Vision

Wearing the same shirts doesn't make you a team. We can choose to be more than this. We can be a slave to the system or we can put together the best team that we can with the players we've got, and replace those who aren't good enough with individuals’ committed to a group effort. Real teams don't emerge unless individuals on them take risks involving conflict, trust, interdependence and hard work. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.   Careful not to let your eyes betray your secret.

Positive Inspirational Leadership 

Great Expectations

A primary responsibility of leadership is to communicate expectations, both with words and actions. When leaders carefully and consistently set expectations, they engineer a flourishing work environment. However, when leaders abdicate their duty to communication expectations, chaos ensues. Here are six rules of thumb to follow as you set expectations in your organisation.

1. Set them for yourself first

Leaders must set the bar the highest for themselves. They must go first and give the most. Leaders who demand more of their people than they do of themselves quickly lose credibility with followers. However, leaders who commit to taking the first step demonstrate their belief in the vision, and they earn the right to ask others to follow.

2. Set them early

Have you ever boarded a train without being entirely sure if it was the correct one? If so, then you probably didn't feel at ease until the conductor announced its destination. Once you knew the route, you could relax and enjoy the ride.

Uncertainty causes anxiety. People have an innate need to know where they're headed. They want goals to guide them and targets to hit. By communicating expectations early, leaders provide direction.

People feel secure when they know the plan and have a good idea of what the future holds.

3. Set them clearly

Confusion breeds frustration. When a leader fails to communicate clear expectations, people must guess at what he or she wants. Oftentimes those assumptions do not line up with the leader's desires, causing followers to misspend time or squander energy.

Clearly communicated expectations spell out a leader's vision and define everyone's roles and responsibilities. Unambiguous expectations also align activity, provide structure and promote harmony. Serving as a reference point, clear expectations allow people to evaluate their performance and gauge whether or not they succeeding.

4. Set them optimistically

People generally perform in a way that's consistent with our expectations of them. That's why it's important to believe the best about those around you. When we give others a worthwhile reputation to uphold, they will stretch to meet our expectations. However, if we view others negatively, then we're likely to treat them without respect. In turn, sensing we dislike them, people are apt to put in minimum effort and to confirm our suspicions of them.

5. Set them realistically 
Inexperienced leaders have a nasty habit of offering more than they, or their teams can give. In doing so, they damage their character, sever relationships with customers and discourage those they lead. In making exaggerated claims to gain business, they actually lose business in the long run after failing to come through.

Under promise and over deliver. Be sensible about your commitments and diligently follow through on them. You don't get credit for intentions, only for accomplishment. Set your people up for success by setting aggressive but attainable goals for them.

6. Exceed them consistently

Go above and beyond what others expect from you as a leader. People expect you to be fair, but be generous as well. People expect you to respect them, but show you care for them, too.

People expect you to be judicious when you exercise authority, but be willing to serve also. Over time, as you exceed expectations, talented people will flock to your organisation. Everyone wants to work for a leader who has his or her best interests in mind and leads with excellence on a consistent basis.

Written by John C. Maxwell

Building a Leader

Building a Leader

First thing you need to do is motivate the employee. 

How you do that is to first give your employee a goal to reach. 

Now you will have to find a way to sale the vision that your employee needs to reach to them. 

This can be done by showing them that you can reach that goal yourself. 

This is what most people call leading from the front. 

Now that they have seen you do it, this is where the magic happens. 

It’s where they believe in you as a leader. 

Once that has happened they learn whatever you what them to. 

Keep setting goals for them to reach. 

Once they can duplicate what you have done for them then they are a leader.

Become An Effective Team Leader

Become An Effective Team Leader

Do you believe you are an effective leader and have all the desired leadership properties? Do you have what it takes to lead a team to success? Being an effective leader is a tough task and many people fail to perform their leadership duties properly. When your boss assigns you to a leadership position, he expects you to be able to deal with the team members effectively and without any difficulties. A team leader has to act like he is the boss and his team members comprise of an organization. An effective team leader must work to enhance both the output of his individual team members and that of the entire team as a whole. However, achieving this goal is easier said than done. Dealing with a group of people who have to work together towards a common goal is not easy. Conflicts and disagreements arise on constant basis and the team leader has to deal with them effectively in order to get the desired results.


Some golden rules that can help you in becoming an effective team leader are:

Eliminate Competition


While healthy competition is good for any work environment, too much competitiveness among the team mates can be negative for the productivity of the team. If the team members become obsessed with out shining one another they might end up making serious mistakes which might cause problems for the team as a whole. Make sure that the team members work well and try to curb unhealthy competition let your team members know that you value quality more than quantity so that they work harder on achieving important goals rather than working on more thing than they can handle just to score a point.


Deal With Conflicts


Conflicts and disagreements tend to inhibit the team spirit and create differences among the team mates. Sometimes petty conflicts are blown out of proportions to such an extent that the team members refuse to even work together, which his hazardous for the team manager. Even if they are forced to work to together, there are little chances that the estranged team members will be able to work at their maximum potential. An effective team leader would know how to deal with such team members effectively and efficiently. Try to make sure that no major conflicts among the team members arise and even if they do, jump in and try to cool them off before things get ugly. You have to address the underlying cause of such problems so that the conflicts do not keep on surfacing from time to time.


Delegate Properly


An effective team leader must be able to delegate his work properly and efficiently. For this to happen, a team leader must know all his team members well. He must know their strengths and weaknesses and must use this knowledge to delegate the work properly. If, as a team leader, you fail to distribute work load evenly and according to the specialties of all the team members, discontent is bound to arise. Team members might feel that they have been given undue work load and you come off looking like a bad team leader who is incapable of accomplishing the tasks that were assigned to him. Remember, the team members should not under any circumstances feel like you are putting your burden on them.


