Lead to Succeed: The Seven Essential StepsWritten by Gerald Czarnecki
In my book You’re In Charge…What Now? I use a mnemonic to describe seven essential steps to work leader success. The mnemonic is “L.E.A.D.E.R.S” and each of these letters represents an essential step. While I have simplified elements of leadership into seven words, essence of my message is that being an effective, peak-performance work leader is simple, but not easy. The responsibility of being an effective work leader is much more important than being an effective “manager”. Every effective manager leads first, and manages second. In my lexicon, there are two things “person in charge of an organizational unit” does: first is to lead people; second is to administer processes that make up work. I call this administrative activity mechanics of managing…these are activities of planning, organizing, controlling, report writing, etc., and of course implementation of technical work of unit. These are critical activities and can never be ignored, but in my experience those managers who focus preponderance of their time on mechanics, ultimately do not succeed. They may achieve short term results, but they usually fail over time. That which is done “to and for” people makes a work leader a long-term success, not what he or she does to administer mechanics. Indeed, a manager with great leadership skills can sometimes be successful without being an effective administrator. I have worked for leaders like that, and they were great achievers.
| | Quick Tip - Effective Meetings Have a Complete AgendaWritten by Steve Kaye
Most agendas for a meeting look like this.* Budget * Payroll * Staff * Sales * Vutszxtn Some people would tell me, "That's a perfectly good agenda. I know what all of those things mean, except, uh, 'vutszxtn'." The point is, vutszxtn means as much to you as other terms mean to other participants. For example, does budget mean increase budget? Plan a budget? Report on budget? Reduce budget? Complain about budget? Make fun of budget? Or what? An agenda like one above could launch a meeting that considers all of possibilities mentioned above. Instead, you may have wanted to reallocate funds from one department to another. A proper agenda specifies everything that participants need to know to make meeting effective. It should contain:
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