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Can You Identify with These 5 Leadership Traits

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Dear Friend:

I recently attended a seminar on leadership that really struck a chord with me. I heard Steve Harrison, founder of Lee Hecht Harrison, a large career management consulting firm, speak about his personal experience transitioning from founder to manager. Harrison spoke of his struggle in being able to let-go of managing day-to-day operations to become the leader his firm needed to grow.

As I listened to Harrison, I was reminded of the challenges I’ve heard many of you express about growing your businesses and, of how important a role leadership plays in this endeavor. It's tough to grow a business, if you are not a leader. While it is fresh in my mind, I thought now would be a great time to share some insights into leadership that I've picked up in my graduate business work and, then built on through my years of growing multiple teams and businesses worldwide.

Mitch Lapides, Executive Editor
HomeTech Building Business Ideas

Mitch Lapides

 

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Can You Identify with These 5 Leadership Traits?
Many people will argue that leaders are born, not developed. Let's get this argument out of the way – and quickly. Yes, some people have a natural tendency to exhibit certain leadership traits. But, let's accept leadership traits for what they are and not assume that you can't learn each and every one. With commitment, diligence and perseverance, if you want to become a leader, you can develop leadership traits that you may not come by naturally.

Trait #1: Respect
Treat those around you with respect and you will engender loyalty and confidence, quality work and happy people. The old adage of "you can get more bees with honey than with salt" is applicable when discussing your behavior towards other people. By treating others with respect, you are showing them that you believe in them and their abilities and they, in turn, will want to help you in any way they can.

Respect should be the driving behavior with everyone you interact. Receptionists, sub-contractors, your staff, your customers. They will appreciate it if you let them know that they matter to you and, will be encouraged to put 110% of their effort in to getting things done. Steve Harrison spoke to this in his talk, although he referred to them as decencies. Read more about his thoughts.

Trait #2: Vision
As described in John Maxwell’s The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, people buy into the leader first, and then the vision. Maxwell goes on to say, "They believe that if the cause is good enough, people will automatically buy into it and follow. But that's not how leadership really works. People don't at first follow worthy causes. They follow worthy leaders who promote worthwhile causes. People buy into the leader first, then the leader's vision."

I do believe, however, that it is important to have a vision and then to communicate it well. If we sit down and think about it, we could probably name 3 people who we believe are (were) visionaries – Bill Gates (Microsoft), Henry Ford (the automobile), Dr. Martin Luther King (equality) – for example. But each "visionary" who we name, probably would not classify themselves as such. Most likely, these visionaries, would all agree that they at some point, removed themselves from the day-to-day operations of what they were doing, and thought about where they wanted to go (or what they wanted to see happen). They then spent most of their time communicating this "plan" and working with others to see it come to fruition.

To have vision, you must dedicate time to thinking, strategizing and planning about your future direction. Plan for what you want to accomplish in six months, a year, six years. Then, communicate this plan and work with others to see it implemented. Get input from your team at every step and, don't be afraid to make modifications along the way.

Trait #3: Enthusiasm
If you're ho-hum, then people around you will be ho-hum too. Enthusiasm is infectious. By showing people how excited you are about work that has been done or a future opportunity, you are reinforcing how great it is to work on something or encouraging them to join in "the fun" and take part in something that could be great.

Your enthusiasm will make those around you feel good about the contribution they are making and encourage them to want to contribute more. Everyone wants to feel good about what they are doing. Everyone wants things to look forward to. Show your enthusiasm, and you'll get the people around you excited to work with you.

Trait #4: Self Confidence
Self confidence generally means self-assurance – being able to be secure in your decisions and freed from guilt for prior mistakes. Self-confidence does not require that you be 100% "right" 100% of the time. It simply means that you believe you'll be able to do what you set out to do.

By showing others that you believe in yourself, they will believe in you too and want to follow your lead.

Trait #5: Knowledge
Knowledge does not mean intelligence. Knowledge means a good, working understanding of the issue at hand. And, what's great about knowledge is that it can always be gained. By observing, studying and learning you can increase your knowledge on most every subject.

As a leader, it is powerful to share your knowledge. It is also powerful to let others know that if needed, you will "study-up" on something to gain the required knowledge to get that something done. And, those around you will be encouraged to increase their knowledge just knowing that you are putting effort in to doing so as well.

As you grow your business, it is important that you develop your leadership traits and show these leadership qualities to your team. As your business changes and you move yourself out of the day-to-day operations, your team will want to know that they are being led, not just stumbling upon, a new direction.

To have vision, you must dedicate time to thinking, strategizing and planning about your future direction.

 

Additional Resources
Developing the Leader Within You (paperback)

The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow (hardcover)  

The Manager’s Book of Decencies (hardcover)

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
(hardcover)

Use the "Change Markup" Feature and Save Time

Save time using the "Change Markup" feature in the "Right-Click Menu" to change the markup percent on individual or multiple estimate line items. Changing markups for a group of estimate line items saves time versus changing each line item markup individually.

For more on how you can save time when estimating, click here.

Read more on this month's tip »

Remodeling Industry Facts and Figures
The Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) is projecting that remodeling expenditures will continue to grow at an annual rate of about 3% through the 1st quarter of 2008. While significantly below the 15-20% annual growth rates experienced between 2004 and mid-2006 the indicators are not currently projecting the declines evident in the new home construction sector.

Source:
Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA), Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University
July 2007

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