Leadership Success
Six Keys For Success

Lessons In Leadership

There are six key pieces to your leadership success. We will take you through each of these key areas. The Six Keys to Leadership Success include:

1. Assess Yourself Honestly - The first key to your success is the extent to which you are objective and honest in appraising your own strengths and weaknesses.

   You must be open to feedback in order to target areas for improvement.

   Seeking further input from others is helpful, but it is important that you acknowledge and take responsibility for the areas that you can improve.

   Utilize leadership tools and resources that will enable you to address key areas most effectively.

2. Capitalize On Your Strengths - It’s important that you identify areas of strength. Leaders must look for ways to increase the opportunities to exploit their strengths.

   Leveraging your areas of strength will improve your overall effectiveness if you utilize those strengths to maintain a prominence while working on your areas of weakness.

   It is important, however, that you do not allow yourself to continually fall back on your strengths to the exclusion of developing weaker areas. You must continually seek to grow and learn.

3. Establish Reasonable Targets - The extent to which your leadership plan targets reasonable or “doable” interim goals, rather than lofty, over-optimistic goals, is crucial to your long-term success.

   The feeling of accomplishment at the completion of each small step will help propel you to your next incremental target.

   Step-by-step you will find yourself quickly on your way to achieving your ultimate leadership goals.

4. Make A Commitment - Developing and benefiting from any leadership plan requires commitment and effort.

   The extent to which you are committed to devoting the necessary energy, time and resources into learning, is what will determine the success or failure of your personal development program.

   Your commitment can be determined in an instant, by making a single choice, a clear decision to improve yourself.

   The choice is yours, no one else can make the choice for you. Choose wisely.

5. Decide That Change Is Possible - Related to commitment is the recognition at the outset that change is both desirable and achievable.

   Throw out all cynicism or pessimism as to what is possible. These attributes do not serve you, rather, they keep you from living your dreams.

   Optimism and self-assurance along the way will invariably become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

   It is a defining characteristic of the human species that we undergo change throughout our lifetime. Change is inevitable; a self-improvement plan simply ensures that the changes you experience are targeted in a positive, constructive direction.

6. Be Pro-Actively Positive - While it is important to be honest in assessing your weaknesses, it is equally important that you maintain a positive attitude toward yourself, and your opportunities for success in your personal development efforts.

   Be aware of your strengths and use them as leverage to assist you in developing your weaker areas.

   Recognize your improvements, and reward yourself for achieving them.

As leaders we are constantly faced with situations where an employee just isn’t being successful in a particular task or situation.

This can occur with an experienced employee or someone who is newly hired.

Sometimes, however, it’s quite difficult to pin-point the cause or reason for a specific failure. When this happens, a leader can quickly determine the root cause by following this quick 3-step process.

1. Identify the situation clearly where action is not taking place (for you or others).
2. Review and identify which of the three elements below could be missing:
   • Commitment - does the person possess the motivation needed to be successful?
   • Competence - does the person possess the necessary knowledge, ability and skills?
   • Tools/Resources - is this person supported by the appropriate structure? Does she have adequate plans, resources and support material and equipment required to be successful?
3. What do you know at this point? Does the problem exist as a result of a lack of motivation or commitment? Is the person capable and competent in this area? Are all the tools and resources necessary for success present?

   Depending on which issue needs to be addressed, the related action for a thoughtful response is now staring you in the face. As a leader you can now respond and lead your team through this issue.

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