How the Best Leaders Lead

Brian Tracy

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780814414354
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Business

The world's greatest business leaders make it all look easy because they keep it simple: measurable, repeatable methods that generate exceptional results in both strong markets and weak, good economies and bad.

Leadership expert Brian Tracy has guided countless thousands of professionals, executives, and leaders of all stripes to truly startling results through his business books, seminars and consulting work.

In How the Best Leaders Lead, Tracy breaks down the art and science of business leadership into the seven fundamental responsibilities that outstanding leaders master. Essential for success in any organization and every leadership position, they are:

• Setting and achieving goals
• Fostering innovation
• Problem solving and decision making
• Setting priorities
• Setting high standards and leading by example
• Inspiring and motivating others
• Performing and achieving results

This book will take you through a thorough self-analysis with which you will discover what is truly important to you—and identify the specific steps you must take to achieve it. You'll then listen Tracy's life-changing lessons culled from the leading edges of business, the annals of history and military strategy, and the wisdom of the world's most powerful leadership and management thinkers past and present.

Leadership is an exact science but a simple one, born of clear vision and courage, self -knowledge and integrity, focus and confidence.With acute insight and Tracy's accessible guidance, How the Best Leaders Lead brings those powerful attributes and leadership greatness easily within your reach.

CHAPTER ONE

The Heart of
a Leader

‘‘Character may be manifested in the great
moments, but it is made in the small ones.’’

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

Leadership is the single most important factor in the success or failure of a company or business. Your ability to step forward and lead your enterprise to success in competitive markets is both essential and irreplaceable.

The better you become as a leader, the better you will be in every area of your enterprise. Fortunately, leaders are made, not born. As Peter Drucker wrote, ‘‘There may be such a thing as a natural born leader, but there are so few of them, that they make no difference in the great scheme of things.’’

Leaders are primarily self-made, self-developed. They work on themselves continually, learning, growing, and becoming more capable and competent over the years.

Leaders usually emerge to deal with a situation that requires leadership skills. A manager can work successfully at fulfilling his responsibilities and getting the job done for many years. Then a crisis occurs, and leadership is required. At that time, the leader steps forth and takes charge of the situation. He or she becomes a different person and fulfills a different role.

Follow the Rules

General Norman Schwarzkopf tells about his first experience of leadership at the Pentagon. His senior officer told him that to do his job well, all he had to do was to ‘‘Follow rule 13.’’

When he asked, ‘‘What is rule 13?’’ his commanding general said, ‘‘When placed in command, take charge!’’

When then Colonel Schwarzkopf asked, ‘‘But after I have taken charge, how do I make decisions?’’

His commanding officer said, ‘‘Simple. Use rule 14.’’

When Colonel Schwarzkopf asked, ‘‘What is rule 14?’’ he was told, ‘‘Do the right thing!’’

These are excellent ideas for you, as well. When placed in command, take charge, and if ever you are in doubt about what to do, simply do the right thing.

Leadership Requires Character

Leadership is more about who you are than what you do. Your ability to develop the qualities of effective leadership, the essence of what it takes to be a leader, is more important to your success as an executive than any other factor.

One of the great principles of personal development is, ‘‘Whatever you dwell upon grows and expands in your experience and personality.’’

You become more effective, day by day, when you think and act on the basis of the key qualities of effective leaders throughout the ages. You program these qualities into your personality and behavior by dwelling on them continually. You learn these qualities by practicing them in your daily activities as a person and as a leader in your organization.

The more of a leader you become in the inside, the more effective you will become in all your leadership activities on the outside. You become more of a leader by thinking the same way that top leaders think.

The Seven Qualities of Leadership

There have been more than three thousand studies conducted over the years aimed at identifying the qualities of successful leaders, especially successful military leaders who have won important battles against great odds in turbulent theaters of warfare—which very much describes succeeding in the marketplaces of today.

More than 50 qualities have been identified that are important to leadership. But there are seven qualities that seem to stand out as being more important than the others. The good news is that each of these qualities can be learned, and they must be learned by practice and repetition.

1. Vision: The Most Important Single Quality of Leadership

Leaders have vision. They can see into the future. They have a clear, exciting idea of where they are going and what they are trying to accomplish. This quality separates them from managers. Having a clear vision turns the individual into a special type of person.

This quality of vision changes a ‘‘transactional manager’’ into a ‘‘transformational leader.’’ While a manager gets the job done, a true leader taps into the emotions of his people.

In times of rapid change and turbulence, it’s a good idea to occasionally call a ‘‘time out.’’ Stop the clock. Back off. Take some time to think about who you really are inside, what you stand for, where you are going, and what kind of a future you want to create for yourself and your organization.

In their book, Competing for the Future, Gary Hamel and V.K. Prahalad emphasize the key role of ‘‘future intent’’ to business success. They explain that the greater clarity you have with regard to the future you wish to create, the easier it is for you to make the day-to-day decisions necessary to reach that future.

As a leader, in order to remain calm and centered in times of rapid change, you must continually ask two questions: ‘‘What are we trying to do?’’ and ‘‘How are we trying to do it?’’

