So You Thought You Knew A Thing Or Five About Leadership!

The most common things we know about leadership often disguise other leadership ideas that we have failed to identify or comprehend.

Leaders - They Come In All Shapes And Sizes.

I think we all realise the truth of this one. During the course of our lifetime we will inevitably meet or come across a wide range of different types of leaders good, bad and average. There are the formal leaders which are those persons elected to leadership roles within the community ie politicians, board chairpersons, club presidents and so on. Then there are the informal leaders - people with experience and wisdom that are acknowledged leaders in their particular fields of expertise. Both types of leaders incorporate a combination of different leadership styles.

Leadership - It Is A Process.

Some people are 'born leaders' and can assume a leadership role based on this innate ability although they may not always develop to their full potential without training and exposure to things throughout their lifetime that push them to grow and expand. Leadership ability for most of us though is a life long process that we develop through exposure to knowledge, circumstances and situations that allow us to learn new skills, increase our knowledge, develop the right attitude and mindset - leaders are readers.

Leadership - It Most Assuredly Starts With You.

"Action speaks louder than words".... Our every day actions contribute to how we are perceived as a leader. This includes the way we deal with our family, our friends and our co-workers. It involves how we run our personal and business responsibilites and even the way we talk to other people.

Habits develop out of repeated actions and our characters are formed by our habits. So it is important to repeat the actions that develop the right habits and through this we can shape our characters in the right way.

Leadership Is Shared.

Leaders by definition operate as part of a group or groups in which each member has responsibilities and work to perform. Effective leaders teach, develop and encourage group members to work together to fullfill their responsibilities as part of a shared team goal. They build up trust and confidence within their teams based on their actions and not just on their words and create an environment of mutual respect.

Leadership Styles Should Evolve Depending On The Situation At Hand.

Leaders need to be able to think on their feet and adapt their leadership style to suit the situation at hand. Some situations call for forceful action on the part of the leader (think of emergency situations) whilst other situations may require a softly softly approach. Good leaders learn to recognise what types of actions are appropriate for a given set of circumstances and then apply the appropriate style of leadership behaviour.

The SMART Way To Set Goals

 AKA “success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal”. 

When you envision yourself being successful, what do you think of?  What goals do you have?  What have you done to facilitate those goals or progressively realise that ‘worthy ideal’ of yours?

Each of us have a different perception of success.  That doesn’t make it any less viable or important than the dreams of the person standing next to you.  It just means you are different, you are an individual and so long as you achieve whatever it is you want to achieve, that makes it a worthy ideal.

However, every worthy ideal, every dream, has one thing in common….

….if you want them to come true you must set yourself some goals.

Most of us are familiar with the vague statement “yes, I must get around to doing that sometime”.  Somehow, ‘sometime’ never seems to arrive and before you know it you’re staring old age in the face and you still haven’t ‘gotten around’ to doing whatever it was you determined you wanted to do.  This is not strictly speaking ‘setting goals’.  This is identifying and expressing a desire or wish but then never doing anything about it. 

Setting a goal involves actually making some plans to do something about achieving it.  It means writing down some objectives and then setting yourself time frames within which to achieve those objectives.  These timeframes need to be realistic, reasonable and measurable in terms of achievement.  That is what ‘setting goals’ means.

Yup, that is ‘smart thinking’ 99.  But SMART is also an acronym.

Specific – your goals must be specific.  There is no point saying ‘I will make some money online’.  How much is ‘some money’?  There are programs out there that pay pennies and technically that is still making ‘some money online’.  Realistically though, is that your goal – to make a few cents for several hours of work?  I’m sure it isn’t but if you don’t specify how much money you want to make then you’ll never know whether or not you’ve reached any sort of goal.  What you need to say is – “I am going to make $500 this month online”.  At month end you look at how much you’ve made and assess whether or not you’ve reached your goal within the specified time frame.

Measurable – make your goals measurable.  “I want to make money online” is ambiguous.  Do you want to make a few cents online or do you want to make $X amount on line?  Be precise; give yourself a clear objective – say “I will make $500 a month online”.  That is a simple, measurable goal.

Achievable – ever tried to achieve the unachievable??  “I want to earn $500 online this week” is probably not going to be achievable unless you’re already an experienced online operator, in which case you should already know all this stuff anyway.  At this point many will throw up their hands, tell you ‘it doesn’t work’ and walk away.  In reality though they’ve set themselves up for failure by setting a goal that is not achievable.  “I will be earning $500 online a month within 12 months” is a much more achievable goal for most of us.

Realistic – this goes hand in hand with Achievable.  Make realistic goals.  “I want to be earning $500 online a month in 12 months time” is a lot more realistic than “I want to earn $500 online this week”.  Sure, if you know that you have the ability and commitment (and know how) to make that $500 online this week then by all means set that as your goal.  In your case it will be realistic but for the rest of us, if we honestly evaluate ourselves, it is not a realistic goal.

Time Framed – give your goals a time frame.  This gives your goal structure.  “I want to make money online” has no time frame, not even if you set a $ value to it.  So do you want to make money online this year, or next year, or the year after?  Do you want to still be thinking and talking about ‘making money online’ when you’re penniless and hobbling about on a zimmer frame in an old people’s home in your 90’s?   Of course you don’t so set a time frame.  Say “I want to be earning $500 a month online in 12 months time and in 5 years time I want to be making $10,000 (or $20,000 or whatever) a month online”.  Put an end date to the goal so that there is a sense of urgency and purpose about achieving it and a reason to get started on the path to achieving it.  It also makes it easier to monitor your progress ie in 6 months time you should be well on the way to earning at least half that per month.