Believe in yourself. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? Some people will tell you it is easy and others will say it is impossible depending on their own experiences. Yet, most of us have learned that is necessary to believe in your abilities to achieve a particular goal.

Have you ever done something just because somebody told you to do it, but you didn't think you could get it done? I don't know what that task was for you, but I do know you didn't give it your best and it did not have a positive outcome for you. Think about that for a moment. You can probably make of list of things you failed at because you did not believe you could do it or that you could not do it well enough.

On other hand, you can probably think of successes in your life that were made possible because you believed in yourself and your capabilities even if no one else did.

In this changing, challenging, and competitive workplace we can’t overestimate importance of good management. Good managers will consistently motivate you to perform at higher levels of productivity. Bad managers will drive you crazy and eventually out of organization. Managers with poor skills will frequently produce following results:

1. Decreased productivity 2. Increased turnover 3. Increased absences 4. Increased human resources mediation situations 5. Increased customer service complaints

The following are seven secrets to being “perfect” leader everyone want to work for:

1. Create a Vision The best leaders not only assign tasks or monitor performance. They plan for future and motivate others to see same vision so they can all thrive to accomplish that vision.

Instead of dwelling on limited problems, perfect leader looks at big picture. They live organization’s mission and implement, motivate, and dedicate all their efforts to accomplishing mission.

During hundreds of team building and leadership workshops, I have asked following simple question:

What is your organization’s mission statement?

If there are forty participants in workshop, thirty-seven will look down at their desk, one participant will make a feeble attempt at reciting what he/she “thinks” is mission statement, one participant will make a pretty good attempt and recite first one or two sentences of mission statement, and finally one student will volunteer to run to office (or car) to grab a copy of statement to bring back to workshop. Out of thousands of workshop participants I have asked this question, only three knew their mission statement word for word. The amazing part of this is that many of these workshop participants have been with their organization 5-10-20+ years and, they still didn’t know their mission statement. So my question is this:

How do you lead your employees to accomplish your organization’s mission if you (as a manager) don’t know what mission is?

The perfect leaders live, eat, sleep, and shower with their mission statement. They know exactly what mission is and understand its importance to team they lead and to organization. Most importantly, they communicate mission statement to their employees at meetings, coachings, feedback sessions, and even corrective actions. Their actions are related to accomplishing goals of mission statement and can communicate vision of organization.

Action Step – Take mission statement out of dark corner in office. Print mission statement and its vision on top of your meeting agenda and recite it at beginning of meeting. Then talk about how employees are helping to realize goals, values, and vision of mission.

2. Understand employees needs As old saying goes, “You can’t please all of people all of time.” However, perfect leader realizes that to be effective, they must cater to needs of most of team. Good leaders realize that work environment is not a popularity contest or, as I say, “Leadership is not Pleasership.” The perfect leader treats all employees with respect and are consistent in their actions and words.

At same time, they recognize unique needs of their employees and use that knowledge for motivation to achieve a common goal.

3. Communicate concisely and clearly Poor communication skills are probably Number #1 reason managers fail. If they can’t talk to and connect with their employees, they are not serving needs of staff.

What is good communication? The following are some examples: