What gives a man or woman the right to lead..?

What gives a man or woman the right to lead..?

 

It certainly isn't gained by election or appointment. Having position, title, rank, or degrees doesn't qualify anyone to lead other people. And the ability doesn't come automatically from age or experience, either.

 

No, it would be accurate to say that no one can be given the right to lead. The right to lead can only be earned. And that takes time.

 

The key to becoming an effective leader is not to focus on making other people follow, but on making yourself the kind of person they want to follow. You must become someone others can trust to take them where they want to go.

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As you prepare yourself to become a better leader, use the following guidelines to help you grow:

 

1.Let go of your ego.

The truly great leaders are not in leadership for personal gain. They lead in order to serve other people. Perhaps that is why Lawrence D. Bell remarked, "Show me a man who cannot bother to do little things, and I'll show you a man who cannot be trusted to do big things."

 

2.Become a good follower first.

Rare is the effective leader who didn't learn to become a good follower first. That is why a leadership institution such as the United State Military Academy teaches its officers to become effective followers first - and why West Point has produced more leaders than the Harvard Business School.

 

3.Build positive relationships.

Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less. That means it is by nature relational. Today's generation of leaders seem particularly aware of this because title and position mean so little to them. They know intuitively that people go along with people they get along with.

 

4.Work with excellence.

No one respects and follows mediocrity. Leaders who earn the right to lead give their all to what they do. They bring into play not only their skills and talents, but also great passion and hard work. They perform on the highest level of which they are capable.

 

5.Rely on discipline, not emotion.

Leadership is often easy during the good times. It's when everything seems to be against you - when you're out of energy, and you don't want to lead - that you earn your place as a leader. During every season of life, leaders face crucial moments when they must choose between gearing up or giving up. To make it through those times, rely on the rock of discipline, not the shifting sand of emotion.

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6.Make adding value your goal.

When you look at the leaders whose names are revered long after they have finished leading, you find that they were men and women who helped people to live better lives and reach their potential. That is the highest calling of leadership - and its highest value.

 

7.Give your power away.

One of the ironies of leadership is that you become a better leader by sharing whatever power you have, not by saving it all for yourself. You're meant to be a river, not a reservoir. If you use your power to empower others, your leadership will extend far beyond your grasp.

 

Leadership isn't learned or earned in a moment.

with lots of love & regards 

 

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What are regarded as entrepreneurial skills?

A wide range of skills are seen as entrepreneurial and useful to entrepreneurs, these include both personal traits and skills:

• Management skills - the ability to manage time and people (both yourself and others) successfully
• Communication skills and the ability to sell ideas and persuade others
• The ability to work both as part of a team and independently
• Able to plan, coordinate and organise effectively
• Financial literacy
• Able to research effectively, for example available markets, suppliers, customers and the competition
• Self motivated and disciplined
• Adaptable
• Innovative thinking and creative
• The ability to multi-task
• Able to take responsibility and make decisions
• The ability to work under pressure
• Perseverance
• Competitiveness
• Willingness to take risks
• Ability to network and make contacts

Many, if not all of these skills and traits are also useful to intrapreneurs, those who are entrepreneurial within an existing organisation (internal entrepreneurs). These skills and traits would also benefit all employees within a business and so are useful for graduates to have. Many of these skills, such as communication skills and the ability to work as part of a team, are already promoted within existing degrees.

In addition to those more general skills listed above, other more specific or business related skills, will be of use to entrepreneurs, these may include:

• being able to draw up a business plan for a new venture
• being able to market and sell a new product or idea
• financial skills, such as book-keeping and calculating tax
• awareness of intellectual property and possibly patent law

Must-Have Skills for Entrepreneurs

Must-Have Skills for Entrepreneurs
	What skills do you need to have to succeed in business? Know the five must-have skills you need to have as an entrepreneur and develop to succeed in today's competitive market. by Lyve Alexis Pleshette Senior Staff Writer, PowerHomeBiz.com

 

