Momentum - Business to Business Online Magazine MOMENTUM Holiday 2017 Final | Page 19

Survival Skills for Today’s Leader: Lessons Learned from Barbarians and a Few Good Guys! By: Rick Draker Draker Cody Inc. Chief Operating Officer [email protected] P ressure to perform, generate revenue, create success, and keep the organization healthy and moving forward in today’s competitive and still recovering economy is the plight of most leaders. Setting the right example, doing more with less, motivating staff, ensuring necessary resources to do the job, maintaining trust with employees and clients, managing ever-constant change, keeping on track with goals and objectives, and much more are integral to the leader’s job. So, what does it take, what skills are necessary for a leader to survive and be successful in today’s business environment and in the future? The Art of Good Leadership Looking back over the past 2,500 years, skills practiced by figures who made their mark on the world are remarkably similar. From Cyrus the Great (600-529 BC) to Attila (AD 406–453) to Genghis Khan (AD 1162-1227) to President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) to President Harry S Truman (1884-1972) to General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. (1934-2012), to former Secretary of State Colin Powell (1937- ), leadership skills have not changed much. So, what are these skills, these arts of leadership, of which we have to be reminded, seemingly more so today? The leadership skills listed below are representative, not exhaustive. • If you are put in command, take command; make decisions that are yours to make; take responsibility. • Lead from the front. • Have a clear vision, and clear goals and objectives; pursue that vision with determination; never lose sight of the desired result. • Surround yourself with capable people equal to or more capable than you; respect advisors, whether you agree or not. • Be a good communicator. Provide well thought- out ideas and directions and be persuasive. • Practice self-confidence and self-reliance. • Know yourself well. Emotion plays little or no role in decisions. Control anger and frustration. • Never stop learning from mistakes, from successful actions, from the experience and achievements of others. • Share credit; reward success & good performance. Leadership Today We began with the question: “…what does it take, what skills are necessary for a leader to survive and be successful in today’s business environment, or tomorrow’s?” If history is any teacher, possessing the skills exhibited by notable world leaders is part of the answer. But, more is demanded by the relentless and rapid changes of our world. Paramount is the need for the following: • Greater individual and team competencies and skills • Strategic collaborations (Jericho Principle) • Success in a marketplace that is no longer regional • The realization that “muddling” through is not a valid approach in most cases. Not least, is the need for an individual with those leadership skills to reconcile, coordinate and direct the spear points of those skills to a successful, profitable conclusion. • Set high standards of performance; hold people accountable; be intolerant of non-producers. • Prepare well for an event or action. MOMENTUM / Holiday 2017 18