20 Years and 20 Core Leadership Disciplines
20 Years and 20 Core Leadership Disciplines
By Jeff Wolf
Time to read: 2 minutes
As we celebrate our 20th anniversary, I’d like to thank all our clients for the trust they’ve placed in us. We appreciate your confidence and look forward to the opportunity to continue our partnership as we strive to earn your loyalty every day by exceeding expectations.
As I reflect on our 20-year history of service to the business world, I’m reminded daily that the success of any organization starts with its leaders.
During this time, I’ve been privileged to coach hundreds of leaders and made sure they understood this basic premise: before you can lead others, you must have fundamental disciplines as a basis to rely on for leadership success.
Below are 20 core leadership disciplines I’ve shared in my coaching sessions that have become fundamental to many successful leaders who have achieved extraordinary results.
- Leaders maintain credibility by being honest, forthright, and open; their values, allegiances and priorities are beyond reproach.
- Leaders must remain flexible adapting their leadership style as circumstances dictate.
- Leaders establish shared values among teams, instill confidence in followers, create organizational excitement, are not afraid of change and they empower others.
- Leaders surround themselves with the best and brightest. They are not afraid to hire people who are stronger, smarter and have better skills than they have.
- Leaders understand that coaching opens lines of communication to create a comfortable environment where performance issues can be discussed freely without defensiveness.
- Great leaders are great listeners who generate powerful connectivity among people. When people feel listened to and heard, they become energized, motivated and engaged.
- Leaders realize that the organization that will excel in years to come will be those that understand how to gain the commitment of employees and expand their capacity to learn.
- Leaders encourage everyone to move past their comfort zone, try new ways of doing things and embrace their creativity.
- Leaders must be imaginative in our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) business world. When you exercise imagination, you rely less on memory. Memory ties you to your limits and past. Imagination points you to your potential and future.
- When a leader’s strategies, objectives, and paths to success are clearly defined, individuals, teams and organizations will be motivated, inspired and energized.
- Leaders understand that failure to realize the effect their behavior has on others can ultimately destroy their leadership effectiveness.
- Effective leaders are team builders. Bringing people together creates harmony and allows them to work collaboratively toward achieving success.
- Leaders challenge their people to take risks and not be afraid to fail. Innovation does not come easily.
- Leaders make sure they know what customers want and expect. They treat them like partners rather than end users. This makes it easy for them to do business with you.
- Leaders understand that motivated people provide a competitive advantage. As a leader, they can make the difference between those who care deeply about their roles versus those who simply show up for work every day, and go through the motions. An effective leader motivates people to work together and achieve greatness, instilling confidence and trust as they go about their everyday business.
- If leaders lack passion, they will never inspire people to greatness or be effective.
- Leaders who articulate a strong vision of the future, define their strategy and execute well, can change the course of their organization, team or department.
- Leaders strive to build trust and understand trust is a three-way street: you must be able to trust each member of your team; they must be able to trust you and team members must trust one another.
- Leaders hold people accountable. Every person should be held to the same standard of excellence, regardless of training or years on the job. While each person’s precise tasks will vary, all team members’ commitment to completing the job should be unwavering.
- Leaders are always learning and growing. If they don’t constantly improve and renew themselves, they’ll fall into entropy, closed systems and style, where everything breaks down. Sharpening requires continuous improvement, innovation, refinement, and renewal.
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Jeff may be reached in his San Diego office: 858-638 8260
Email: jeff@wolfmotivation.com
Website: www.wolfmotivation.com
Wolf Management Consultants
www.wolfmotivation.com
