7 Ways to Sharpen Your Leadership Skills

By Ritika Trikha

Very few people describe themselves as natural born leaders. It takes buckets of self-confidence and a dash of moxie to get others to follow your lead. But you don't exactly need to grab the microphone to exude leadership. Leadership is a skill; one that can be learned and developed. Strong leadership skills will help you score more responsibility at work, which means higher chances of a promotion, increased salary, and growth opportunity overall. So, if you want to give your boss more reasons to promote you, consider doing at least one of the following each work day:

1. Foster a reputation for being helpful and resourceful. You don't have to know how to do everything to be seen as a leader, but you do need to be a problem solver. Keep your eyes and ears perked to be aware of what's going on, even in other departments—who's the best person for graphics? Or who's the most accessible person in the IT department? When a newbie co-worker or manager asks for help, you'll know exactly who to direct them to, which will solidify your status as someone who knows the ropes.

"Top performers are widely known and respected by others not because of their frequent contact, charm or likability, but because they help others solve their problems," says David Maxfield, co-author of New York Times' national bestseller Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success. "By doing so, they become invaluable resources." Aim to be helpful; knowing about your surrounding resources is a great start.

2. Be a self-starter. At the very least, you should become the go-to, indispensable person in your little corner of the company. Do whatever it takes—whether it's classes at night, attending conferences, or starting a blog about your field—to become a super authority on your job.

The key here is to kick into self-starter mode—a major prerequisite to gaining leader status. It's not just about doing the job you're assigned, it's about starting your own side projects to keep practicing and mastering your skill.

3. Mentor someone newer. If you see a co-worker who is clearly struggling, point them in the right direction if you can. After all, what better way to practice leadership than to let someone follow your lead? The trick here is to be an effective communicator. Their success is a testament to yours, and at least one person will now see you as a leader. You have to start somewhere.

4. Get on the radar by networking. Networking is important because it'll not only place you on the map but it'll also help you achieve tip No. 1. Joanne Cleaver, author of the upcoming book The Career Lattice and president of the strategic communication consulting firm Wilson-Taylor Associates, says you need alliances with co-workers who can pull in the resources and expertise you'll need to get a project done. "People often assume that they must network up in the organization, but in this era of professional social networking, lateral networks are just as crucial," she says.

5. Lead collaboratively, not cutthroat. Leadership is centered on teamwork rather than going it alone. If you're only out for yourself, why would anyone follow your lead? A good leader recognizes others' strengths and harnesses them to orchestrate a collaborative project.

6. Gain your colleagues' trust. How do you gain trust in the workplace? Simple: Don't give others a reason to be mistrustful of you. This one is really a matter of being ethical. Don't lie, cheat, steal, or throw anyone under the bus to get ahead. Following the Golden Rule will go a long way in earning trust with your work mates.

7. Encourage others through positivity. Leadership requires strong, positive energy—people gravitate toward positivity. Tony Schwartz is the president and chief executive officer of The Energy Project, a company that teaches people how to have a more engaged workforce. In a guest blog post for the Harvard Business Review, Schwartz writes about how leaders should "Serve as Chief Energy Officers—to free and fuel us to bring the best of ourselves to work every day."

Leaders exude positivity, and it's this energy that helps fuel everyone to do their best. This goes back to being solution-oriented and resourceful. A can-do, pleasant attitude is much more respected than a negative one.

Quote

"You have to think anyway, so why not think big?"
-Donald Trump

Out-of-the-box Thinking

Robert A. Goerman

What is it?

The natural thing to do is the thing you have always done. Every time you approach a problem you bring your accumulated experience, knowledge and training to bear on it. But this includes your accumulated assumptions and biases, both conscious and unconscious. The more experienced you are, the more likely you are to assume outcomes by extrapolating from the known facts and experiences to predict a result. This mental baggage can prevent you from accepting innovative ideas. The best assumption to ever have is that any commonly held belief might be wrong.
According to the dictionary, out-of-the-box thinking is defined as "thinking that moves away in diverging directions so as to involve a variety of aspects and which sometimes lead to novel ideas and solutions; associated with creativity."

Thinking in-the-box means accepting the status quo. To in-the-box thinkers, an idea is but an idea and a solution is a solution. They can be quite obstinate when it comes to appreciating any idea and very rarely invest time to turn a second-rate solution into a brilliant solution. More importantly, in-the-box thinkers are skillful at assassinating originality. They are masters of the creativity-killing attitude trademarked by "that will never work." In-the-box thinkers believe that every problem needs only one solution and that finding more than one possible solution is a waste of time. They habitually cry, "There is no time for creative solutions. We just need the solution."

Creative people become in-the-box thinkers when they stop trying. Apathy and indifference can turn an innovator into an in-the-box thinker.

Thinking outside-the-box requires new ways of seeing the world and a willingness to explore. Out-of-the box thinkers know that new-fangled ideas need nurturing and support. They also know that having an idea is good but acting on it is more important. Results are what count.

