3 Critical Skills of Effective Leaders.

Great leaders translate vision into decisive action — a skill that's especially vital in tough times. But what are those skills? Do you have a blind spot? Should you be doing more? First off — great leaders do three things — no more, no less:

1. They motivate their people.
2. They deliver information when required.
3. They help their people with obstacles.

That's it. As a leader, if you find yourself doing anything else, you're doing too much. Now let's look at each one:

They motivate their people.

The most successful leaders are those with the best people skills, especially during the most difficult circumstances. Poor communication and interpersonal relationships routinely thwart leaders who are otherwise technically competent. In order to succeed, leaders must be fully engaged with the individuals who make up their organization. This means an array of capabilities like coaching, mentoring and how to give constructive feedback which reinforces the behavior and motivation of your peak performers. The best tool to learn how to motivate is Dale Carnegie's: How to Win Friends and Influence People.

They deliver information when required.

What does this really mean? Incredibly efficient two-way communication. And the cruel joke is that most leaders had the chops to make their way up the ladder and succeed — now the skills that got them there (getting things done) have no place in leadership. You now have to communicate to your team to get things done. This is where most C- and VP level executives fail - you need to lead with greater impact by applying emotional intelligence to manage your team. The best tool to effectively communicate is Daniel Goleman's: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

They help their people with obstacles.

Here's the mistake all leaders make. When their people come to them with a problem — they spend time helping them brainstorm, choose and sometimes execute a solution. I've seen this happen time and time again. Great leaders ask their people to come to them when they have a problem, but they also require their people to come with a solution too. 80-90% of the time, that solution is usually the best one and the team member is further empowered to make those tough decisions. On the off chance (that 10-20%) that your people might be wrong, you're there to help them investigate other options. For optimal delegation, seek out Michael Abrashoff's: It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy.

At the end of the day, you need to build a leadership style that creates trust, sets a clear vision and guides your entire team toward greater performance and profit. 

Ethical Leadership — You Need A Mastermind Group.

In Napoleon Hill's bestselling book, Think & Grow Rich, he introduces a practice called The Master Mind Group. As an executive who wants to succeed, you should regularly assemble a grouping of professionals who will help you learn, understand and grow.

They could be an attorney, an accountant, a financial planner, a marketing/pr consultant, etc. At the end of the day, you need a grouping of smart individuals who know their areas cold and can help you with any problem, situation, or opportunity that might arise. You meet with them on a quarterly basis, off-site, usually for a full day (you also pay them for their time).

Let's look at this idea through a lens to pursue a highly ethical leadership style: Can you use this Master Mind Group practice to help you maintain (or regain) your high ethical standards? Yes, you can.

Look at the makeup of the group. You need highly reputable professionals that abide by ethical standards in their respective vocations. Now we all know that there are some miscreants who buck the system ethically (we are not talking about them) — we want the best, the brightest, AND the most ethical.

Choose an attorney, accountant, or financial planner of the highest ethical standards . . . Why? Because they will steer you straight ALL THE TIME. Adopt a 'Definite Purpose' as an objective to be attained by the alliance, choosing individual members whose education, experience and influence are such as to make them of the greatest value in achieving that purpose.

There isn't any use in forming a Master Mind Alliance just to have someone to chat with. Your Master Mind will fail if you don't have a strong motive behind it, and it's up to you to plant that motive in the minds of the group members. Your allies for this group should be chosen for their ability to help you get to where you are going. Do not choose people simply because you know them and like them.

You want the hard truth — you want these members to steer you straight and give you valuable advice.

When you have established rapport, you will find that ideas will flow into the minds of each of the members and likewise into your own mind. When the Master Mind is in effect, it produces ideas that would not come to your mind alone. I have had that experience many times when sitting in on the many groups of which I am a member on a consulting basis.

But in the end, you want these professionals to keep you on the straight and narrow and to help you when you are pulled into shady territory by investors, the board, your peers, etc. You need a voice of reason to help you navigate these treacherous waters.

Fire The CEO! That Will Never Happen.

Read this today: "IBM Corp. this summer will lay off  hundreds of workers in the Hudson Valley region as part of a $1 billion company restructuring that could cut as many as 8,000 jobs worldwide." (link) The truth: Bad management decisions by the top impact the hard workers under them.

