Business Mastery

You’ll find the key for establishing leadership skills in your self within this article. Enjoy the material. We have found that most people equate managing and leading. They often interchange the terms managing and leading. Of course, in order to be an effective manager you have to be a leader. However, the opposite is not a case. One of the essential skills of management is leading, but leading and managing are not the same.

Think being a leader and being a manager are exactly the same?

Interesting question, but it’s not asked very often because people believe they already know managing and leading are the same concept. “They are the same thing,” most people believe. Particularly in a business environment, people think of their managers as the leaders. If you happen to be a member of an accounting department, for example, your manager is also your leader. And, it’s true. Leaders are often the ones promoted into managers. Also true that high-performing individuals are the ones getting promotions into management jobs. Great performing workers are not always your best management candidate, but that’s another story.

Is it crucial you have leadership skills to be a manager?

It’s certainly true if the manager happens to be a poor leader it’s a quick path to failure. You can’t be an effective manager if you don’t have great leadership skills. Imagine a situation where there is some sort of problem or crises on the job. The normal reaction during a problem is to look towards the boss. It’s expected she will provide leadership in that situation. If the manager has poorly developed leading skills, you’ll find the probability of success of solving a problem go way down. In most cases the workers want to focus on their job and leave problem-solving to their managers. They want and expect their manager to be leaders in those situations.

In general, people gravitate towards leaders. The majority of people like the security and the knowledge of knowing that someone else is in charge. They like knowing that they have a leader that is looking after them. As a result, they will always look to authority.

Is it possible that you could be a leader and not be a manager?

Of all the questions we’ve asked in this article, this is perhaps the best one of the bunch. In a word, yes. Your goal should be to have more people willing and able to lead than just your managers. Whenever a manager falls short one of the other leaders can pick up the ball. If in above example, one of the other people on the team, provided they possessed the ability to lead, could have easily picked up the ball and solve the issue.

Certainly the leading skill is a vital component of management. We have learned that leading and management are different. You must have excellent leading capabilities in order to be a highly successful manager. You want to have as many leaders as you can even if they’re not your managers.

Generally, you always want to have a majority of your employees able to step up as leaders from time to time. As it turns out good leaders know when it’s the right time to step up.

We have developed a great new set of tools to help. Take a look at our subsidiary company.

One of my prospective clients had scheduled a brand-new restaurant opening day last week. But, it did not happen.

All the employees had been hired and trained and showed up for their first day to serve customers.

Hordes of anxious new patrons were lined up outside the front doors.

The local press had sent a camera crew and reporter planning to publish the success of the opening day.

But, also present was an official of the state’s health department. She had a notice in her hand requiring the restaurant to remain closed until a required document was filed properly.

The owner told me that he was very surprised because one of his senior management had the responsibility to complete the required documentation. In addition, that manager was his son-in-law and one of the restaurants owners.

When and if the outcome will be successful remains unclear.

Sadly, this incident reminded me of how many people believe that responsibility for something means that it will be done.

Actually, there’s very little connection between having the responsibility for something and things actually getting done as expected or hoped for.

Most of the time and individual’s areas of responsibility are delineated in their position descriptions or job descriptions.

Simply because someone has the responsibility, as outlined in their position description, doesn’t mean they’ll actually perform the job as you would have anticipated.

The best way to think about this is to envision a group of people with the same responsibilities.

That group could be your salesforce,  your file clerks or your warehouse personnel. People in those kinds of jobs, like schoolteachers, all have similar responsibilities. You know however, their actual job performance varies widely. Individually they will range from in competent to magnificent.

What the restaurant owner required and what you must always insist on is accountability.

In simple terms accountability means a culture of people giving their word and actually keeping it. Everyone else’s role is to insist people finish what they have agreed to do.

Several of my clients have asked me recently, “why do so many businesses fail?”

I’m certain you know at least 80% of new businesses fail within the first five years. My own observations are the percentage is likely to be optomistic.

I certainly know that the number of people who have tried and failed at starting a new online business is dramatically worse than those numbers.

The simple answer is running a business is a very complicated affair. It’s much more difficult to run a business then say, being a finish carpenter. I make that remark with the greatest of respect for carpenters and other trade people.

The point is, the success rate for people in trades is very high. Tradespeople, whether they be carpenters, project managers, doctors, accountants or anything similar are programmed to be successful. All of these professionals received significant training in school and on the job which assures most of them success.

The are very few places where anyone can go to learn the art and science of business ownership. Certainly you won’t learn how to run a successful business by giving a MBA from a prestigious business school. Those degrees will position you well to be a highly paid employee, but what you’ve learned in school doesn’t transfer to real life, bottom line business success.

