43. Clarity:
When great leaders speak, they are able to clearly relay their thoughts in a way that’s easy to understand.
Then they make sure there are no miscommunications and that their point(s) got across clearly.
This ensures projects and tasks that are delegated get done the right way and without mistakes.
44. Ability to teach:
Leaders need to be able to share the methodologies and processes that make their business run with the people they work with and hire.
If your managers are poorly trained, your staff will be poorly trained and it will reflect in your sales and operations.
Remember the best way to learn something your self is to teach it!
45. Interested in feedback:
In the same way great leaders are able to teach, they also value learning.
That involves being open to honest feedback and the ability to have a positive attitude about that feedback and use it make adjustments that benefit everyone.
46. Trust in your team:
This can be difficult, but your trust in your team largely depends on the people you hire, your ability to train them and the work you delegate to them.
If you believe in their ability to do those things, you need to trust your team to get the results you want and not micro-manage every project.
47. Ability to inspire:
Let’s face it, it’s difficult to love every part of your work no matter what you do.
But great leaders have the ability to inspire their team and make sure they know what they are doing has a bigger impact than they realize.
Nike is about celebrating athletics not sneakers, Apple is about changing the world, not computers. What are you about?
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
48. ID team strengths:
When delegating work, leaders know their team and their strengths inside and out.
They use that knowledge to decide who gets assigned which projects/tasks so that everything gets completed the right way.
49. Sharing your vision:
There are a lot of people out there who think they have the next great idea.
Sadly, as great as those ideas might be, they will never go anywhere if no one else knows about it.
Leaders have the ability to share their vision and get people to buy into their ideas.
50. Turning vision into reality:
Not only can leaders share their vision, they have the ability to break that vision down into steps and a strategy that can be understood by others and executed over time.
51. Get the best from others:
By understanding what people really want, you can help them better perform by properly incentivizing (not only with money) their work and progress towards larger goals.
To get the best from others a leader needs to understand their motivations, be positive, generous, open-minded and be able to control their attitude.
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
52. Understand what motivates others:
For better or worse, human beings tend to care mostly about themselves and are motivated by selfish altruism.
Simply put, you need to figure out what people want for them selves: Notoriety? Money? Recognition? Understand that to will be different for everyone.
53. Takes responsibly:
In the same way leaders are quick to give their team credit, they are also quick to take responsibility for negative outcomes.
Great leaders know that when they accept responsibility for their actions, they can postivey effect the outcomes.
A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit. – John Maxwell
54. Rewarding:
People often seek recognition from people they follow, that’s why it’s important to reward your team members for their input, especially when they go above and beyond.
Monetary rewards are nice, but thoughtful, personal rewards can be more impactful.
55. Evaluative:
Great leaders are able to carefully and quickly analyze a situation and/or person.
Being decisive doesn’t mean making a decision quickly, it means making the right decisions in a practical, timely manner.
Don’t allow your decisiveness to alienate team members from the decision making process.
56. Conduct effective meetings:
Sadly, most meeting are never as productive as they could be.
After all, if your an entrepreneur, you usually get to work with people that you like which can be distracting.
Effective leadership is about using meeting time as effectively as possible.
Start by having an agenda, eliminate distractions, have a start/end time (no exceptions), encourage everyone to contribute, encourage note taking and follow up after the meeting.
57. Respect for others:
When you show respect towards other people, it is much easier to build meaningful, beneficial relationships.
You need to keep your promises, don’t waste their time, stop gossiping, believe in other’s ideas, stand up for them and truly care about their well-being.
58. Coaching key people:
It’s one thing to identify your top performing employees, but you also need to nurture their success and help them grow within your organization.
In order for you to successfully lead a growing number of people, you need to enable your key people to lead as well and help push progress forward.
Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. – John C. Maxwell
59. Enable others to act:
Unless their are strict guidelines/regulations or safety concerns, if you don’t allow your followers to make their own decisions they likely will find reasons to disagree with yours.
You can enable others to act by giving them the tools and processes they need to succeed, trust them to handle the rest.
60. Set Expectations:
People don’t like to be surprised, that’s why it’s important to layout and agree to the expectations in place so everyone is one the same page from day one.
To make sure expectations are crystal clear, start by providing structure, clarifying roles, set motivating goals and continuously give/ask for feedback.
61. Fair:
Some traits are more important than others.
When it comes to leadership, the ability to judge situations and people with fairness is essential because it shows them how you value them.
There’s many examples in history of leaders who took advantage of the people they were leading, things hardly ever worked out in their favor.
The leaders who are fair to people, are the ones who are loved and remembered.
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