You must play your own game rather than allow yourself to be knocked off center by unexpected setbacks and difficulties. You achieve this by developing a clear vision for yourself and your organization and then by sharing this vision of an ideal future with the people who look up to you and depend upon you for leadership.

Developing Your Vision

Begin with your values. What are the organizing principles of your business that you believe in and stand for? What are the core values and beliefs that animate and motivate you? What are the values that your company practices and incorporates into all of its activities?

The difference between leaders and average people is that leaders have clear beliefs that they will not compromise under any circumstances. Average people have fuzzy or unclear values that they will compromise for short-term advantage.

Based on your values, imagine the perfect future for your business.

Imagine that you have all the time and money, all the knowledge and experience, all the people and resources—everything you need. What does your business look like?

Once you are clear about your values and your ideal future, draw up the mission statement for your company—what your company is trying to accomplish. Be specific. ‘‘Our mission is to offer the highest quality products and, as a result, grow at a rate of 20 percent per year in sales and profitability’’ is better than ‘‘Our mission is to offer exciting products in a spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship.’’

Beyond the specific mission, you should know the core purpose of your company—why it exists. What kind of contribution does your company make to enhance the well-being of your customers?

Your company’s purpose is very important. It is your real reason for being in business. Your belief in the goodness of your purpose is what enables you to persevere against external problems and difficulties. It is what motivates and inspires your people to put in the extra effort and go the extra mile.

As Nietzsche said, ‘‘A man can bear any what if he has a big enough why.’’

The ‘‘why’’ is the emotional component of leadership and is always defined in terms of how you and your organization serve and contribute to the lives and well-being of your customers. It is what your products or services actually do to improve their lives and work.

Finally, leaders are goal-oriented. Set specific, measurable, time-bounded targets that you must hit and numbers that you must achieve in order to get from where you are to wherever you want to go in the future with your organization.

In every case, clarity is essential.

Perhaps the most important contribution you make to your organization in times of rapid change in competitive markets is to help everyone to remain calm, clear, focused, and forward-thinking concerning your values, vision, mission, purpose, and goals. This is the starting point of great leadership.

2. Courage: The Second Quality That Leaders Have in Common

‘‘Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.’’ (Winston Churchill)

General Douglas McArthur once wrote, ‘‘There is no security in life; only opportunity.’’

The quality of courage means that you are willing to take risks in the achievement of your goals with no assurance of success. Because there is no certainty in life or business, every commitment you make and every action you take entails a risk of some kind. This is why courage is the most identifiable outward quality of a great leader.

The fact is that the future belongs to the risk-takers, not the security-seekers. The future belongs to leaders who are willing to move out of their comfort zones and take the necessary risks that are required for the enterprise to survive and thrive in any economic situation.

Boldness means the willingness to initiate action with no guarantees. Samuel Johnson wrote, ‘‘Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.’’

The more information you gather and opinions you seek before you make an important decision, the more likely it will be that the decision will be the right one. But you can never eliminate the element of risk. It always exists.

Audacity Is the Key to Victory

Frederick the Great, who was renowned for his propensity to attack the enemy no matter what the odds, said, ‘‘L’audace! L’audace! Y toujours l’audace!’’ (Audacity! Audacity! And always audacity!)

Robert Green, in his book The Laws of Power, said, ‘‘Always be audacious. Audacity will get you into trouble occasionally, but even more audacity will usually get you out.’’

The practice of boldness and audacity means that you continue to think in terms of actions you can take. You practice what is called the ‘‘continuous offensive.’’ You dare to go forward in all circumstances.

By continually taking aggressive action in the direction of your goals, you put yourself on the side of the angels. The more action-oriented you become, the greater will be your confidence and the more likely it will be that you will do the right things at the right time that lead to victory.

Hang in There

An essential part of courage is called ‘‘courageous patience’’: the ability to stay the course and not give up when you do not seem to be making any progress, or when things are going against you.

After every great offensive action begins, there is a period when things slow down, and often nothing seems to be happening, neither victory nor defeat. In this gap, many people lose heart and retreat or withdraw, or, even worse, fight on halfheartedly.

But the leader, once committed to a course of action, continues to persevere, carry through, and push forward with the same vigor and energy with which he began.

In 1941, in the darkest days of World War II, Winston Churchill’s cabinet members were urging him to ‘‘make peace’’ with Hitler. Churchill absolutely refused to consider the idea. He gave his famous speech, which ended with those stirring words, ‘‘We will never surrender!’’

When he was asked privately why it was that he was so adamant about fighting on in the face of overwhelming odds, he replied, ‘‘Because I study history. And history tells you that, if you hold on long enough, something always happens.’’

This conversation took place in November 1941. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Two weeks later, Hitler declared war on the United States, bringing the United States and its great industrial power into the war on the side of England, changing the course of history.

The Ultimate Challenge

The ultimate test of courage in leadership is how well you perform in a crisis. The only thing that is inevitable and unavoidable in the life of the leader is crisis. This is the testing time.

Your ability to function well in a crisis largely determines the success or failure of your organization. This ability cannot be taught in a classroom. It is only developed when you actually face a real crisis—a real emergency with serious potential losses.

One of the qualities that I have observed over the years is that, when presented with a crisis, an u...