coaching they need to manage to infuse these characteristics to their subordinates.

On a different note, teachers from the past preached that one's ability to will can be a secret weapon to success to everything on earth. As a footwear manufacturer always stated, "Nothing is impossible". Well, I guess it's true to each man or woman that has the grit and also perseverance to will it in to reality. History has demonstrated time and again that an individual, who possess a determined will, will ultimately win and grab the day.

There was an individual that said there are three types of people in the world; the Wills, the Won'ts and the Can'ts. Choose the first. Be a leader which will push the organization forward along with your workers.

I suppose after realizing the dilemma of several firms being grounded in the history of old behaviors, you can have the ability to have a strategy for future years. Nevertheless knowing only part of history will not be enough to totally alter the future. We should all try to shoot for the sky. With these information along with the appropriate form of leadership coaching, everything is possible.

Stop Managing Your Agents

I've seen it repeated over and over again. Sales managers managing their agents. Or more accurately, sales managers "trying" to manage their agents. And it never works. This is especially fruitless with respect to teams of independent sales agents.

You see... people can't be "managed". Things get managed. People get led. It's not simply a matter of semantics. There's a fundamental difference between trying to manage agents and effectively leading them. Let's start by examining how managers attempt to "manage" their agents, and then explore what effective sales leadership looks like.

In a nutshell, we're managing agents when we try to get them to do things or reach goals that are our own or those of the company. These generally take the form of production or activity goals. There's nothing wrong with these goals, and your goals along with those of the company are important. But when we try to impose our goals on other people, "management" occurs. We generally sit down with each of our agents and tell them what we want them to achieve.

We might encourage them, offer to mentor them, or even threaten them. But I think you'll agree that these "management" techniques generally are ineffective. It's not that your agents turn you away. No... they'll agree with you and offer to do something beyond what they've been doing, but at the end of the day, nothing changes.

This pattern seems to hold true even if you're running a promotion or conducting year-end goal-setting meetings. Sure, you'll have a few agents respond to a promotion, but generally the majority of agents don't respond at all. There's very little lift in production. The same holds true for year-end "business plans". Often the plans are credible, do-able, and promise the results you want, but by the end of the year not much has changed. "Managing" agents just doesn't work.

In the alternative, sales "leadership" is much more effective. There are a number of components to effective sales leadership, but before getting into the specifics, it pays to understand the whole idea of leadership and how it makes a difference. Pretty much everyone agrees that good leadership is important, but very few of the people I've asked about it can explain why leadership makes a difference. Over the years, I've distilled the purpose and effect of leadership down to one simple sentence.

Effective leadership inspires the best effort in others.

When effective leadership is present, people work to do the best they can, they take pride in being part of the team, and they take pride in advancing. Not only that, but in the presence of effective leadership, people become all those things because they want to, not because they're being "managed".

It's within this concept of inspiring people that the dynamics and strategies of leadership become apparent. Effective sales leadership begins with the "culture" of your sales team. Culture determines how you recruit, who you recruit, and what your new agents' expectations are. The culture of a team is created by the leader and goes beyond the simple mechanics of what gets done. It defines how things are done and it establishes the character and values of the team, its members, and its leader.

This concept of inspiring leadership is also embodied within the leader. After all, like it or not, we all lead by example - good or bad. An effective sales leader must strive to enhance personal leadership skills and then learn to communicate them effectively. Effectively communicating or projecting oneself as a leader is a study in public relations. Everything that a leader does or says makes an impression.

The final piece to creating inspiring leadership is that of working one-on-one with agents. Having the first two pieces in place (culture and personal presence) can especially leverage this effort. Leading your team to higher production starts by acknowledging an important truth. This truth is that regardless of what your team production goals are, each individual agent has his or her own personal goals. And these goals will determine how much more an agent will be willing to do, if anything. These goals can be spoken or unspoken, acknowledged or unacknowledged. But make no mistake, they exist. Our task, as inspiring leaders, is to bring these goals to the surface, bring them to life, and then help our agents overcome their personal "roadblocks" in order to achieve these goals.

