The Real Job of Leaders: 5 Realities that Make or Break You by Alicia Andersen

Another good arti­cle about lead­er­ship Ali­cia Ander­sen on bet­ter­net­worker

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A lot of atten­tion goes to what makes a good leader, but the job of being a leader is a lit­tle dif­fer­ent.  My grand­fa­ther was the CEO of a For­tune 500 com­pany, and what always amazed me was the devo­tion his employ­ees felt for both him & his vision.  Here’s what I learned from him about leadership:

1. Fact & Faith: The abil­ity to hold 2 com­pet­ing real­i­ties: where your busi­ness is today, and where you believe you will take your busi­ness.  You must hold these in your head at the same time, all the time.

It’s very easy in net­work mar­ket­ing to ride a roller­coaster of excite­ment and fear.  Some­thing goes right and you’re bounc­ing off walls.  Other times being suc­cess­ful seems impos­si­ble.  Lead­ers are able to embrace where they are in their busi­ness right now, and at the same time main­tain absolute faith of what their busi­ness will become.

Why is this impor­tant?  They avoid paral­y­sis, con­fu­sion, and feel­ing sorry for them­selves.  They never stop.  They find solu­tions and take action.  They assess the prob­lems in their busi­ness today with the cer­tainty that they can find the answers.  And not only does their busi­ness thrive, they inspire con­fi­dence in others.

2. Lead­ers Keep Focus: There are 3 com­po­nents cru­cial to every busi­ness. Niche, Mon­e­ti­za­tion, and Pas­sion.  Great lead­ers keep their busi­ness on track by focus­ing on mak­ing sure that all of their efforts are within one of these components.

Niche:  They define their niche and stick to their tar­get audi­ence, build­ing a strong con­sis­tent pre­sense in that area.

Mon­e­ti­za­tion:  They fig­ure out what sys­tem they need to set up to run their busi­ness & make a profit, and make deci­sions around it.

Pas­sion:  They learn what ingites the inter­est & com­mit­ment of their con­sumers and cowork­ers and never let the fire die.

Break­throughs in busi­ness hap­pen when lead­ers con­sis­tently and sys­tem­at­i­cally drive these three areas forward.

3. Lead­ers Man­age: Effec­tive lead­ers get the right peo­ple on the bus and the wrong peo­ple off.  They spend NO effort try­ing to turn the wrong peo­ple into the right people.

4. Lead­ers Attend to Peo­ple First, Strat­egy Sec­ond: This is a tricky one, and where a lot of peo­ple get con­fused.  We tend to think that the best lead­ers attend to vision and strat­egy first, then find peo­ple to help & fol­low them.  In fact, that’s ego-centric lead­er­ship and doesn’t inspire great following.

Rather, attract­ing the right peo­ple to the gen­eral vision, then show­ing them their own valu­able place within the orga­ni­za­tion and giv­ing them the tools to suc­ceed should be done first.

It’s here that social lead­er­ship skills are so impor­tant.  Lis­ten­ing is only worth so much with­out the abil­ity to read a good team mem­bers reac­tions and under­stand where they’re com­ing from when they are struggling.

5. Lead­ers Always Pro­vide Rea­sons to Trust Them: At the end of the day, employ­ees, down­lines, and vol­un­teers are very sim­i­lar to cus­tomers.  Trust must be built and main­tained or you will lose them.  This is where self devel­op­ment is so critical.

A pushy upline often lacks true lead­er­ship skills.  Push­ing for results is NOT the same as lead­ing.  These lead­ers haven’t decided who should & should not be on the bus, and lack the abil­ity to lis­ten, empathize, or help con­truct an action plan.

Lead­ers always keep this in mind:

Some­one who works for me can fire me too.  I have to earn their trust & admi­ra­tion, just as they have to earn mine, and I have to show them FIRST.

I have to honor their goals as much as I honor as my own.  Have I cre­ated some­thing that gives both of us the chance to shine?

Ali­cia Andersen

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Lead­er­ship is key to this busi­ness and I think she hit it right on the head with this arti­cle. Awe­some con­tent! Check out her site here.