The Two Things To Do If You Really Want to Be an Effective Leader, Boss or Entrepreneur

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on.............."

There is no shortage of advice and counsel on the skills you need to be an effective leader, the things you ought to do to be a boss who motivates and gets the best from his/her team, or on the things to embrace to succeed as an entrepreneur and founder of an organization.  Everywhere there are lists of the things you need to master to be successful in these roles.

Forget all that.  Here are the two most important things you need to do in all those situations:

First.   Believe in those you hire or who work for you.  Really believe in them.  Yes, its important that people have credentials and experience, and that they fit into the culture of your organization.  That's part of believing in those people - in their abilities, in their potential, in their capacities, in their value and worth.  But truly investing your belief in them is an extra step.  If you don't believe in them as catalysts to your organization's success, if you don't trust their instincts and abilities, if you find you don't really care about them as people, then you shouldn't have hired them in the first place, and / or you shouldn't continue their employment at your organization.  You need to be highly confident that the people you have are the absolute best people for your organization at this point in time.  And you need to demonstrate that belief to them.

Second.  IF you truly believe in your people, then the second step in leadership, authority and entrepreneurism is to do everything you can to enable those people to do their jobs up to their full potential.  That includes providing them with ongoing professional development training and opportunities, creating an environment that allows and encourages them to succeed, and ongoing, continuing efforts to build up their self-esteem and confidence.  It includes being a mentor and a coach; taking an interest in their career trajectories.  Once you believe in someone, then your job is to help them shine.  You need to constantly reinforce their own self opinion of the rightness of their thinking and gut instincts.  No, that doesn't mean they will be right 100% of the time, rather it means that you trust them over time.  You may have to make critical suggestions from time to time, but always be supportive, and in a caring way.  The culture of your organization should reflect this "belief in the people" attitude.   If you don't believe in someone, they will know it, and that will, often times, negatively impact their performance; multiplied, it will harm the organization.  Highly successful organizations believe in their collective selves, and it shows.  That starts with your belief in your people.

First you believe in your people, or change the situation. Then you help those people to believe in themselves.

Follow these two rules, and you and your organization will maximize your continuing success.  Everything else, every other skill set you need, stems from these two rules.

A Note of Caution:  As the leader, the head of the team, the founder, the one in charge, you will provide direction, oversight and review of a team's work - thinking, process, approach, implementation and results.  That's your job.  That doesn't, however, mean micromanagement.  If you believe in your people, let them do their jobs and trust them.  Get out of their way. Micromanagement is a conceit and arrogance that says you don't believe in someone's ability - not in comparison with your own.  It's counterproductive, inefficient and toxic.  Countless icons of business, nonprofits, and government have all concluded that the secret to success is to find and retain people who are as, or more, gifted, talented, insightful, and smart as you are, then turn them loose.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry