Success Advice

5 Secrets to Being a Leader Worth Following

Published

4 years ago

Oct 13, 2019

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Business is tricky. You’re taught young that business is business – Check your emotions at the door. But recent years have proven that business is more than an emotionally devoid institution run for profits. Business is about making an impact on the world, and if you want to make an impact on the world, you have to start with your team. Because if your team isn’t willing to follow you, why should anyone else?

The good news is you can become a leader worth following with these five simple practices. If you make these five attributes your guiding values, you’ll find your team working harder and being more productive than ever before.

1. Integrity

Integrity has become a buzzword over the past couple of years, but few people actually know what it means. This word has two definitions: Being honest and being whole or undivided. Leading with that definition, here are a couple ways you can go about implementing integrity into your daily action.

Leading with integrity starts with keeping your word. If something happens and you need to change your plans, be clear and direct with your team. Likewise, when you need to change directions, always make the shift a bigger win than the original plan. By making a change to something that’s advantageous to everyone, you maintain your team’s loyalty.

You should also build your company culture around teamwork and reward positive team interactions. A business that fosters emotional support and inclusivity is a business that incites creativity, innovation, and hard work. Whenever you create rewards for specific behaviors, you communicate to your team that those are the values you uphold, which are the same values that will help them move forward in the business.

2. Generosity

Two of the greatest values in today’s workforce are time and emotional intelligence. Employees are looking to work for companies and business owners who are not only having a positive impact in the world, but who are also generous with their time and praise. Your employees want to do an excellent job for you. The more generous you are with your time and praise, the more reasons they’ll give you to compliment them.

To implement generosity on a consistent basis, start scheduling in praise time. Take an hour or two per week to tell your team what they’re excelling at. The more individual attention you can give each person, the better. You can also institute internal awards your team members can earn. Think employee of the month, but better. These can be for anything that adds value to the business such as ideas, communication, teamwork, collaboration, or problem solving.

“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.” – John Holmes

3. Guidance

Teams need guidance. Period. There’s a balance between abandoning your team to do things on your own and micromanaging everything they do. The best way to make guidance an integral part of your business is to establish regular check-ins. This allows you to meet with members of your team and see how they’re doing.

They can ask questions, and you can see where they need more support. By implementing this strategy, you help team members to grow their skill set faster and get their emotional buy in. When employees feel supported and cared about, they choose to work harder, produce more, and commit to getting greater results for the company.

4. Openness

Ideas and different perspectives are what keeps a business going for generations. Businesses that become stagnant go the way of Blockbuster. By creating a culture of openness, where team members are encouraged to share their ideas, propose solutions, and try new things, you foster your team’s creativity, innovation, and problem solving skills. This makes communication easier, and helps your team stay on the leading edge of your industry.

If you want to promote openness in your company start by creating regular open office hours. Whether you schedule this weekly or monthly, this gives your team members the opportunity to come talk to you about things they’re working on, problems they’re facing, or ideas they have to strengthen the company. This gives structure to interacting with your team, while making you approachable and relatable.

You also need to find ways to be more inclusive. Do you have an employee with a gluten intolerance who always ends up watching everyone else eat cake during company birthday parties? Do you have a team member who doesn’t like to be touched, so hugs and handshakes make them uncomfortable?

By understanding what makes your team members different and honoring the diversity they bring to the company, you can create a culture of inclusivity that invokes loyalty. For example, if you buy Katey her favorite gluten free cupcakes at parties, and give Brian a nod with an award for an awesome thing he did, you’ve just made each of those team members feel seen, heard, and understood, without lessening the experiences of your other team members. This is leadership at its best.

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” – John Quincy Adams

5. Collaboration

Businesses that last are not run alone. There’s you, the leader and there’s the team that supports you. All of you collaborate to bring your vision to the world. By valuing the collaborative process and getting your team to contribute their unique perspectives, ideas, and brilliance to the mix, you set the business up to scale quicker because there are more opportunities for success.

Teams that fear their leaders will often silence their ideas — ideas that could revolutionize the success of the business. Teams that understand and routinely participate in collaboration are more likely to be supportive, emotionally intelligent, and solve problems faster.

What do you think makes a great leader? Share your thoughts with us below!

Up Next

The Main Reason Why You’re Consistently Losing Sales

Don't Miss

6 Ways to Balance a 9-5 and a Work From Home Job at the Same Time

Jolene Risch

Jolene Risch is a leading recruiter and retention consultant, working with and guiding value driven business owners, companies, and corporations to recruit the RIGHT top talent (ones that actually fit and stay), using the Profitable C.U.L.T.U.R.E. Method™. She uses her over 20 years of experience in communication, organizational psychology, leadership, and sociology, specializing in recruiting and retaining top talent for increased performance and profitability.

Click to comment

Success Advice

How Your Beliefs Can Supercharge or Sabotage Your Success

Your life is dictated by beliefs and biases that drive your thinking, behaviors, and decisions

Published

1 week ago

Nov 20, 2023

Jane Frankel

Your Beliefs Can Supercharge or Sabotage Your Success (1)

Image Credit: Midjourney

Pause for a moment and ponder two pandemic-era beliefs: First, closing schools will control the spread of a serious virus. Second, the consequences of such school closures—particularly social interruption and the prevention of immunity—are worse than becoming sick with the virus. (more…)

Success Advice

How to Break the Cycles of Mediocrity and Manifest Your Greatness

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity

Published

2 weeks ago

Nov 16, 2023

Jamelle Sanders

Image Credit: Midjourney

In just a few weeks, we will be wrapping up 2023. Can you believe it? This year has been absolutely incredible for me.