Unfortunately, the reality is that for most agents, other situations also exist. The first situation is that an agent may have given up on their dream. They may have vocalized their dream at one time, but now feel that it's unattainable. Our job as a leader is to re-kindle the fire of that dream and goal. An adept leader can inspire an agent to once again strive to reach their goal.

The second situation is that an agent may not truly believe they can succeed. Our role as leader is to develop each agent so they can realize their full potential. Leaders develop people.

And the third situation is that regardless of what we'd like for our agents, some agents are satisfied with their present level of accomplishment. No amount of poking, prodding, pleading, or threatening will cause them to change.

An effective leader will avoid attempting to reach their team goals by working with each and every agent. Instead, they'll identify the agents who have higher aspirations and are open to improvement, and then focus on working with them.

By becoming an inspiring sales leader for your team and your agents, you can have greater impact, accomplish more with less effort, and produce better results - not to mention being looked up to and having a great time.

Assessing Vs Judging

This past week I had an interesting conversation with one of my favorite clients.� He's a C-level executive for a national company and was doing a bit of venting about another executive in the company who displayed a behavior which my client felt was weak for someone in that position.� It was nothing unethical or irresponsible, but this executive had taken a position about an issue and then, after someone else presented a different perspective, changed his position.� It felt to my client like the executive didn't have the conviction of his beliefs on the issue at hand; that he hadn't thoroughly thought through his answer.

The details of the incident aren't as important as the concept of assessing vs. judging.� When we judge, we naturally conclude that someone or something is good/bad or right/wrong.� We also tend to generalize about that person based on our judgment of that one particular event, statement or action.� We compare the other person (or thing) against our own abilities and experience.� This is exactly what happened during the meeting my client related to me.� I believe many of us have developed a judging approach to people and things, which causes us to take a trait or lack thereof and project it in a general way to all aspects of that person.

After some discussion, we concluded that this executive had many redeeming qualities and skills, and that painting him with a broad paintbrush was inappropriate.� A better perspective could have been developed assessing the situation and the person, rather than judging them.� Let me explain...

The dictionary defines 'Assess' as, "To determine the value, significance, or extent of" and defines 'Judge' to mean, "To form an opinion or estimation of"� When we judge, we form an opinion, which often occurs quickly and with little other input.� When we assess, we determine someone's (or something's) value, which requires gathering facts and putting them in perspective relative to everyone or everything else.� If someone were to highlight an area in which we, ourselves, were weak, we'd probably say, "OK, but what about all the areas of strength I do have and all the other skills I possess?"� In other words, we'd help the other person put everything in proper perspective.

The above scenario relates to how we observe others as well as how others observe us.� Yes, the other person surely has weaknesses, but you can only determine the importance of their weakness by assessing them as a whole.� By example, someone may be poor in math skills but have an extraordinary creative talent.� If you were to judge them strictly based on their math skills, you might generalize and conclude that they aren't very sharp and therefore couldn't really make a positive contribution to the team.� On the other hand, if you assess their skills properly, you'd conclude that they indeed can be an important contributor to the team,... just don't ask them to add!

Learning to assess rather than judge comes from appreciating the variety of strengths people have and at the same time recognizing our own weaknesses.� No one is always right and no one is always wrong.� By developing the habit of looking for the positive in people, you, as a leader, can make better decisions, build better teams, and develop stronger contributors.� You'll be taking your leadership skills to the next level.

Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

I've recently had some discussions with clients regarding whether employing the competencies of Emotional Intelligence in their leadership style will accelerate or decelerate their productivity and progress. Study after study has shown that leaders who sharpen and employ EI skills consistently outperform peers who lead through variations of the stereotypical Command-Control model. Additionally, companies which promote the use of EI skills outdistance competitors who haven't refined their corporate cultures. Despite these results, many people still feel that creating an EI culture will soften the performance and results of their company/division/department.

