If you have ever thought about having your own personal leadership coach, now is the time to act. For a limited time I will make my services available to the first 5 (five) Developing Leaders mailing list members who contact me at ronn dot hurst at gmail dot com.

My current clients have realized significant benefit from our coaching engagements. increased performance, improved interpersonal skills, greater leadership capacity. All are within your reach as well when you make the commitment to your personal growth.

For a limited time I am going to make it possible for you to realize the goal of you having your very own leadership coach. Imagine having a skilled leader with 17 years in the leadership trenches at your side facilitating, challenging and guiding you to greater performance. What would that be worth to your cause, your career, your family.

The initial consultation fee will be waived. This means you can check out how coaching can help you with virtually no risk. Agree that you want a coach and it gets better. We will give you a special introductory rate of $50 US per hour will be available for a 3 month period. This is far below my normal rate of $300 US /hour and is only available to mailing list subscribers. I can do this because I believe so strongly in the power of this coaching model I want to get the word out to our membership and give you the opportunity to benefit and grow your leadership capacity now. I know that once you see this model in action you will want more.

Do the math for less than $300 or $0.82 per day you can dramatically increase your leadership ability. This offer is worth over $2000 if you were paying full rate and it would be worthwhile at that rate.

Contact me soon this offer will close as soon as the 5 spots are taken.

Looking forward to our coaching engagement

Ron

One of the more common advertising techniques is to answer other peoples questions on the answers tab. We were amazed at the number of leadership coaches / consultants that responded to the question. There is a right way to do this and a cheezy way to do this. You can offer value and actually answer the persons question knowing that the quality of answer will start a high quality dialogue. Alternatively you can talk in generalities and offer your website as the source to be investigated for further answers read paid answers. Those who follow the bloggers code of giving away value in the discussion obviously choose door number one. Either way it is a fun exercise to see how others try to mask their intentions.

So lets just say that there were a number of cryptic responses to the leadership development question that will not be specifically credited here as they did not want to offer you value unless we paid them to do so. So we had recommendations to use a coach… Isn’t that what this site is all about (again with the blank stare and dumbfounded look)

Well if you need a coach here we are

lead well

     I think that each person has to spend a (often, great deal of) time to find out which works best for them. What motivates and
inspires me in my personal leadership growth might not be the same for the next person.

Well said Joey, exactly my perspective as well. It gets back to the square peg round hole mentality. You might make it fit, but man will there ever be a lot of damage and brute force to get it there. That reminds me of one of my favorite one liners. “If the only tool in your tool belt is a hammer, then every problem tends to look like a nail”

In keeping with Michael Salogga’s comment about the curiosity of a child, Joey too has an excellent metaphor for approaching development. His relates to mentorship.

     I try to live by the “mine field concept”. If I want to be where someone else is, why would I walk through the mine-field of life
on my own and get constantly blown up in the process. If I can find someone who is where I want to be, I ask them to
mentor me, step in their foot-steps along the way and avoid all the mines that they’ve stepped on, then I will be more
successful in my trek.

Mentorship is a highly effective method of development. It combines direct performance feedback with broader organizational perspective all within a trusted relationship. Used correctly this can be an extremely powerful development tool. Unfortunately done poorly it can have the opposite effect or no effect at all. We will be talking more about mentorship in the future here at Developaleader.com.

Joey is not one for the college route, “I don’t hold much faith in the ‘college program’ route to leadership” he says.  I won’t hold that against him. It certainly helped me in my journey, but I will be the first to agree with him that it is not for everyone. If it were we would all be led by college professors and that sure isn’t happening.

I loved the way Joey ended his comments talking about the role of experience and the importance of getting into the game. He neatly ties the importance of mistakes (my words not his) into learning and growth.
Life experience is a major part of leadership too…but learning/applying the lessons along the way and understanding that a
person learns more in failure than success is a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people.

Get this message and you will not stop growing in your path to leadership effectiveness. I have talked about the importance of learning from your mistakes in the 7 lessons series in the mailing list. If you haven’t got them I encourage you to do so by signing up for the mailing list.

Getting started, getting on the path, yes, this is an important point. We cannot start early enough. It is like a 401k the sooner you begin contributing the faster the interest compounds before you know it your investment is growing exponentially.

I believe that the real answer is to: find a path, begin the journey, understand that the road will change along the way and understand that it never ends.

My thanks to Joey for such an insightful response.

So where have you started? What step have you made to begin your growth anew this day? Post a comment and let us know. I am confident that others will greatly benefit from your contribution.