You've decided that you want to get out of the corporate rat-race and be your own boss. As you begin planning how to start your own business from home, you begin listing down what you want to do and what you can do. You tell yourself that you love to do a little bit of everything  you can do research, Web design, write, with a 10 years experience in legal and administrative support. But then, you ask yourself, "What skills do I really need to have to succeed as a home based entrepreneur?" If you are thinking of starting a business, you will need a broad array of entrepreneurial skills to succeed in today's competitive market. You must possess basic skills necessary to enable you to start, develop, finance, and market your own home business enterprises. There are a number of qualities and skills you need to have, including personal attributes, business skills and management capability. While you may not have all of them right now, there are five basic skills you really must have to run any kind of business. These five skills are: 1. Sales and marketing skills. Sales and marketing are the two most important skills you must have when you plan to start your own business. A business is nothing if it has no customers. You may have the fanciest computer with the latest graphics software, but if no one is knocking at your door to hire you as a graphic designer, then you better rethink why you are in business in the first place. Maybe you are better off employed by a firm. To have revenues and profits, you first need to have customers. To get customers, you must be able to market your business and possess the skills to close the sale. As you plan your business, you must begin to think how to reach your target audience and the people who may need your products or service. This entails understanding the concept of marketing, and using the tools that your budget permits. You must have a knack for understanding what people wants, listening to their needs, and interact well with other people. It would be extremely helpful if you possess excellent written and oral communication skills to help you sell your products and services (more so if you are a solo entrepreneur who will be doing everything by yourself). You need to create a buzz about your business by talking to people and presenting to them your business. You need to write ads, press releases and story ideas about your business. Starting a business is a time to get out of your timid self and begin to aggressively market your venture. That's the only way you can succeed. 2. Financial know-how. You are in business to make money. Therefore, the most important skill you must have is the ability to handle money well. This includes knowing how to stretch the limited start-up capital that you have, spending only when needed and making do with the equipment and supplies that you currently have. You also need to identify the best pricing structure for your business in order to get the best kind of return for your products or services. Success in business is not limited to those who have tons of capital in the beginning. Look at the failed dot-coms with funding of as much as $100 million. Even if they are awash with cash, they still ended up as a failure because they were not able to manage their money well. They lavished themselves with high-tech office furniture and gave their CEOs fancy jets to fly, only to have their cash flow depleted in less than a year. If you are able to manage your cash flow well when the business starts to run, you will be able to survive the ups and downs of self employment. The important thing is to always focus on the bottomline. For every spending, always ask yourself: "How much will this contribute to my bottom line?" If it will not give your business anything in return financially, better think twice before opening your wallet. 3. Self-motivation skills. As an entrepreneur, you do not have the luxury of bosses and bureaucracy to tell you what needs to be done. Everything rests on your shoulder ­ from thinking where to get the money to fund the business, to developing the product, to determining how to reach the customer, and so on. Only you will create the plans, and change them should the situation shifts. You need to be smart enough to know when you need to go ahead, and when to stop. To succeed in business, you must be a self-starter with a clear desired goal in mind. You must have the confidence in yourself, and in your ideas (how can you sell your ideas to others if you yourself do not believe in them?). More importantly, you must be willing to focus your energy and work hard towards each and every step that will make your enterprise a success. Especially if you work at home, it is doubly hard to get into the work mindset: sometimes, the television is just too tempting that it is hard to get out of your pajamas and begin typing in your computer. You therefore must have that extra drive and commitment to make sure that you are taking the necessary steps to make your dream of a successful business a reality. 4. Time management skills. The ability to plan your day and manage time is particularly important for a home business. When you wake up in the morning, you must have a clear idea of the things you must do for the day. Especially if you are running a one-person operation, you must have the ability to multi-task ­ be the secretary at the start of the day typing all correspondences and emails, become the marketing man writing press releases before noon, make sales call in the afternoon, and become a bookkeeper before your closing hours. Imagine if you are selling products and you still have to create the products, deliver and fulfill the orders, rush to the bank to cash the checks. Lots of job for a simple home-based business! No, you don't have to be a superman (or superwoman). You simply have to know how to manage time and prioritize your tasks. One difficulty of working from home is that you can never seem to stop. There are simply too many things to do, as if work never stops (and it doesn't!). Part of having good time management skills is knowing when to stop and when to leave work, and begin doing your other roles in your family  as the husband, wife, mother or father. You must be able to know how to keep your home life separate from your work life, and ensure that there exists a balance between the two. 5. Administration skills. If you can afford to hire an assistant who will organize your office space and file your papers and mails, lucky you! However, most start-up entrepreneurs cannot afford such luxuries. Over and above the tasks of managing, marketing and planning your business, you also need to possess a great deal of administration skills. You need to file your receipts so tax time will not be a trip to Hades. You need to do all the work in terms of billing, printing invoices, collecting payments, and managing your receivables. Starting a business is never easy, even if you have the perfect background and possess all the above skills. Having all the needed skills and qualities will not even ensure your success. But having these basic skills will, at least, lessen the pain of the start-up process, giving you greater chance in seeing your business grow and prosper.

