Leadership Success and Its Greatest Barrier: the Law of Administrivia

By Gerald Czarnecki
Following on from the last edition of The Organised Times where we spoke about developing the people in your business, this week we're focussing on the importance of the continual development of your managers.

Leadership comes from the top down. Poor management skills is the cause of most employee dissatisfaction and results in their poor performance.

The following article by Nathan Chanesman from My Profile is worthwhile reading:

Poor management skills lead to poor employee performance
It's disheartening to read that poor management skills is the cause of most business dissatisfaction. You'd think that with all the training and investment that has gone into this topic that we'd learnt by now to get it right.

Employees have lost trust in the companies they work for Kelly Services Survey published in October last year indicated that 47% of Australian employees believe "that companies do not have their best interests at heart".

Dissatisfaction seems to be the order of the day. 50% of Australia's workforce want to quit it's job and nearly 40% reported that they often "woke up in the morning not willing to face the day".

SEEK, the online job board survey of October 2003 reported that 75% of employees questioned are not happy with their current job.

Asked what they liked most about their job 51% said "the people I work with". And what did they hate most? 60% said "the quality of management". Not surprising, dissatisfaction with management increased as people got older.

The Solutions

Get Profiled
Visit www.myprofile.com.au They'll help you find the right person for the job, and help you understand yourself and your employees and how you can work together as a cohesive team to achieve your business vision and goals.

360 degree Pirihi Productivity Profile
Discover how effective a leader you believe yourself to be and receive feedback from your people stating how they see you. This can be a real eye-opener and extremely beneficial.

You'll be able to utilise that feedback and in areas requiring attention, we can help you become the best you can be. Email lorraine@office-organiser.com.au for more details or see our special offer below.

Ask for direct feedback from your people.
This can work however it may also be very confronting and you may not get the real truth. Often people will not voice how they really feel for fear of repercussions or because they know that whatever they say will fall on deaf ears!

Get coached
A good coach will help you enhance your skills to be the best you can be. Ensure whoever you use is external to the business. We can also help you in that area. Just send us an email lorraine@office-organiser.com.au for more details.

Be Aware

Take a look around you. Are your people happy? Do they enjoy coming to work? When you speak to them are they generally positive or negative in their responses? Is there a high turnover of staff or is your team stable? Consider the absenteeism rate. Are your people often away from work? These are a few questions to ask yourself.

Encourage regular feedback from your people. Ask them individually and as a group what they think & how can you be a better manager? What can be improved? What do they like about their work, the people, the industry, the management etc.

You can also choose to do nothing, which is not a good option. Don't wait until a crisis occurs.

A business owner I know said everything was fine. He said his staff were happy although he never did anything to pro-actively ensure they were. His perception was that he believed all was well because no-one complained. He only acted if a problem was brought to his attention. One week, three of his key people resigned. They had enough of the owner's poor leadership skills. The loss of those people nearly brought the business down.

So stay on top of things, be proactive, ask questions and take nothing for granted.

The success of any business is a reflection of its leadership. Lead from the top.

The Four Laws Of Leadership (Part One)

By Brent Filson
PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

Word count: 597

Summary: The best leadership is motivational. But the author contends that most leaders misunderstand motivation. In this two part article, he describes four laws of motivation that will help you be a better motivational leader.

The Four Laws Of Leadership. (Part One)
by Brent Filson

Leadership is motivational or it's stumbling in the dark. After all, isn't it more effective to have people want to go from point A to point B instead of to be ordered to go from A to B?

The ability to instill "want to" in others, to motivate them, marks the difference between average leaders and great leaders.

But many leaders misunderstand the true meaning of motivation. And if you misunderstand its meaning, you can't make it happen. Break the laws, and you'll fail to motivate people. Or you may motivate them -- but motivate them against you.

Here are four "laws" of motivation that you must adhere to if you want to consistently motivate people to get great results.

First, let's be clear about what motivation is. The word derives from the Latin root "to move." Motivation involves movement; yet the Latin root indicates it's not just movement but also "that which triggers movement."

Don't get me wrong. I'm not counting angels on the head of a pin. This subtle double meaning in the very root of the word motivation represents a manifest leadership lesson for you.

This lesson can be understood within the context of the four laws of motivation.

Law 1. Motivation is physical action. Note that the first two letters of the word are the first two letters of words such as "motor", "movement", "momentum", "motion". Those words denote physical action.Motivation isn't what people think or feel but what they physically do. Furthermore, it is not simply engaging in physical action but also preparing for physical action. In other words, there is action and also that which triggers the action.

Law 2. Motivation is their choice. Many leaders are clueless about motivation because they think it's their own choice. They think because they simply want people to be motivated, people should automatically be motivated. That misunderstanding has caused many a leader to come to grief. The act of their being motivated is not your choice, it's theirs, always. Motivation can't be done to people. People must "do" motivation to themselves. Leaders communicate, and the people they lead motivate themselves.

Law 3. Emotion drives motivation. The words emotion and motivation come from the same Latin root "to move". When you want to move people to take action, engage their emotions. Motivation involves emotionally commitment.

Law 4. Face-to-face speech is generally the best way to motivate people (i.e., have those people choose to be motivated.)

With these concepts in mind, you can begin to get a clear understanding of motivation by studying the past.

This exercise will sharpen your ideas on motivation. Who were the three most effective leaders in history? Why were they effective? Who were the three least effective? Why were they ineffective? Who are the most effective leaders in your industry? Why are they effective? Who are the least effective leaders in your industry? Why are they ineffective? Who are the most effective leaders in your organization? Why are they ineffective?

Now go back over each answer and tie it to motivation or lack there of. What motivational lesson is there in each answer? In doing so, you may find yourself changing and sharpening your ideas about motivation; and hence changing and sharpening your leadership skills.

In Part Two, I will expand on each law.

2005 � The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.