I believe that there are common sense perspectives we can take and observations we can make in an effort to "make the case" for the use of EI in leadership and in a company's culture. As an example, when selecting someone for employment in a management/executive role, which set of traits and skills do you value most - technical skills or people skills? My response and the response of every leader I've spoken with is the same - people skills. Why is that? Isn't technical competency important? After all, isn't "getting the job done" what it's all about? The answer of course is that technical skills ARE important and productivity IS important. It's just that they are fairly easy to come by. It's relatively easy to find a competent engineer or accountant, right? The challenge is finding someone who has those technical skills but also knows how to deal with people. One's ability to deal effectively with people is the skill which make things happen. This brings us to my second example.

In order for someone to be an effective leader, they must have followers. My contention is that under Command-Control leadership, people perform out of fear. They may be afraid of losing a job, not getting a raise, or being chastised by a superior. But they are basically obeying the commands of the person in charge, who in effect, controls them. The observation to be made here is that there is a large gap between obeying and following. People who obey do their work, but only to avoid the consequences of poor performance. Followers, on the other hand, are spurred on by a multitude of forces - both internal and external. It's no wonder that EI-focused companies tend to be more innovative, have less turnover, and are more profitable.

The final common sense case for employing EI skills comes from each of us in our own experience. Can you remember a time in your work life (maybe even now) when a manager or boss didn't respect you or your ideas, or when they displayed a lack of integrity? Have you ever had a boss blow up at you without hearing what you had to say or, even worse, for no apparent reason? How did these incidents affect your attitude at work (or even at home)? How did your shift in attitude affect your productivity or your interest in doing that little bit extra? Did you stop working? Of course not. Did you sabotage the efforts of the company? Not likely. But did your intentions, your interest, and your commitment suffer? I know mine always did. My commitment just wasn't the same after that incident. And that's the real cost of not employing Emotional Intelligence in leadership. Without followers, you can't be a leader.

Employing Emotional Intelligence in leadership style is essential in accelerating growth, innovation, and profitability.

Effectively Developing People

One of our obligations as a leader is to develop people.� In fact, I believe it to be one of the cornerstones of excellent leadership.� Effectively developing people accomplishes several important things for us and our organization.

When we develop others, we add to their value.� They become more versatile, more productive, and more confident.� As a person's knowledge base expands and their ability to accurately assess situations improves, their capacity for creative problem-solving increases.� As their breadth of knowledge and abilities expands, so does the pride they take in their work.� And pride in work and workmanship leads to higher productivity, more creativity, and the desire to go the "extra mile" to ensure excellence.� Their ability to take on more responsibilities increases.� Their potential for advancement elevates, and their likelihood of becoming another leader moves closer to reality.

Additionally, as we demonstrate an interest in the progress and success of others, they in turn, become more loyal to us.� Taking an interest in the success of others helps them take an interest in our success.� As a leader, it's important to be respected by the members of our team, and effectively developing others nurtures this respect.

There are even more direct benefits to us as a leader when we develop others.� When we increase the capacity of our team members, we create the ability to delegate more and more.� The more we can delegate, the more we can leverage our time and our effort.� Delegation leads to greater productivity.� In addition, the more of our work we can delegate, the easier it is for us to rise above the grind of always working "in" our business and spend time working "on" our business.� One of the things that holds us back from taking our business or our career in new directions is not spending enough time stepping back from our busy-ness to see the bigger picture.� Effectively delegating allows us to take that step back.

Besides improving our personal productivity and insightfulness, we also move others closer towards taking on a leadership role of their own when we develop them.� Which means that we are grooming someone to take over our responsibilities from us.� At first glance, this may seem like a foolish thing to do by making us replaceable, however it allows us to easily "fill in" behind us, which in turn, makes us more "promote-able".� If no one else can do our job, then we aren't in a position to move on to bigger and better opportunities.

