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If I were to ask you to imagine a heroic commander of a 100,000-man army, what would your mind’s eye see?

Would you picture a 42-year-old, awkwardly tall, pear-shaped, over-weight guy?

Could you imagine someone who was a failed teacher, a failed insurance salesman and a failed real-estate developer?

Well, that was Lieutenant General Arthur Currie.

During WW1, Currie was the Deputy Commander of the Canadian Corp during the Battle of Vimy Ridge and became the Commander of the Canadian Army in Europe. Postwar, with his high school education in hand became the Principle of McGill University.

This isn’t a retelling of a great moment in Canadian history. It is a story of a relative under-achiever who rose to face an unbelievable challenge and the lessons for the rest of us mere mortals.

There is only so much space in history for an Eisenhower, Churchill or Caesar and history is replete with unnamed regular folks like us who work hard and play our parts in achieving greatness.

Here are five characteristics demonstrated by General Currie, and all people, who become great leaders in their own time & right?

Uncompromising Integrity. Do not cut corners or cheat. Though others may be smarter, more forceful, and more creative, never compromised in your work and life.

Read about moral courage

Work Hard. Often when others play or waste time, continue to work. Feel like they are stealing from the company unless you give your best efforts.

Be Personally Responsible. Never blame employers and employees or complain because someone else in the organization was recognized or received a promotion.

Be Decisive. Know that slow decision-making is poor leadership and that analysis paralysis can kill an effort. Instead of living in fear of making the wrong decisions, move forward just as soon as you have sufficient information, not complete information.

Read about making decisions

Read. Good leaders read books, articles, and anything they could to make them a better person and a better leader. Ordinary men and women became extraordinary through constant and continued learning, regardless of the sacrifice.

Like General Currie, most of us are not the smartest, the best educated, or most articulate.

But Like Currie, we can hold high principles & work hard, and through these character traits, we common men and women can become extraordinary leaders.

This meme has been making the social media rounds lately, which sign caught your eye?

Both demand compliance, yet the one is an order and the on the right is a story that causes a physical reaction.

Why is that?

I believe that bad decisions are made when we do not understand why we are being asked to do something …

“if you always tell people why they’ll understand it better, they’ll consider it more important, and they’ll be more likely to comply.

And when the time is right, and you don’t have time to explain fully, they’ll trust you.”

I am all about the explaining the ‘why’ through stories.

Explore more about talking to your people

Humans love stories. Story-telling is the most powerful human communication method. Our greatest leaders, teachers, and communicators know this.

A great story tells us why the hero takes his dangerous journey. Likewise, effective learning also contains the why element. The why ties facts together into a coherent, memorable story.

Why brings meaning to an employee’s actions, otherwise why do it? So, when you talk to your team build a coherent story that contains the why element to:

• Increases employee understanding
• Increases employee perception of importance
• Increases employee compliance

It is the story that is important for all employees.

Feel the visceral power of the story in the DANGER sign on the right.

“We become what we repeatedly do.”
― Sean Covey

This is a checklist of seven simple shifts that can lead to exponential gains.

To gain benefit: print it; post it; and, do at least one action each day.

1. Take the time to say good morning to someone & thank them for coming in

2. Ask someone for their opinion on something & listened to what they have to say

3. Ask someone what is happening in their lives outside of work

4. Tell what is happening in the larger organization to keep people connected to the big picture and the higher purpose of their work

5. Write a personal thank you note to a team member or colleague

6. Make rounds, to stay in touch and talk about your expectations, so your team knows what matters

7. Take time to pursue or read something to enhance your leadership

Attracting people who’ll believe and trust you doesn’t happen overnight. You have to stick with it and continually learn to be a better leader.

Sincere & simple leadership actions draw people’s attention and are the most effective tactic for generating trust and engaging team members.

Click to download ‘7 Simple Shifts – Your Checklist To Being A Better Leader’

Recently I was interviewed for a leadership podcast, and the question that caused me to reflect on a lifetime of leading was: How do you show you care for your employees?