Know that if you really get out-of-the-box, you will immediately become a high-profile player. Be sure you are ready for the game. Both the risks and the rewards will increase. You will be held to a higher level of accountability, and you will taste the rare ecstasy that comes only from not holding back.

The Power of Thinking Big

by Rieva Lesonsky

“Some people see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say, why not?” –Robert F. Kennedy (adapted from George Bernard Shaw)
Are you stuck thinking small? As the owner of a small business, you wear many hats. And in the day-to-day hustle and bustle of making sure orders get filled, customers get served and bills get paid, it’s all too easy to start thinking small.
Not too long ago, the conventional wisdom was that you needed to have a business plan that laid out your goals for one year, five years and ten years ahead. Having that type of plan forces you to think big. But in today’s fast-changing economy, that advice has changed too. Now, more often, entrepreneurs are advised to gear their plans in quarterly increments. You can think one or three years out, but planning five or 10 years out begins to feel like an exercise in wishful thinking when it’s hard to predict what technology, markets or opportunities will exist just months down the road.
Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like to make plans that are set in stone. So I love that we’re no longer forced to plot out our every move for five or ten years from now. But thinking short-term can also lead to thinking small if you’re not able to see beyond what exists today. Responding nimbly to change requires being willing to think big and imagine what might be in one, three, five or ten years.
How can you keep yourself thinking big? Here are some tips.
1. Set aside thinking time. Just an hour a week to catch up on key reading and let the ideas percolate without interruption can bring big brainstorms. Take downtime, too, to meditate, exercise or whatever floats your boat and gets your creativity flowing.
2. Mix and mingle. Talking to people outside your industry can open your eyes to big ideas you might never have considered on your own. Just a quick coffee or lunch chat can spark lots of big plans.
3. Keep up on trends. Stay abreast of what’s new and notable in your industry, sure. But try to think beyond that by drawing trends out to their logical conclusion. For example, in the restaurant industry, food trucks are hot. How would food trucks go to the next level? What if other industries went mobile? What if food could be delivered digitally? What if restaurants disappeared? Let your imagination run wild.
4. Let money be no object. In reality, of course, your business goals are limited by your budget. But what would you do if you had unlimited funds? Envision your wildest business dream, write it down—and work from there. Maybe you can’t fund it all…but if you think big enough, you might find someone who will.
Thinking big attracts other big thinkers. Thinking small just keeps you where you are. Get help thinking big from the mentors at SCORE. If you don’t have a mentor yet, visit the SCORE website to get free small business counseling 24/7.

How To Think Outside The Box In Marketing Your Business

By: Dale W. Hutchings

In a constantly changing business world, where the old ways of marketing a business are quickly becoming obsolete, it is more important than ever for any size company to think out of the box in promoting its products or services. For many businesses this is easier said than done, especially when a culture has developed in the workplace where the main focus has been on production and hardly ever on marketing. This often leads to a mindset where new ideas are discouraged, doing things the way they have always been done is the norm, and taking the safe approach to doing business is expected and encouraged.

1. 1.Look At Your Business From A Fresh Perspective. Put yourself “in the shoes” of a customer or potential customer. Ask yourself questions like: “Is this business doing a good job of letting me know about their products or services?” “Why should I do business with them instead of somebody else?” “What makes their products (or services) unique?” The answers to these questions will be a good first step to generating for you out of the box thinking.

2. Encourage Creative Thinking. Are you always open to new ideas for marketing your business? If so, what have you done to encourage creative thinking in your workplace? In recent years, what new, out of the box marketing ideas have you introduced into your company that has changed the way your business presents itself? I could cite numerous examples of businesses that have failed (or are currently failing) for having this “in the box thinking” mentality. But rather than waste space pointing fingers at such companies, let’s address what you can do to create or enhance out of the box marketing thinking within your work environment to give you an edge over the competition.

Here are several easy steps to become an out-ofthe- box marketing thinker: If you are having a tough time coming up with answers, sorry, but you are not supporting the concept of creative thinking in your company. If you have employees, set-up a program that rewards them for coming up with great business marketing ideas. If you have a storefront or office that gets a lot of traffic, have a suggestion box where customers can offer their recommendations on what you might do to enhance business. If you are a single proprietor, seek out the advice of others. Organize your own brainstorming group with other business owners to help one another. Remember: no matter how big or small you are there is always a way to augment creative thinking in any business.

3. Listen! Listen! Listen! Have an open ear. Listen to what employees have to say. Listen to what your customers are telling you. Listen to what your business colleagues suggest. Listen to experts in your industry in regards to business marketing trends. Seek out the advice of a professional marketing consultant and listen to what he or she has to say. As Writer/Poet Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.”

4. Think About How To Market Differently Than Your Competition. Take a serious look at how your competition markets and then ask yourself and/or your staff: “How can we market ourselves different from the competition?” “What can we do differently to set us apart?” “What kinds of business marketing tools or measures can we use that our competition isn’t?”
   