 

How to delegate

Delegation is a process, not a one-off activity, and it needs to be done well to ensure success. The steps of the process are set out below.

The amount of your time and the level of formality you apply to each step will depend on a number of factors: the nature of the task to be delegated, how critical it is and the level of experience of the person carrying it out. The key point is that you need to include all the steps to ensure success.

Step 1: Define the task

What is the nature of the task you are delegating? Make sure that you have a clear idea in your own mind about what it is you want done. It should meet the criteria for delegation (see What to delegate).

Part of the definition of the task should be to identify the actual customer of the task, internal or external, and decide what a successfully completed task would mean to them. If you don't know what this is, go and ask them!

Step 2: Choose the person

Consider the checklist in Who to delegate to. If the person to whom you are delegating a task needs any training, make sure it's in place before they start.

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather the wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. Antoine de Saint Exupery

Step 3: Agree objectives and scope

You need to explain what the job is and why you are delegating it to this person. This is critical.

You want to ensure that the person is enthusiastic and motivated to take on this work, and will not see it as just another task to add to their already lengthy to-do list.

You might also want to use the SMARTway of agreeing objectives:

·        Specific – it is very easy to give vague instructions that can be misinterpreted. Give clear guidance and agree together what the scope of the work is and what it isn't. Are you giving them authority to act, to make decisions, to spend money, or what? Are you asking for a recommendation, but might make a different decision if you disagree? It is essential to agree all of this in advance. Ensure understanding by getting feedback from the other person on what they think they have been asked to do.

·        Measurable – how will you measure success? Both of you need to understand what the success criteria are. Think about success in terms of benefits also, and what these mean to the task's cutomer, rather than just looking to the technical result.

·        Agreed – make sure that you both agree about all aspects of the task. People cannot be held responsible for something to which they have not agreed and they will be more committed if they have been allowed to contribute to its set up.

·        Realistic – this might seem obvious, but many people are given unreasonable targets or inadequate budgets. Set your people up for success, not failure. They may need resources – budget, equipment, other people's time. Whatever they need, it's your responsibility to make sure that it's available.

·        Time-bound – be clear about when things must be completed (both intermediate and final deliverables).

You may also need to inform others that you are delegating this work to this person. These others might include your boss, your peers and/or your customers. Involve the other person in thinking about this, so that they understand the full scope of the work, but do not leave it to them to let others know of their new responsibility. Pay particular attention to any internal politics or difficult situations that might be relevant.

Help your delegate to understand how this task fits into the bigger picture of the organisational goals and mission. This will give them a better sense of why it is important. Don't just assume that they will know this.

Step 4. Deal with any concerns or objections

Ensure they answer yes to the following questions:

1.            Do you know what to do?

2.    Do you have the resources you need?

3.    Can you do it?

4.    Will you deliver according to what we agreed?

Finally, when you have a yes to the first four questions, ask

5.            Is there anything else that needs to be discussed?

Please don't assume the answers. Actually ask the questions.

In effect, you are agreeing a contract with them. It is often a good idea to ask the person to send you an email detailing what they think they have contracted to do.

You need to carry through with this step because you absolutely must know if there are any concerns or objections lurking in the background that could derail the task. These might not even be related to the task: for example, the task may require someone to do something at a certain time each day that will then stop them from using their flexitime arrangements to collect their children from school.

A common reason for reluctance to take on a delegated task is the perceived zone of activity according to the following graph. Ideally you will be delegating tasks into the Stretch or Mastery zones.

The key here is that it is the perception of the delegatee that is important.