It happens time and time again - when the same cast of characters - The Board, Chairman, CEO, President, CFO, CMO, CIO, COO, CSO, (and many others) make decisions which are either good for Wall Street (to get that pennies per share price up) or good for them (so they can hold onto their jobs for another year).

It's the typical corporate country two-step - instead of innovation and growth - they focus on swaying to the gyrations of factory/office closings and staff reductions. Make a bad decision? Time to start firing up the guillotine! Instead of realizing that THEY (management) have made serious miscalculations of the market/their customers/their competition, they continue on in their role (with HUGE bonuses) while they slowly eviscerate the organization from the inside out.

Think of what IBM used to be (i.e., the Watsons) where they took bold ideas, acted upon them, and led the industry. They picked up on the PC, Laptops, Operating Systems, Enterprise Solutions, etc. What happened?

Why isn't IBM in mobile computing? They used to be a leader. Answer: Short sighted vision and watching-their-butt management. What can benefit management in the short term (just to get another year or two of outrageous bonuses) or playing the market so they can leave and land at their next gig (and do the exact same thing over again). I would love some news organization to start up a Bad CEO database so we can see where they turn up next — we can track them like Lo-Jack for executives.

And before I begin receiving rebuttals . . . I know . . . there are companies who are doing it the right way, IBM and other companies are reacting to industry changes, etc. I just find it's sad to see a leader in American technology lay off 8,000 workers. That's a LOT of good people. Also, I don't hate CEO's — I just hate BAD CEO's. And we all know who they are.

Failure: How You Deceive Yourself Everyday.

Wonder why you don't get certain things accomplished? Why you hit the same obstacles every time? It comes down to a simple phrase one of my clients so eloquently related to me the other day:

"I know the little games I play with myself."

You see, we all play games in our head. I know of no one who has a personality which is so buttoned up that they perform at optimum efficiency. We think we know some people like that — but the real truth is — they play games too.

The secret is knowing what the games are and why we do it. It's the what and the why that will deliver the insight you need to move past these games.

What games am I speaking of?

Do you dodge people at work? Do you procrastinate on important things? Do you show up late to appointments and meetings? Do you let important and timely decisions lay fallow until the 'right' moment? Again — we ALL do it. So let's pick an easy one:

"I am always late on paying my bills."

WHAT: "I don't open bills until the last minute." That's the reason or the game we play.

WHY: We are afraid of having reality hit us square in the face. We know we spent a lot this month — now the bill is here and is waiting to be paid. But it might not be as bad as you think. But you'll never know until you open it.

And when you do — it immediately forces you to make a decision — where am I going to get the money to pay this? Or if I don't have the money — I have to get it. I either have to work harder or borrow from savings. AND — here's the best part — it forces us to alter our behavior to ensure it doesn't happen again.

And that's the hard part. But I want you to now place yourself in the spot of someone who opens their bills immediately, schedules or pays them immediately, and moves on. How does that sound? How does that feel? Pretty good.

So why aren't you doing it?

Powerpoint: Do You Make These 5 Simple Slide Mistakes?

I can't tell you how many BAD presentations I've sat through. Let's just say — a lot. My major pet peeve centers around what your presentation slide background looks like. Now before you start your protestations (i.e., executives from organizations) — I totally understand you might have to stick with an approved slide background. I truly feel sorry for you. I was an executive for 20 years and for all internal (and many external) presentations, I broke the rules. No one ever took me to task — ever.

But here are my thoughts (in no special order):

1. "I have to have my logo on each slide!"

No you don't. Maybe your company requires you to have it there, but if you really looked into it, you probably don't need to.

Most of the time, you will need to begin (and end) the presentation with your logo, but for all intents and purposes, the inner slides will only need the information you're presenting. Now if you need to send/distribute the presentation, that's another story — see #5.

Slide real estate is at a premium and the inclusion of a repetitive logo on each slide (and the accompanying buffer around it) is a WASTE OF SPACE. Remember — the object of each slide is to be open, simple, and uncluttered so the audience can focus on the message. Repetitive logos, slide numbers, dates, and titles are not required.

