Great Leaders

Great leaders show up a lot
Great leaders are great communicator and show up on site, hall, cafeteria and email boxes. They catch-up and talk with folks. They get to know their people ie who does what well and who needs attention. They find out what the real issues are on the front lines. Great leaders share their ideas about direction and purpose of the organization. They lead by example – illustrating what is important and paying attention to key issues. They establish strong bond and relationship with their people.

Great leaders rehearse mentally
Great leaders think and plan in details about the kinds of situations they might face. They run through them in their mind--a kind of mental practice. They focus on long term future and remain aware of its consequences. They think farther ahead than most of their peers. They rehearse individual encounters. Scenario planning helps you to recognize changing future situations because it's their job to choose the path for their organization in an unfamiliar forest. Without mental rehearsal and thinking about the future, leaders are forced to rely on precedents to deal with new situations. In today's rapidly changing environment, that doesn't work.

Great leaders manage the consequences of performance
Great leaders manage the systems of consequences so that it's in the best interest of the subordinate to do what's in the organization's best interest. Great Leaders have clear expectations and spend a lot of time ensuring people understand exactly what they expect and what the consequences of behavior are. Great leaders stay focused on performance. You don't hear them talking much about somebody's "attitude." They concentrate on the performance they want from subordinates and on the things they can control

Great leaders do lots of performance interviews
Great Leaders conduct performance interview regularly with someone who works for them with the objective of influencing them to change their behavior. Most of the interviews are short and informal. Great leaders tend to make small course corrections early, rather than waiting for problems to develop.

Great leaders critique their own leadership performance
Great leaders believe that leadership is a performance issue and the most important thing they do. They believe that it's something they'll get better at if they work at it. Great leaders are continually doing "after-action critiques" on their own performance. They pay attention to the items that are under their control and try to do those better and better and better. They monitor the results they get from their actions and then modify their actions to get the result they want. This grows out of the concentration on consequences and behavior. The result is that the great leaders use a wider array of leadership and communication tools and use them more effectively than their less effective peers.