There is one group of business people that do enjoy a higher than normal success ratio. Those are franchisees. Their success is assured by the system’s processes and procedures developed by the franchisor.

I have found, that like the franchise system, there are three critical elements of business success.

These three vital components are;

1. A management system
2. Managers skilled in business essential skills
3. A winning state of mind

It’s these three components that I’ve built my entire business at Leriot around.

With an old friend and partner of mine used to comment that trust was like oxygen. The meaning is when either one leaves the room, people suffocate.

Trust is becoming more and more important in business today. It is generally connected with the ease of information gathering.

Over the last several years the Internet has become a more reliable source for information than the traditional news media. This means individuals can get high quality information from the Internet easier and more reliably than they can from television, radio or printed publications.

When asked “where do you go for news about a company” almost half responded they use online search engines or online news sources. Newspapers, magazines and TV were distant alternative choices.

Bottom line is that no company can rely on controlling information, protecting their brand, keeping a low profile nad focusing on profits.

Regardless of their desire to hide from view the Internet makes this impossible.

Now companies need to maintain a high level of transparency, focus on an engagement with their environment, and have a clear purpose behind their profit-making.

Maintaining a high level of trust with everyone is essential. Recent statistics show while it may take 5 to 7 messages to get a prospect to believe and take action, it will only take one or two pieces of negative information for a customer to cease doing business with a distrusted enterprise.

One of the most important things each of us can do as managers is to maintain a high level of consistency.

And, one of the most important things we do as managers is doing the right thing for every level of performance we will get from our employees.

Here is a very top-level view.

In order to do this properly we need to both measure performance and take the appropriate action.

It is a great deal easier than one might suspect. This is because employees only want to know a few things to do their jobs.

1. What they’re supposed to do.
2. How they’re going to get measured.
3. How they’re doing right now.
4. And, what the consequences are.

Making the process even easier, there’s only four possible levels of performance anyone can deliver.

1. Achieving the goal.
2. Exceeding the goal.
3. Missing the goal.
4. Always missing the goal.

So let’s examine the four points contained in both of these categories.

Measuring performance.

1. The expectations of the job. The best and most appropriate way to delineate the expectations of any position is via a position description. The position description should delineate the basic accountabilities and functions expected in the job. Plus, the position description should be augmented on an annual basis by providing a development plan for each employee.
2. How performance will be measured. The position description should also the delineate how the employee’s performance will be measured. It should indicate such things as the frequency of performance evaluations, both formal and informal. The employee should also be aware of that his or her individual performance will be measured no less frequently than monthly during accountability meetings.
3. How the employee is doing. Every employee should be appraised of their level of performance with at least three methods. First, through periodic scheduled formal performance valuations. Second, during accountability meetings. And third, with periodic informal comments and suggestions.
4. What the consequences are. These would include both awards and reprimands. Every employee deserves to know in detail the compensation plan and how their performance is connected to that compensation. Additionally, every employee needs to know the minimum standards of performance, satisfactory levels of performance; and, what constitutes other levels of performance all the way up to exceptional.

Appropriate action.

1. Achieving goals. In simple terms, achieving goals denotes satisfactory levels of performance. The appropriate action for you, their manager, is to essentially allow them to maintain or keep their job—no more. It’s inappropriate to give the employee lavish levels of praise for making goals. The primary reason for this is that you’re likely to have employees who are achieving at a high level. These employees will not appreciate you giving rewards to those just “doing their job”.
2. Exceeding goals. Now, it’s appropriate to give praise to every employee that is exceeding their goals. Your skill as a top level manager will mean your supplying these “rewards” at levels that are appropriate for the actual achievement. Once again, your very high level employees will not appreciate you giving major rewards to those performing at levels lower than theirs. However, you’ll run a great risk if you under reward your highest level employees. Those are the ones you want to keep. But, you’ll lose them quickly if you don’t reward them skillfully.
3. Missing goals. You will need to take swift and appropriate action when ever anyone misses a goal. The most appropriate actions to take would be offering coaching; additional training; and  time to correct their unsatisfactory performance levels.
4. Consistently missing goals. Provided you’ve done the right thing when employees begin missing goals, by the time they are consistently missing them the only appropriate action for you to take his dismissal. Failure do this properly will indicate to your performing employees you will allow poor performance. They will consider you a very weak boss if you do this.

It’s vital that you do everything above with the grace and style. If you do, you’ll be one of the elite managers in the country. If you don’t…