“Leadership is a gift – a gift that requires you to set a direction; motivate, inspire, and develop others; and deliver results that matter.  It is also a journey.  It is about your experiences and the influence you have onothers.  Leadership is certainly about the work that gets done, but it is much more about how the work gets done and the relationships along the way.

A great story can motivate and inspire others.  It can impart a message.  Think about how your leadership story imparts a message.  Think about how your leadership story imparts a message, inspires, or motivates.  Remember, your leadership story lives in the hearts and minds of others, and you are constantly onstage as a leader.  Sometimes you can rehearse or plan ahead.  Other times, improvisation is needed.  Those around you will have expectations, assumptions, interpretations, and perceptions that impact your story.  For you to be at your best, others’ perceptions of you must be aligned with your story (p.129).”
 

From: Tobin, T. (2015).  Your leadership story: use your story to energize, inspire and motivate. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

1. Your philosophy of life and leadership determines the process by which you lead.
2. Your positive attitude affects everyone around you.
3. Your experience and past history of success provides comfort and assurance as you make decisions to move forward.
4. When you lead by example, there is nothing your people will not do for you and with you.
5. Your “likeability” can affect the quality and effectiveness of your leadership.  Be or become likeable.
6. Clear communication leads to understanding and action.
7. Responsibility is not given: it’s taken.
8. Collaboration will earn respect, results, and reputation.
9. Do what you say.  Fulfill what you promise.
10. Take more than a minute to praise, coach, inform and train.
11. Know the high ground of winning, and the stomping ground of defeat.
12. Resilience is your internal force to react, respond, and recover from events and people.
13. The courage to risk, be right, and be wrong.
14. Separate task from person.  Then assign them and combine them to achieve a positive outcome.
15. Reward individual and group achievement.
16. You must earn, not command, both trust and respect.
17. Encourage THEIR success to earn and achieve yours.
18. Your ability to influence people will manifest itself in successful outcomes.
19. Your reputation precedes you, and defines you.

19.5Legacy is built with single achievements piled high on one another (Gitomer, 2011, p. 17-21).

• What additional principles of leadership would you add to this list?

From:  Gitomer, J (2011).  Jeffrey gitomer’s little book of leadership: the 12.5 strengths of responsible, reliable, remarkable leaders that create results, rewards and resilience.  Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons

“When the young Beatles were performing at the Cavern Club n Liverpool in the early 1960's, they were unknown.  Enter Brian Epstein, who ran a family furniture store.  He had utterly no credentials to become the Beatles’ manager.  But they hired him and he was instrumental in helping them rise to fame.

Do you know what was the possibly his greatest contribution to the Beatles? His utter and total belief in their greatness, well before they were recognized by the broader public.

‘They were going to be bigger than Elvis,’ he confidently told anyone who would listen.  Epstein relentlessly promoted the group, eventually getting them a record deal. And they did become bigger than Elvis, ultimately selling over 1.4 billion records.  The Beatles innate talent was fundamental to their success, but Epstein’s unwavering belief in the young John, Paul, George, and Ringo was absolutely essential to their early development.

Start telling others how you believe in them (p.23).                  

•        Who are three people you can share your belief in them this week?

• Who has had the biggest impact on your career, do to their belief in you?  

From: Sobel, A. & Panas, J. Power relationships: 26 irrefutable laws for building extraordinary relationships.  Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.