How to be a Good Leader

Leadership Decision Making Characteristics: Logical, Intuitive, Credible

"The Leader of the past knew how to tell. The Leader of the future will know how to ask." Peter Drucker

Major focus:

Today's tempo is such that the role of a good leader is to be inspirational and intentional: to exhibit leadership at all levels with the ideas, ethics, energy, and courage to arouse, engage, and empower people to make decisions and take action. The true test of a good leader is whether team members will work towards the goals and objectives even when the leader is not present. This course doesn't address conventional managerial skills, such as work assignment or disciplinary procedures, rather those skills and behaviors of a good manager that focus as much on the way you try to get things done as well as why action must be taken. Business savvy leaders must use financially based tools and skills to be effective in the change driven global economy. In addition, these good management skills are critical because of the environment of uncertainty, disappearance of the loyalty factor, conflict, and team members assuming a survivor attitude. The skills and behaviors addressed in this course acknowledges the role of a manager as one of leadership as well as skills needed to run the business. Especially if your organization is held by a private investment company that measures all decisions based on financial consequences.

Some feel that the idea of working with team members on a peer level smacks of permissiveness and violates the image of the strong manager. But a manager who is a good leader knows how to share power. The core issue of power is involvement: listening for passion and commitment is the "silent conductor" - that drives the desired behavior. Some skills of leaders are innate: inquisitiveness, initiative, and involvement. However many behaviors can be learned: financial acumen, humility, compassion, and courage. This course will reinforce the innate behaviors while providing the tools for a manager to be a good leader by demonstrating and practicing the learned behaviors.

• Define the role of a leader
• Recognize and adapt to different motivational needs
• Business case justification using: cash vs. revenue, return on assets, working capital, margin / income, NPV (net present value), IRR (internal rate of return)
• Use business acumen skills to make effective decisions
• Describe how to use influencing and persuading skills and be a good leader
• Leverage emotional intelligence: identify, predict, and use to drive change
• Know when to listen, question, and recommend in the role of a manager-leader
• Know how to craft and communicate a future focus to excite and compel the group to action
• Apply various leadership skills based on the situation to be a good leader
• Apply the trust equation of a good leader: credibility + reliability + intimacy / self-promotion
• Establish a psychological safety net so Team Members will take the "risk' of change
• Craft strategies to overcome resistance to change
• Empower others to lead when appropriate
• Recognize the paradox that to be a good leader sometimes requires him / her to be a good follower