One day you are leader, what does that mean? Before you were a leader you were concerned about growing yourself. Now you are concerned about growing others or the people who you are the leader of.

What leaders do

1. Leaders relentlessly upgrade their team – using every encounter as an opportunity to evaluate, coach and build self-confidence.Coach means guiding, critiquing and helping people improve their performance
2. Build self-confidence means pouring our encouragement, caring and recognition
3. Evaluate means making sure the right people are in the right jobs.
4. Leaders make sure people not only see the vision, they live and breathe it.
5. If you want people to live and breathe the vision which you are always talking about show them the money – “Show me a company’s various compensation plans, and I’ll show you how its people behave”
6. Leaders get into everyone’s skin, exuding positive energy and optimism.
7. People watch their leader, display a can-do attitude
8. Leaders establish trust with candor, transparency and credit.
9. Being transparent in both good times and downturns. Ideas that help the team’s success are shared and responsibility for when things go wrong stay where they belong (it is lonely at the top)
10. Leaders have the courage to make unpopular decisions and gut calls.
11. You are not a leader to win the popularity contest – you are a leader to lead. You are not running for office, you are there. When you know something go with it.
12. Leaders probe and push with a curiosity that borders on skepticism, making sure their questions are answered with action.
13. When you are leader, you are not the expert; your job is to have all the questions. The What if? Why not? How come? The questions need answers.
14. Leaders inspire risk taking and learning by setting the example.
15. You can create a culture that welcomes risk taking by freeing admitting your mistakes and talking about what you have learned from them.
16. Leaders celebrate.
17. Have fun, enjoy the times of success; there are many ways to celebrate.

Note there are many paradoxes with the list, performing balancing acts everyday is leadership.

So how do you hire great people?

It is hard.

Acid Tests – come at the outset of the hiring process.

Integrity – do they tell the truth? Do they admit responsibility for past actions; admit mistakes and fix them? They play to win the right way, by the rules?

Intelligence – a strong dose of intellectual curiosity with a breath of knowledge to work with or lead people?

Maturity – the individual can withstand the heat, handle stress and setbacks, and enjoy success.

Positive Energy

• Ability to thrive on action and relish change.
• They love life – love work and play

Ability to Energize Others

• To get people revved up. To take on the impossible and enjoy it.

Edge

-The courage to make tough yes-or-no decisions. Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call even without total information.

Execute

– The ability to get the job done.

If you have the 4 E’s Energy, Energize, Edge and Execute then look for P or passion

Hiring is difficult. Mr. Welch says when he was younger he picked the right person 50% of the time; 30 years later it was 80%. The key point is every hiring mistake is yours. Take responsibility and make the ending is candid and fair.

If you can ask one question about a person, ask them why did they leave the past job?  Why the previous job?

Linking to dividend paying companies, if the company has been making profits for a number of years, the biggest challenge the company has is to hire and grow its leaders to continually make profits in the years to come. Reviewing articles in the press about the leadership of the company will give clues to whether the hiring process is a good one.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.