2. "I have to have my company's colors on each slide!"

No you don't. Think of FedEx - purple and orange - imagine a background of purple and orange. OMG. Your job is to present a message to your audience — not hit them over the head with each slide. We've already dispatched the logo, let's work on the background colors.

When you work with a number of colors, shapes, or repetitive images, you are muddying the message. It's as if the audience is wearing 3D glasses and the movie isn't 3D. When you have a number of colors, shapes, lines, or gradations, it just makes it harder to see the font on the screen. Especially if the gradation moves from light to dark — try placing a phrase in black on a background that has a gradation from white to black. You won't see some of the letters — making it hard to read — equals lost message. It also looks juvenile.

3. "The audience can't see the words on my slide when I project on a screen!"

This happens ALL the time. Why? All projectors, screens, and room lighting are different — so you need to compensate for these changes. What I do is always work with a white background — you can never lose with white. It brightens up the screen, takes advantage of any projector bulb's shortcomings, and keeps people's focus on the screen. In addition, colors look brighter.

You can also use a black (or dark) background. But I find it tends to darken the whole room and adds a somber edge to the experience. Steve Jobs used a slightly-graded background for his presentations — but he had perfect stage lighting. Try it — you might like it. One caution — if you like to use images, sometimes their background is white — so you'll have to do some Photoshop magic to make the background around them transparent. That's why I stick with white.

4. "I have to stick to the 'Powerpoint-approved' template!"

No you don't. Honestly, they suck. They stick with boring fonts, the leading (space between each line of text) is not the best, and their choice of bullets . . . terrible. The only way for you to personalize the presentation (to your subject) is to start fresh and choose your own layout. Once you lock it in — stick with it — it will then be easy for you to replicate again and again and again.

In addition, you don't want your presentation looking generic or like another person's presentation. Candidly, when I see a canned 'Powerpoint-approved' background presentation, I think two things:

1. This person has no idea what they're doing. They're whole presentation is suspect.
2. This person really doesn't care about the look and feel of their presentation. They've rushed it.

5. "Projecting and printing are two totally different deliverables!"

So they can look different. In fact, they can look like two totally separate deliverables. Why?

1. One is for projecting on a screen in front of an audience with commentary from you. The audience is focusing on you and using the slideshow as an accompaniment to bolster your message.
2. The other is for silently reading at one's desk. Two different deliverables. You do need a logo or copyright on each page because the presentation might be pulled apart and distributed to other people. Also, it's frequently printed on white paper, so the use of complex and colorful backgrounds (and fonts) might interfere with the final printed product. In addition, if you have to email it, eliminating most (if not all) images will dramatically affect the size of the emailed file.

I run into these five mistakes at least once a week and it's a train wreck when it happens. In fact, I see a presenter (who is an accomplished academic and speaker) who sabotages their own presentation by making all five of these mistakes.

Lots of Enemies? Make Friends With The Press.

Part Five of a series on Ethical Leadership — many more to come. Have I lost my mind? Honestly — the idea of making the press your friend is obscene!

Hear me out — there is a logic to my madness.

When my team coaches businesses on the inner workings of their business, we ask them to develop a Mastermind group. A group that includes a tax accountant and an attorney. Why? In addition to the visionary participants (marketing/sales), as a business owner you need trusted individuals who will tell you the truth — and don't have an agenda — because they stick to the FACTS.

Now I will lay all my cards on the table — certain parts of the press are unreliable, sneaky, and downright corrupt (like all areas of business). But there are certain areas of the press who are ethical, forthright, and just. Reporters who stick to the facts and tell it like it is — whether it is good or bad news. Finally, reporters who are in it to report the NEWS and not just get the juicy story.

Those are the people that you sidle-up to and make friends. Why?

Because they are ethical. And they will keep you on the straight and narrow. It is always refreshing to surround yourself with people that will not only massage your ego, but trusted advisers who will tell you the truth AND let you know when you venture into unethical territory.

Now let's be honest — you don't have to tell them everything. But if you get a trusted editor or publisher that you meet for lunch on a regular basis, you can be assured that they will tell you what's on their mind.

And that my friends, is worth its weight in GOLD.