I landed on 6 key actions:

One, the easiest and most important is to connect them to the organization and the mission and the objectives of the organization in a very simple, articulate way.

How: Explain in respectful and appropriate language how each person’s work contributes to the success of the entire team

read more about the Mission

Two, show a high level of trust and confidence in them and in return you will get that back.

How: Explain what’s happening. I think most leaders, not because of ill-will don’t want to worry anybody, so they’re not going to tell the full truth about what’s happening around them.

And one of my consultancy clients were laying off people, because of economic reasons, there wasn’t enough work. But they stopped telling people what was happening and why people the project ended and there was no work.

People saw that the people in charge had stopped communicating and their coworkers just disappear. They began to assume that the company was in big trouble. The company was financially solid, still making a profit, had good sales and lots of potential work in the pipeline.

I coached the president to hold town halls and open the books as much as possible that was happening to give people confidence that the company was solid.

read more about talking to you people in tough times

Three, get off your butt, get out of your office and go see how people are working and ask them what’s going on in their lives, and in their workplace and show a little empathy.

How: Find out what’s going on, fix the little problems, be empathetic with people and that’s as equally simple and as complex as that.

During one of my walk arounds, I learned that a young lady working for me had a chance for a scholarship to go to nurses’ school. She couldn’t afford to travel, so the company paid for a hotel in Vancouver attend the application interview.

I didn’t have to do that, but trust me, that the word got spread that I helped her with this and, suddenly, people thought “If they’re going to do that for her, they’ll help me out,” and morale loyalty and trust goes up.

Four, deal with poor performance. Nothing will demoralize you people quicker than seeing a coworker get away with poor performance.

How: Pull your big boy or girl pants up and deal with poor performance.

No one comes to work wanting to do a bad job, create the desired expectations, provide the resources required for that person to improve, and monitor, mentor and support the behaviours you expect.

You are the Boss and eventually you will have to bring people up to the standard of performance or move them, respectfully, out of the organization.

Learn more about performance agreements

Fifth, have a little class and dignity.

How: People are not stupid or unrealistic, they understand that when times get tough layoffs may have to happen. But that is not license to treat people like so much trash being kicked to the curb.

Even if you have to fire somebody make sure that everyone sees that person being treated fairly and with respect.  That translates onto the shop floor or the rest of the office or the rest of the team, or they go “You know what, they treated that guy okay, so maybe they will look after me.

Finally, do the things no one would miss if you didn’t do it.

How: When I learned that someone on my team had a death in their family, I always send flowers from the organization and the team.

The cost? $30

… $30 for a little bit of caring.

It is those low cost yet important little things that become exponentially important to that person and the rest of your team.

I have a coaching client who was promoted from a specialist engineer to the dizzy heights of team-lead without the company investing in the skills she needed to transition from specialist to leader.

Because her boss and company did not recognize that they were promoting her into a new profession and invest in her accordingly, their accomplishment was to turn a fine and capable engineer into a poor supervisor!

The difference:

• Specialists use their skills and experience to create a product
• Team leaders need management skills, a knack for problem-solving and the ability to plan and manage the work – NOT to do it!

So, what is a team leader’s skill set?

1 Balancing between leadership and management

These are two separate skills:

Leadership is communicating a common vision of a future state; gaining agreement; then, motivating others in a forward direction.

Management is results driven and getting the work done.

Your job as a good team leader will constantly switch from a leader to a manager as situations require.

2 Be a Team Builder and a Leader

The leader sets the “tone” of the team to lead them through the various team development phases to the point where they begin to perform.

Read about teams

3 Be a Problem Solver

Identify the possible “causes” that lead to the problem, then analyze possible options and alternatives, and determine the best course of action to take.

4 Be a Negotiator and Influencer

Negotiation is working with others to come to a joint agreement. To avoid power struggles, develop influencing skills. Influencing is the ability to get people to do things they may not do otherwise.