OK, now that we've established the importance and wisdom of developing others, let's talk about how to actually do that.� How do we effectively develop others?� One of the challenges in developing people effectively is that development is an art rather than a science.� It takes a bit of skill and judgment to become good at it.� Effective development requires the ability to read people and understand their strengths and weaknesses.� It requires the judgment to know which areas to develop a person in, which tasks are good candidates to delegate, and how hard to push someone's growth.� It takes being sensitive to the other person's demeanor to decide whether to ask them if they have a desire to take on something new or, in the alternative, to simply place the new task in their lap.� The whole process can be broken down into deciding on which tasks to delegate and then deciding on how to delegate to whom.

Let's start by discussing which tasks or responsibilities to delegate.� These fall into two categories - those that require no judgment (like compiling a report) and those that do require judgment.� Clearly, tasks that require no judgment are always good candidates for delegation.� Key points for being effective in delegating these tasks are 1) to ensure you choose the right person, 2) ensuring they have the proper tools and knowledge, and 3) clearly communicating your timeframe and level of importance.� Tasks or responsibilities that do require judgment are good vehicles for developing someone past the basics of "getting the work done".� You must choose these tasks/responsibilities carefully so as 1) to avoid undermining the person's self-confidence and 2) not to create problems if poor judgment is demonstrated by the person being developed.� You'll need to gauge the person's level of self-confidence before you assign a challenging task.

How do you ensure that a misstep doesn't wreak havoc on your organization?� Two suggestions: 1) Don't delegate anything too critical and 2) When you delegate something that requires judgment, make sure you regularly check in on their progress and always leave enough time for review and correction before the results are released to others.

As far as determining how to delegate and who to develop, it really depends on the task and where a person is in their skill level, state of mind, capacity for change, level of self-confidence and self-image.� Someone who is lacking in self confidence or is just starting out on their development path requires more guidance and "hand-holding" than someone who is experienced and has already developed a higher level of confidence.� Sometimes people need to be asked whether they're open to learning something new or taking on more responsibility.� Remember, a key to effectively developing others is to make sure that they are open to growth and to stretching beyond their current state or present comfort zone.� Too often, we believe in others more than they believe in themselves, and as such, may push them harder and faster than they want to go.� While it is important to stretch people, we don't want to "break" them.� This is part of the "art" of effectively developing others.

Clearly the amount of judgment you expect someone to demonstrate will depend on their level of experience and their track record of making good decisions and good choices.� Placing someone in a position to make decisions in an environment they are unfamiliar with creates the opportunity to teach and mentor for growth.� Just make sure you use the opportunity to teach and mentor, and don't react to mistakes or poor judgment with criticism or belittlement.� Situations that are new and/or challenging offer us great opportunities to teach.� An excellent way to teach and develop is to adopt a "coach-like" manner in your leadership.� Rather than tell or criticize, guide and reveal insights to the other person.� Be a guide and mentor, not a manager or boss.

By refining your development skills, becoming an effective delegator, assessing others accurately, and adopting a coach-like approach, you'll help others grow, add to their value, improve their self-confidence, and further your own interests as well.� Effectively developing others will propel you towards exceptional leadership.

Negative People Are a Challenge to Your Leadership Skills

Negative people in your team can cause untold damage to the motivation of the rest of your people. Their negativity is like a virus and can undermine all your attempts to improve various aspects of work life such as safety, quality, productivity and training. For every positive thing that you say, they have a negative answer. For example, in a team meeting you might want to talk about progress that's been made in developing a safer workplace. The negative person will either dismiss the results or suggest that they are incorrect. This leaves the rest of the team with doubt in their mind that they have actually achieved anything. One of the ways of avoiding situations like this where your ability to give positive reinforcement is being undermined, is to set meeting rules which include only positive comments being acceptable.