Lead well

Ron

Over the next few weeks I will share some of the responses I received and my thoughts on the comments and advice. I have to say I do not agree with everything shared. I do believe in seeking common ground so rather than rail on those whose opinions differ I will share where we agree. This first post is no exception. The writer Suresh Srinivasan an Information security consultant form India believes that leaders are made not born. Hmm didn’t I write about this a while ago…
The implication of the made side of the leadership argument is that the person has natural abilities that help them to be a leader. The need to develop per se is not that great, they already have it. They can hone their craft but learn it from first principles, no.
Here is what Suresh shared were the traits of great leaders. For the record he is right, these attributes can be found in most effective leaders no argument on this point.

1. Learn Decision-Making Skills. Great leaders have the ability and courage to make decisions… Rather than dwell on a wrong choice, they learn from their mistakes and move forward.

2. Motivate. Persons who lead a team or organization can usually motivate or upbuild others. In order to inspire someone else, leaders recognize the main objective or common goal, and wholeheartedly believe in a vision.

3. Learn to Listen. A good leader will come up with useful ideas. However, a great leader will also listen to his or her team and take their ideas and thoughts into consideration.

Man is he right here! Listening is absolutely critical to leadership success. I think this is one of the seven key tips I shared!
4. Recognize personal shortcomings. Great leaders make mistakes. Rather than feel that their feelings and opinions are always right, they take a candid look at their behavior and traits.

5. Improve oral communication skills. Effective leaders can express their thoughts and visions in a clear and understandable manner.

6. Be a risk taker. There are risks associated with every decision… However, a great leader knows that certain risks are worth taking

7. Be trustworthy. People want leaders who are honorable, dependable and responsible.

A great list indeed! Communicate, be trustworthy listen, take risks, know your shortcomings decide and motivate others. A great list, thank you Suresh.
I believe that leaders are born and made and that great leaders never stop learning how to be better. So maybe leaders are born as Suresh says but certainly in every person their resides the inner potential of leadership they just may never discover it for a myriad of reasons.

The role of leadership development is to help those that have not found it to do so and those that have to be even more of the leader they already are.

Lead well
Ron

How do you approach your own development as a

leader

I am constantly fascinated with the number of offers on how you can learn leadership. Coaching, mentoring, web courses, commercial training, volunteerism, company training etc.

For the record mine is a combination of on the job experience, mentoring, college program, webinars. How about you?

So you have a couple of ways you can contribute. You can go to Linked In and post directly (you will have to sign up for a free account first if you do not have one. But I will link to you if you invite me!) or you can comment here. So what do you think, how do you develop?

When the question closes (in about a 5 days) I will share some of the highlights of the discussion over at Linked In.

Lead well

Ron

Thank You

Take the survey here @ Ron Hurst Leadership Development Survey

I appreciate your support and input.

Feel free to comment on your thoughts about leadership training here as well in the comments (hint hint ;-) area.

Lead well

Ron

There are of course two sides to every coin. After reading the story from the New York Times yesterday I went to the Star, The Toronto Star. I read the article of the opening day Toronto loss from the other perspective. As I started reading I was expecting the Yankees to be vilified, for the umpires to be criticized or even for some vague rationalization. What I found was balanced objective reporting with an opening section that was respectful of the Yankee tradition and good commentary on the end of the era. Check the link here.

So what does this have to do with leadership?

Easy. When in a competitive situation, there is little value in trashing the competition. False bravado only distracts from reality and could confuse those you lead. It is far better to be realistic. Compliment the strengths of the opposing organization and consider rationally how to out maneuver their organizational advantages. Hmmm this is beginning to sound like the start of a strategy session…

In a leadership role it is crucial to know what your organizations core competencies are. Discover them through dialogue with employees, customers suppliers and competitors. You will be amazed at how your organization is perceived when you ask the question. I heard another great way of looking at the strategy concept recently. What is your central organizing principle? If you can answer these two questions you will have a clear sense of purpose (latter) and an understanding of competitive advantage (former). These can be used to clarify the direction of the organization.

Want to learn more?

Ronn.hurst@gmail.com

Lead well

Ron

I would improve my ability to communicate.

Not in the traditional sense. I would first learn to listen and understand others. Want a great way to do so? Pick a worthy cause where the disadvantaged are. You can make a difference in others lives and at the same time learn to listen and hopefully develop a sense of empathy. I am not suggesting you be manipulative here, on the contrary, invest in your community. You will be surprised how much you are given when you have no expectation of return yourself.

Learn to speak.

Start a blog. Join toast masters. Take a minor leadership role in your volunteer activity above. Speaking on behalf of others is a powerful way to advocate and live the passion of a worthy cause.

Ask for feedback.

How else did you think you would improve a leadership skill. Ask someone you trust to give you feedback. If they hesitate, perhaps they do not feel you could accept their opinion with out hurt feelings… That would be another thing to deal with, another post.

Lead well

Ron