Communicate


Communication is the most important aspect in any professional environment. As a team leader you must be open and communicative with the team members, so that they can come to you if they have any issues. If the team members feel like the team leader is not listening to what they have to say and what problems are they facing, they will lose focus and their work is bound to suffer. If you are a team leader, make sure that your team mates are able to communicate with you whenever they have a problem. Listen to what they have to say and do not dismiss their problems lightly. Try to find a solution and redress the problems as soon as possible so that the team members feel valued.


Make Quick Decisions


Being a team leader, you must be prepared to make quick and practical decisions so that the team members do not lose their focus. If you stall and make excuses when the team members are relying on you for a decision, the team members will feel that you are not a suitable person to guide them and hence are bound to fail them. This will make them lose faith and will jeopardize your entire projects. So at all times, remain focused, sharp and calm so that you can make a quick decision when needed.


Motivated Others


Keeping the team members motivated is one of the most important tasks that a team leader is supposed to accomplish. Team members need to be constantly revitalized as they are bound to lose enthusiasm and motivation as the project lingers on. Keep reassuring them that they are working well and praise them when it is due.


Be Assertive


A team leader has to be assertive, if nothing else. Team work is a difficult arena and tem members often get so caught up in work that they completely lose focus. As a team manager, it is your duty to make sure that the team keeps working on the goals and keeps delivering jobs on time. As a team leader you cannot afford to miss deadlines and if most of the times you have to be assertive to make sure that you get the work done. However, keep in mind that there is a difference between being assertive and bossy. You must be forceful, but remain polite and amiable all the while as this approach will bear more fruitful results.


Take Responsibility


An effective team leader must realize that his job is not only to guide the people in his team but also to take responsibility if anything does not go according to the plan and the projects suffers from some kind of setbacks. The team leader must act like the captain of a ship, who never abandons the ship even if it is drowning. Remember if you try to pin the fault on some of your team members, it will not only alienate you from the team members but also create a bad impression on the boss who expects you to act like a professional and take responsibility the failure of your team.


Be A Team Player


A good team leader must also be a team player who does not antagonize his team members by acting bossy. Moreover a team player always gives credit where it is due. Snatching the lime light from one of your team members is a very ill advised move as it is not only unfair but will also be perilous for the team spirit. Make sure that when a team member performs well, he gets his due credit so that others also get motivated to perform at their level best.


Conclusion


An effective team leader is one who can steer his entire team to success while keeping them motivated and on the right track. Being a team leader is a lot of responsibility and a lot of people fail to perform their leadership tasks properly. While it is true that some people are born leaders, it is also true that strong leadership qualities can be established with a little hard work and dedication.

What do you think are the keys to effective leadership?

What do you think are the keys to effective leadership?

 It’s really being able to listen to people. So much of leadership, I’ve come to learn, is about getting a team to work together. It’s not about being smart. It helps, but it’s not about that. It’s really about being able to bring together a group of people, get the best out of them and get them wanting to work as a unit toward some goal post. I think the building blocks that go into that are listening to people, really understanding what motivates them and getting them to push themselves beyond their comfort zones.

And all of that is really having a basic psychological understanding and genuine interest in the people you’re trying to build a team with. I think if you come at leadership with an attitude of, “I’m going to do this, and these people are going to follow me and be my support team,” you’ll lose. Initially, my sense of leadership was to be the military general out in front of the troops and the first one rushing into battle.

You have to be a leader. You have to be visible. People have to know that you’re in charge and that you’re leading the charge.
I think it’s really important that each member of my team feel that they’re on the front lines of their own area, and I’m pushing them more and more into stuff they don’t necessarily know how to do.

Ask a lot more questions and make a lot fewer statements. Leadership is really about asking questions and letting people answer them. I think it’s the only way you get your team to think. If you’re constantly talking at them, they don’t have to think. So, it’s the way to put them on the front line. My job is to get the questions out and have people answer the questions.

Are you a Leader or just a Boss?

Are you a Leader or just a Boss?

by GEORGE AMBLER on SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2010

I often find that many people often use leadership with positional power. We tend to believe that a person in a position of authority or someone with a title, has their position or title due to their leadership qualities. However, in many cases there is no correlation between someone’s position and their leadership ability. Just having a title does not make you a leader, leaderships is about influence. Title only buys you time to exercise true leadership, and in this time your leadership either increases or diminishes and eventually fails. There is a huge difference between being a boss  and being a leader…! Consider the following…

“The boss drives group members; the leader coaches them. 
The boss depends upon authority; the leader on good will. 
The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm. 
The boss says ‘I’; the leader says ‘we.’ 
The boss assigns the task, the leader sets the pace. 
The boss says, ‘Get there on time’; the leader gets there ahead of time. 
The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown. 
The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how. 
The boss makes work a drudgery; the leader makes it a game. 
The boss says, ‘Go’; the leader says, ‘Let’s go.’“

– Author unknown

People follow the boss because they have to if they want to keep their jobs. People follow leaders because of who they are and were they are going.  Too many leaders today rely on their position to lead. How about you?

Power of Gold

THE FIVE LAWS OF GOLD
I. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than
one-tenth of his earngs to create an estate for his future and that of his family.
II. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable
employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.
III. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of
men wise in its handling.
IV. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which
he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.
V. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the
alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic
desires in investment.