The problem you are faced with is that most negative people are quite persuasive and eloquent when they are being pessimistic. There are many ways of dealing with the negative person. But before you launch into a program to handle this person, there are a number of things to remember. The first thing to avoid is the confrontation and the attempt to persuade them that they are wrong. From a leadership perspective, is quite tempting to placate the person by agreeing with them. If you do this, you will lose the opportunity to introduce change because you have endorsed their opinion. It is also best to avoid a solution to the problem because this will give them a further opportunity to pour cold water on to the situation.

When you have a negative person in your team, it will test your leadership capacity for thought and creativity. The principles are quite simple, don't confront, don't try and persuade, and don't suggest alternative solutions. Okay, this leaves you plenty of opportunities to take an alternative approach. One of the better ways of dealing with negativity, especially in the group setting, is to ask them for solutions. This means that they have to engage their brains in the problem rather than just pointing out that it won't work.

Part of your leadership development is to understand the motives behind behavior. This can be tough, especially with negative people. You will find that most pessimists believe that they have no control over the future. Their lives are directed by things that are a long way outside their control and they have no power. If you have a person like this in your team, it is very difficult to control their effect on the other people. Sometimes, they have no idea of the negative effect they are having on the rest of the team. If this is the case, gently suggest to them that they should examine their comments before they make them and discard anything that has a hint of pessimism about it. Explain the effect they are having and offer to help them balance their pessimism by demonstrating the control they do have over the future.

Why Decisive Executives Have a Hard Time Being Effective

Most of us have developed our leadership style by observing the leaders, executives and managers we worked with or for throughout our career.� Of course, we inject our leadership style with our own take on the world including our values.� However, these are usually modifications of the model we've observed and been a part of over the years.

The classic leadership model is one of command and control - a system taken from the original large organization: the military.� In a military environment, a clear system of command-control is essential to respond quickly and efficiently - critical criteria in achieving objectives with the fewest casualties.� Companies soon adopted this efficient style of leadership in an effort to impose efficiency on their commercial organization.� This command-control model of leadership generates top-down management.� Decisions are all made at the top and dictated through the ranks of management and staff.� And, this would work fine except for some important differences between the military and commercial organizations...

In the military, personnel pretty much are required to do what they're told.� When someone is insubordinate or abandons their post, there are serious consequences.� In the corporate world, management and staff work under different rules.� There is no real "requirement" that someone perform their duties.� There is no rule of unquestioned discharge of duty.� Substandard performance is regularly accepted and quitting is always an option.� In addition, if the organization doesn't achieve their objectives, no one's life is put at risk!

The result of these differences between military and corporate is that the command-control model begins to fall apart in the corporate world.� It no longer represents an efficient form of leadership.� Which brings us to the point of this month's newsletter.� People are usually put in positions of responsibility because of their good judgment and their ability to make insightful decisions.� And the tendency is to fall into the command-control model:� Here's the decision.� I know it's right.� I don't want to discuss it.� Just do the work to achieve it.

But here's the catch...� Executives - by their very definition - don't actually do the work!� They oversee, guide, manage, etc. - but need to rely on others to get the job done.� In a true command-control model, a decision and command yield results.� Orders are followed without question and duties are discharged appropriately.� In a corporate model these "orders" are always accepted.� But accepting commands and following through with them can be very different things.� We live in a world where people have increasing diversity and increasing choices.� Attempting to "force" or coerce an employee never works very well.� Those terms sound fairly harsh, however we see them in all their variations on a daily basis:� An implied threat of job loss, a poor review, loss of bonus, etc.� These are the typical means of attempting to make a command-control style of leadership work in a voluntary environment.

This is the challenge that decisive executives have in leading within a voluntary world.� They make good, quick decisions and want to see their vision achieved as quickly as possible.� Handing a decision down is extremely efficient.� But while this leadership model is clearly efficient, it is not always effective.� And after all, the goal is to be an effective leader.� Becoming an effective leader is a challenge, however the difference in results between effective leadership and efficient leadership can be dramatic.� But that's a subject for another article...