Leadership success is built on our ability to communicate and coordinate the best efforts of a group of people to reach a common goal. Successful leaders understand this is best accomplished by drawing on the strengths and desires of those they guide.
According to Alan Loy McGinnis, there are 12 principles for effectively leading and coaching people. They are summarized here.
· Expect the best from the people you lead. Envision them as they could be, not as they are. Don’t limit them by expecting less than their best.
· Make a thorough study of the other person’s needs. Each person on your team is an individual with specific strengths, weaknesses, needs and dreams. Taking time to know them makes it easier to lead and direct them for mutual success.
· Establish high standards for excellence. Leaders fail when they accept mediocre results or don’t set high standards. Don’t be afraid to challenge your team to live up to and surpass achievable goals and standards of excellence.
· Create an environment where failure is not fatal. Mistakes are a natural part of life, and taking risks means occasionally falling short of the goal. If your team feels supported and encouraged, it will take risks and move past its comfort zone into the winners’ zone.
· If they are going anywhere near where you want to go, climb on other people’s bandwagons. At times, it works best to let others lead and be the supportive cheerleader, coach and champion for their success.
· Use models to encourage success. This goes to the heart of leadership by example. Make sure the principles of success that you point to are modeled in your own life and in the lives of those you promote and delegate to succeed. When you take personal responsibility for your success in any leadership role, you encourage those you guide to follow suit.
· Recognize and applaud achievement. People do not work simply for money. Deep inside each of us is the need to feel appreciated and important. As a leader, the most effective thing we can do is to recognize achievement and effort from those we lead, and to share and publicly applaud their accomplishments.
· Employ a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement. While it’s a good thing to provide praise and positive reinforcement for our team members’ efforts, it’s also necessary at time to take the opposite stance when one of them is doing something detrimental in the fulfillment of their role. Letting them know what is not acceptable is also part of a leader’s role. After all, people do seem to appreciate knowing their boundaries.
· Appeal sparingly to the competitive urge. Each of us has a natural competitive edge. If used wisely, competition can be a great tool to higher achievement, but it shouldn’t allow divisive attitudes to creep into a team environment. Focus on the team accomplishment and mutual win. Encourage each member to compete for higher standards and personal skill development.
· Place a premium on collaboration. This is where team “works,” and where effective leaders learn to weave people from diverse backgrounds, agendas and experiences into an effective unit. Brainstorming is one way of effective collaboration, allowing each to build and draw on the brainpower of another.
· Build into the group an allowance for storms. It is not always smooth sailing as a leader or manager of team efforts. Storms, challenges, detours and disasters can strike when you least expect them. As a leader you need to build in allowances for these unexpected obstacles in your team’s progress and have some back-up plans in place.
· Take steps to keep your own motivation high. You are “on” as a leader all the time. This means people will be looking at you and taking their cue from you. So you need to keep your personal motivation high and maintain a positive outward attitude. You may need to find a trusted advisor or an experienced coach who you can discuss your doubts with in private. Letting your negative feelings show can be devastating to your team.