I have seen amazing doors opened, new relationships formed and I am seeing dreams realized in my life. While this seems like the hallmarks of a great year, this has also been the most challenging year of my life. With all of the change happening in my life, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and challenged to grow in every area of my life.

I can truly say that I have made the most of my moments this year and I have used everything as a catalyst for maximizing my greatest potential.

As a revolutionary leader, I have the pleasure of consulting and advising leaders around the world to fulfill purpose, realize their greatest potential and make an impact.

I want to share some insights with you that will help you to break cycles of mediocrity and manifest your greatness.

Everything legal must come through the matrix

I am sure that some of you are wondering why I am using the term matrix. However, what you have to understand is that I am trying to make a highly complex spiritual principle practical to understand.

Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, every life has an origin and I believe that origin is divine and begins with eternity. You are birthed from eternity and into time to fulfill a unique purpose and assignment in your lifetime and generation.

The matrix is simply the portal or vehicle that brings something out of the invisible realm and into tangible form. The problem with much of the teaching today is that it excludes the matrix. We are told to believe that success is instantaneous and overnight.

Nobody talks about how a dream progresses through stages beginning with visualization and ultimately culminating in manifestation. Without a matrix or portal then everything that you attempt to birth and build will be illegal.

The matrix not only makes you legal but it gives you the authority and power to function as the greatest expression of who you were created to be.

Every matrix has an incubation process

While many people admire and respect me today, I remember a time when nobody knew who I was or the significance of my message. How did I get to where I am today? I got here through an incubation process.

In other words, everything that has been destined for your life is incubating and awaiting a set time of manifestation. The problem is that most people live their entire lives idle and never initiate the incubation process.

What do I meany by that? Most people are living reckless and very few people are living intentionally. I am amazed at the number of people I have conversations with that have no vision, goals or strategies for their lives. They show great promise and they have undeniable potential.

However, without development they will die with their dreams still in them.

Everything that has been destined for your life must be incubated and converted to become realities born to time.

“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin to build.” – Robert Collier

You must give expression to that which is not yet born to time

When you think about a matrix or a prophetic incubation process, you have to understand that potential is often unrealized and untapped. In other words, your potential is in raw form and your potential cannot serve you as long as it is untapped.

The thing that makes me valuable is that I have the ability to convert potential into power. I have done it in my own life and I have empowered leaders around the world to do the same. How do you convert potential into power?

First, it is important to note that you have to perceive potential. If you cannot perceive your potential then you can never cultivate your potential. In addition, you must take the time to cultivate your potential. We often get excited about our capabilities; however, we never expand our capacity in order to realize our greatest potential.

In other words, the strength of your potential is only discovered through your willingness to stretch. The more we are challenged the more we are empowered to expand our capacity for greatness. Most of all, you must begin to express your potential. The expression of potential is different for every person.

For example, the expression of my potential is best demonstrated through the thoughts, ideas, products, services, books, etc.

For another person the expression of potential may look like a screenplay, artwork, sports, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc.

Regardless of the form of expression, I know that you will live empty and unfulfilled until you make the decision to express your potential. The expression of your potential gives voice to your dreams, life to your vision, significance to your moments and activates your true power.

You must manifest your greatness

As a revolutionary thinker and leader, my work has impacted people around the world. I am grateful that my life is a source of empowerment to so many people. However, before anyone could ever benefit from my life, I had to make a non-negotiable decision to become who I was born to be.

I wish I could tell you that this journey is easy and that you will get there overnight. However, in a world that celebrates us for doing we are often criticized for being. As a result, I wasted a lot of time trying to be who other people wanted me to be instead of being who I was born to be.

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity. It is through our bravery to be vulnerable that we ultimately manifest our greatness. We do not bless the world by being a duplicate. We bless the world when we honor our difference. When you honor your difference you honor your potential.

Ultimately, your difference is how you manifest your greatness.

When you present anything but your authentic self to the world, you are playing small and you are robbing the world of your significance. Manifesting your greatness requires you to master your gifts.

Success Advice

Here’s a Young Man’s Antidote for the Uncertainty of the Modern World

Why do a lot of young guys lack confidence in today’s world?

Published

2 weeks ago

Nov 13, 2023

Dale Valor

Image Credit: Midjourney

We all have been told that confidence is a key factor in achieving success and happiness in life. But what is it exactly? (more…)

Success Advice

Toxic Leadership: 5 Ways to Identify a Bad Leader

if you have a leader who displays any of the toxic traits, it’s time to move on to greener pastures.

Published

3 weeks ago

Nov 10, 2023

Filiz Behaettin

Image Credit: Midjourney

Let’s be honest, we’ve all crossed paths with a toxic leader in our careers at some point. Unfortunately, while some toxic leaders don’t even bother to hide their behaviour, some know very well how to conceal their true selves behind a strong-built facade. The latter is the most dangerous of the two. (more…)