An Ignoble Experiment: Seeds of SUCCESS - The 8 Items on a Leader's To-Do List

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	May 17, 2011 - Vol. 4 Issue 11

The 8 Items on a Leader's To-Do List

John C. Maxwell says leadership is just as much about developing your team's talents as it is about nurturing your own leadership skills. The best-selling author of Talent Is Never Enough reminds us that growth is modeled after and expected from leaders. As a successful leader, you must do eight things.

1. Find your own personal strength zone.
A successful leader is a person who knows what they do well and does it, but they also know what their people know well and help them practice it.

2. Help others find their strength zone.
What is their special ability? You can't make others good at something you are bad at. You can only increase a person's giftedness by helping them answer important questions of themselves. What is their temperament? What is their passion? What choices are they making in their life? Help them with these things and there's no limit to how much someone can improve in these areas.

3. Help them define success.
Success is hugely subjective. Knowing your purpose in life, growing to your maximum potential or sowing seeds that benefit others are all great definitions of success.

4. Help them understand how to be successful.
The secret of our success is determined by our daily agenda. Decision-making is important and the management of the decision-making is even more important. Do the right thing today to be in a good place for tomorrow.

5. Teach and practice the four pillars of success.
• Relationships
• Attitude/Tenacity
• Leadership/Influencing people
• Equipping and developing other people

6. Teach your team the 20/80 principle, or the Pareto principle.
Within this, prioritize life. What is required of me? What gives the greatest return? What give me the greatest reward? When these three line up, then life becomes wonderful.

7. Provide resources for them.
There are only three times when people change. When they've heard enough that they have to change; they learn enough that they want to change; or receive enough that they are able to change. Put those resources of change in their hand.

8. Require them to reproduce themselves.
They have to teach someone else what they learn. Don't spend valuable time with people who want to consume but not share. Share the knowledge. Share the wealth.

For more articles from John C. Maxwell, visit SUCCESS.com.

LATEST BLOG POST
Recruiting Great People (Pt 2 of 3)
by Darren Hardy

In Part 1 of Recruiting Great People, we talked about key philosophies when it comes to recruiting. Now we'll discuss finding the ideal match

As a leader I believe you have three main functions:

1) Think. Set the vision. Architect the strategy. Make decisions.

2) Recruit and retain (culture development) the BEST talent you can.

3) Inspect what you expect – keep your eye on the vital signs of the organization.

And really, if you only master No. 2, the rest will probably get done too. That makes recruiting and retaining talent your most important job as a business owner, entrepreneur and leader; thus, worthy for us to spend some quality time on it here.

Finding Your "Ideal Match"
I interviewed one of the most successful professional executive recruiters in the country, Harry Joiner, to pick his brain and take a look into his grab bag of tricks on the topic. Harry used the analogy that we should approach recruiting like dating. First, ask yourself the questions to determine what your "ideal match" would look like. He also said to know the key initiatives for your new team member needs BEFORE you look for them so you know how to qualify your "ideal match."

Four key questions to identify the criteria of your "ideal match":
1. What's the role?
2. How will success be measured?
3. What attributes are needed to succeed?
4. What attributes are needed to gel with rest of team and culture?

Here is what I have always done.

When I am looking to recruit someone, the first thing I do is...