• Position yourself as the authority.
• Add a personal touch to your products.
• It can be as simple as having your picture on the website.
• Or your signature on something you sell.

My Mum has 3 Golden Rules.  I’m sure she’d never be able to teach them to you – but they are things I’ve noticed over the years that apply as well to business as they do to mothering.

1. Never show up to a party empty handed.

It’s polite, thoughtful and just good form to take a bottle of wine, flowers or a gift of some sort.

Similarly in business, if someone has given you the gift of their time to help you out in business – what can you give them to say thanks?

2. Happiness is more important than financial reward. 

My Mum never expressed too much concern when I wanted to leave medicine and become an actress.  She continues to support me no matter what I want to do, as long as I’m happy. 

I think we should all “mother” ourselves in this way in business.  Take your own happiness “temperature”.  Are you still happy doing what you’re doing? If not, perhaps you should nurture and support yourself and let yourself do something you enjoy for a while. (Who knows it might make you more money like mine did!)

3. Relationships first.

No matter what happens, or what someone does or doesn’t do – the most important thing is to maintain the relationship.  If there is love and trust in the relationship people will be empowered to make the right choices.  There’s no room for judgment. 

I notice this holds true with dealing with staff.  People don’t come to work to do a bad job.  If you empower people, and love them enough, they are more likely to achieve than if you berate them.

As I write this I think I could write a million things I learned from my Mum that impact my business, but 3 will do for today.  What did you learn from your Mum?  Was is it empowering?  If not, turn it around – there’s some great life lessons in there if you look.

Thanks Mum.

Last week we looked at 10 great leadership styles to model.  In the 2nd of this 2-part series, we’re focussing on the 10 major causes of leadership failure.  Read these to avoid the pitfalls!

Disorganisation of Details
No leader is ever ‘too busy’ to do anything.  When you admit you are too busy, you show up your inefficiency.  One leadership style to definitely avoid is the “I’m too busy” attitude.

Unwillingness To Do Menial Tasks
To be a great leader, you have to get your hands dirty sometimes! If you want a great example, you only need to think of Gandhi.  His leadership style was so effective because he wasn’t above his followers, he was one of them.

Expect To Be Paid For What You Do
The most successful leaders I know get paid not for what they know, but for what they do with what they know.   Leadership style focusses on action.

Fear of Competition
Don’t focus on others, focus on what you are doing and how you can do it better.  The best leaders in the world train their team members to take over.  Only in this way, can you give attention to many things, i.e., leverage out to make more money.

Lack of Imagination
A weak leadership style is one of no imagination. With no imagination then you have no hope of meeting emergencies and of creating plans which your team will be inspired to follow.

Selfishness
If you’re the kind of leader who claims all the credit then this is bound to cause resentment.  The most powerful leaders actually give all the credit to their team because it’s a fact that people work harder for commendation and recognition than they will for money alone.  Love your team and they will love you!  Another definate leadership style to avoid is selfishness.

Over-Indulgence
This clearly does not command respect.  Enough said.

Lack of Loyalty
Any leader who is not loyal to his/her team will not be leader for long. 

Authority
If you’re trying to lead through the “authority” of your role, you’re trying to lead by force.  Real leaders lead through encouragement.  In the wise words of Mo-tzu,“People only become unmanageable when one tries to lead them with a violent love….But if one approaches them with trust and takes them by the hand….there will not be a single one will not adapt himself to the rule.” 

Your Job Title
Great leaders don’t need fancy job titles to gain respect.  A true leadership style is one through his/her actions not by the words on their business card – their offices are free of ostentation and open to anyone to enter.

Bonus Tip – Good Delegation

OK, so this isn’t one to avoid, but it’s so useful I thought I would include it anyway. To be a good business owner we have to be prepared to let go of the things we are not so good at and delegate them to others.  But not abdicate responsibility for them.

Good delegation is:

1. Ask someone to achieve an outcome
2. Ask if they accept responsibility for it
3. Give them authority to complete it (or outline what you want to be consulted about)
4. Schedule to review progress on estimated completion date.

Most people just hand it over like a parcel and never check in.

What’s Next?
A strong leadership style is to be modeled over time. I don’t think it’s something to be achieved overnight, but we can certainly start now.  It might help if you looked at the list honestly and asked yourself “Which of these am I doing?”  “Which of these could I stop doing?”  Choose one of the things you want to start doing now and you might just find that you’ve taken the first step towards great leadership.

Leadership shows up in all areas of business and especially so from stage. In fact, to be on stage, you really do need to possess strong leadership skills. How else will you get your audience to respond to you and buy from you if you don’t show leadership?

• You must let your audience know that you are the boss
• Train them to be happy doing things that are normally out of their comfort zone
• That way when you say to go to the back and take out their credit card they will feel less resistance
• Use it. It works.

What do you have to do to create a great team around you?  The very first thing is to become a great leader.  A great leader will automatically attract a great team. Here in part 1 of a 2-part article on Leadership are 10 fabulous leadership styles to model.

Summary
 It’s clear looking at this simple list of major leadership styles that real leadership is all about the kind of person you are and the values you hold.  If you live up to these values then you won’t even have to hunt for your team – they’ll be attracted to you as if by magic.  Great leadership is not so much about ‘doing’ anything as is commonly thought.  It’s about ‘being’ someone special and when you’re that someone special, people will flock to work for you.

What’s Next?
I suggest reading this list a few times and being totally honest with yourself.  What qualities are you being and what are you not being?  Choose one quality of the list – the one quality that resonates with you – and make it your intention to be this quality as of today.  Great leadership begins with yourself.

Next week we’ll be looking at some classic leadership mistakes which you will definitely want to avoid!