5 Be an Excellent Communicator

Being a communicator is a two-way street as. A good way to get a grip on managing the information comes and goes is to ask yourself the following questions: who needs this information? Who gathers and delivers it? When or how often do they need it? And, in what form?

Read about communicating

6 Be Organized

Think of what you need to organize; project documentation, contracts, emails, memo’s, reviews, meetings, etc. It’s almost impossible to stay organized without developing good time management skills.

7 Become a Planner

The skill of planning can’t be underestimated. There are known and logical steps in creating plans. You may well own your team’s plan, but others depend upon your success.

8 Manage Budgets

At the heart of this is the skill is managing the budget, particularly costs. You will need a knowledge of financial systems and accounting principles.

If you are new to team leadership, don’t be overwhelmed by all this. There are well-understood methodologies, tools, guidelines, and procedures to help you on your way to developing the life-skill of leadership.

The first thing you need to do is book time with your boss and ask what their performance objectives are; what does he need you to do to help them be successful; and, then what professional development do you require to be successful.

Read about partnering with your boss

I was speaking to a group of Project Managers recently. Before speaking to any group, I interview a cross-section of attendees to see what they want to get out of my session. To a person, the pre-event interviewees wanted to learn more about leading teams of peers.

As Project Managers, it is a fundamental part of their role to lead teams people of different pay-grades, levels of responsibility, authority and roles to achieve success with whichever project they have been asked to achieve.

That said, we know the ‘iron-fist’ or the ranting & raving like a lunatic leadership styles does not work even when there is a clear line of command. They certainly won’t work when there is a dotted-line or matrixed relationship like a project team.

The only difference between you and your colleagues on that team is that you’re in charge and someone is holding you accountable for the project’s success. To accomplish your goals, you’ll be expected to motivate, facilitate, encourage, communicate effectively, build trust, and resolve conflict with the disparate members of the team.

How?

1. Set a positive foundation click here to read more on relationships 

• Establish a relaxed environment, where everyone is encouraged to share opinions and ideas.
• Ask for input from everyone, and encourage quieter members to speak up.
• Use active listening skills, like paraphrasing and asking questions for clarification.
• Insist on respect for one another and, for tasks taking a lot of time and effort, consider developing a team charter to define your team’s goals and how the team will work.
• Use participative decision-making tools, and try to ensure active involvement and commitment from the team.

2. Empower Team Members

• Leaders who give power to others can be very influential and motivating.
  • Give praise wherever it’s due.

3. Be Flexible click here to read more about courage

• A heavy-handed approach can cause resentment and non-compliance in a team of peers.
• Adapt to the changing environment.
• A flexible leadership style can deal with changing circumstances without compromising your leadership role.
• You need to help your team adjust to changes in direction, circumstance, and priority.
• When you’re open to change, your team will see that, and they’ll be more likely to accept change.

4. Set Goals click here to read more about setting goals

• Having a clear direction is essential.
• If there’s no central direction to follow team members will have their perspectives that could lead your team down very different paths.
• It is much easier to keep people working together effectively if objectives are clear.

5. Support and Protect Your Team

Each team member may have their regular job to do in addition to the team’s specific tasks. This means that commitment to your team may be a secondary priority. As the one who is ultimately accountable, concentrate on getting the support and resources your team needs to do the job well.

Focus on these three key areas:

– Obtain resources – Your team may quickly lose momentum if it encounters resource shortages. If you get your team what it needs – when the team needs it – your status, influence, and ability to motivate can increase significantly.

– Manage stakeholders – Many people outside your team may strongly influence the team’s success. First, you may encounter outside resistance from various sources.

One way to gain the respect of your team is to protect it from negative outside influences so that that team members can produce great work.

– Obtain management feedback – Ensure that management knows what’s going on and that your team knows what management thinks. This can be a delicate balancing act because you don’t want to run back and forth with too much information. Figure out what each side needs to know to remain satisfied, and then provide it.