If you delegate a task to someone and they end up in the panic zone, you need to alter their perceptions, as they will not be able to perform while in this state. In order to get them, in their mind, to change zones, you must either increase their perception of their competence or decrease their perception of the difficulty of the task. You have several options to consider:

·        Point out that they have done something similar before – they may not have made the connection

·        Say that they can call on help from another person who has done it before

·        Show them how to do it

·        Send them on a training course

·        Break the task into pieces they consider manageable

·        Ensure they have understood the task correctly, as they may see difficulties where there are none

·        Redefine the task in terms they understand.

If you delegate a task and the person ends up in the drone zone, there is less you can do, but these types of routine, boring task still need to be done. Try to find some way of increasing the person's perception of the difficulty of the task, for example:

·        You can turn it into a challenge: for example, 'Sally did this last week in two hours'

·        Give them a reward task to do once the boring job is finished

·        Give them a frontal lobotomy (joking!)

·        Have them do it in parallel with another, more demanding, task

·        Have them think about ways to change the process, improving the task

·        Delegate two people to the task and make one of them responsible, and a teacher for the other.

Step 5: Let them get on with it

Having set them up, the important thing is to let them get on with it. Trust them to do the job. They will not do it exactly as you would – they may not even do it as well as you could – nevertheless, leave them to get on with it, unless you see something actually going wrong.

If things are going wrong, resist the urge to put them right. Clearly, you want things fixed as quickly as possible but, equally, you don't want to create a feeling among your team that you'll leap in and sort things out whenever they go wrong.

If there is a problem, firstly concentrate on the solution, rather than what caused the problem. Encourage a belief among your team that they can come to you safely and talk to you without being heavily criticised (so, 'how could you be so stupid?' is definitely not a recommended opener!). Also encourage them to come with a recommendation or, at least some ideas about what to do.

Make sure that your staff understand why the error occurred and that they agree both the action to be taken to put it right and the changes needed to prevent it happening again.

You want to create a culture where people are not so afraid to admit mistakes that they try and cover them up, but where they actively look for problems and are willing to come and talk to you about them.

Step 6: Monitor progress

You will have agreed review points when agreeing objectives. You need to stick to these – missing review meetings will indicate lack of commitment on your part and unscheduled reviews will give the impression that you are interfering. Make sure you cover all the action points from previous meetings and that you have done everything you promised to do!

The key here is doing sufficient monitoring to manage the risks. If someone is new to a task, you may ask them to bring their plan of action to you for approval before they actually start. If they have done the task successfully many times before, you may just need to know when it has been done. See Levels of delegation and there is also more in the topic on Risk Management.

Step 7: Coach them, where appropriate

You may choose to give formal coaching sessions, reviewing progress, checking concerns and previewing future actions. There will also be lots of other opportunities in day-to-day work. It is particularly valuable to listen for such opportunities. They might include occasions when

·        They ask for your advice

·        They ask you to solve a problem

·        They ask you to make a decision

·        They say something like 'I'm not sure how to... ' or 'I can't...'

·        You review a project or piece of work

·        You notice something that could be improved

·        You are involved in a team task with them.

A simple and effective approach to adopt whenever these opportunities occur is suggested below.

1.    Have helping this person to develop as your primary objective.

2.    Ask what they want to achieve.

3.    Ask questions.

·         Where have they got to?

·         What's working

·         What's not working?

·         What have they tried?

·         What else could they try?

4.    Add in any other options and suggestions of your own (if necessary).

5.    Ask them what they want to do.

6.    Ask them to let you know how it went.

7.    Praise them appropriately.

Motivation is like food for the brain. You cannot get enough in one sitting. It needs continual and regular refills. Unknown

See the Coaching topic for more help.

Step 8: Feedback on results

There are two things people want more than sex and money... recognition and praise. Mary Kay Ash

Clearly, you need to review with the person whether they have achieved their agreed objectives. More than this, you should discuss how well they have done – what went well and what could be improved. And, if they have succeeded, give them the full credit, both in private and in public.

This is also an ideal opportunity to discuss with them what their next stretching task could be.

A real leader faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune. Anon

If things have not been successful, you must review with them why things did not go to plan and deal with the problems. And then, always, always support them and take any flak that comes.

Remember the definition of delegation – you have trusted them with the authority to act on your behalf. This means that the result is still your responsibility and you must accept that, whatever happens. If you do this, you will build great trust and loyalty among your team. If you don't, you will undermine all the good work you have already done.