5. Create A Physical Work Environment That Stimulates Creative Thinking. One of the best, easiest and most effective ways to achieve this is to hire a professional organizer. Individuals in this field are well versed on how to effectively organize. This includes knowing how to create an office or workplace environment to enhance creativity depending on a person’s habits and thinking process for stimulating thought. At no time in history has there been more advertising messages thrown at us on a daily basis than today. Therefore, to get people’s attention out of the box marketing is not merely important in doing business, but imperative. So don’t wait another minute, hour or day. Get to work now using these steps to begin beating out your competition with truly creative thinking, when it comes to marketing. The clock is ticking.

The Importance of Thinking Big in Business

by Amber Wright

“We become what we think about.” Earl Nightingale

Many of us who start businesses simply want to build something that will give us a degree of independence and support our families in a middle class lifestyle. Some of us simply don’t make great employees, and feel we could do it better than the folks we previously worked for. The start up phase of a business is such an obsessive undertaking that we can usually only focus on what is in front of us and the next few weeks ahead. But if the business survives, the day comes when we lift our gaze from the near term goals and are forced to think in terms of bigger dreams and how ambitious we might dare to be.

What if your dream takes a turn that points toward being much larger. At Harvard Business School they have a term “BHAG” which is big, hairy, audacious goals. In his article “In Praise of Positive Obsessions,” creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD describes positive obsessions as "insistent, recurrent thoughts or sets of thoughts, pressurized in feel, that are extremely difficult to ignore, that compel one to act, and that connect to one’s goals and values as an active meaning-maker and authentic human being."

There is reward and satisfaction in big thinking but it is so easy to forget when you hit the inevitable rough spots in building your dream. The lesson from Mr. Silbergeld or Mr. Murdoch really amounts to not letting the ever present challenges shrink your thinking. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said it so well. “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic to it.”

10 Essential Business Leadership Skills

by Ben Yoskovitz

Are you a leader?

Truth be told, not everyone is a leader. It’s just not meant for everyone. And that’s OK.

But more people are leaders than they realize. Leadership takes on many different faces; it’s just a question of understanding how you lead and why.

Here are 10 key business leadership skills you’ll need to succeed as a leader:

1. Lead By Example. You can’t be an aloof leader, someone that’s never around and incapable of getting your hands dirty. One of the best ways to lead is by example – pitching in where needed, lending a helping hand, and making sure that the work you do is clearly understood by your team.
2. Passion. A leader without passion isn’t a leader. He’s a paper pusher. Or a taskmaster. Or a government employee… Passion drives a lot, and you can inspire so much in others through your own passion and enthusiasm. That doesn’t mean you have to be constantly cheery, it means you’ve got to believe in what you’re doing and what your company is doing.
3. Be Organized. A disorganized leader isn’t leading, he’s chasing his own tail. Disorganization breeds nothing but more disorganization. If you’re frazzled and messy, your team will be too. When you’re organized you’ll be much more productive and so will everyone else.
4. Delegate. You can’t do everything. A great leader needs to be able to delegate effectively. The key to delegating successfully is giving employees ownership of the work you assign them. They can’t just feel like they own the work, they really have to.
5. Take Ownership and Responsibility. Although you’ve just delegated work and truly given your team ownership, you also have to take ownership and responsibility at all times. Your team has to know you’ll be there for them through the good and the bad times. That doesn’t mean you absolve people from making mistakes or ignore crappy work/effort, but it does mean you take responsibility for the big picture.
6. Communicate Effectively. Duh. Everyone knows great leaders have to be great communicators. But there are certain points of communication that many people forget. For example, it’s critical that you communicate to employees how their work matters in the bigger picture. Are they a cog, or does their work truly make a difference?

   Communicating success is also something leaders forget to do. People need affirmation. They want to know they did a good job. You just have to tell them.

And be precise. Insecure leaders will often ramble; uninterested leaders cut things off to quickly. Whether you’re giving praise, providing constructive criticism, or defining goals and to-dos, you have to figure out how much to say and in what order. Be precise, specific and concise. Get to the point.

7. Be Brave and Honest. Cowardly leaders will shy away from any number of situations that crop up regularly when running a team. The project your team has worked on for 6 months just got shelved. Now what? Or you have to talk to someone about their lack of effort recently. Do you ignore the problem? Or maybe it’s time to take your product into a new market. Do you hobble forward, scared and nervous, or do you grab the market by the throat?

   Leaders are brave.

   And honest. Tell it like it is. Don’t sugarcoat, don’t obfuscate. Don’t be a jerk either. You have to learn how to present things to your team in an honest but balanced manner.

8. Great Listener. A huge part of being a great communicator is being a great listener. If all you want to do is talk, you’re not a leader. Keeping people motivated means listening to them, asking them questions, understanding their issues. When you listen more, you can respond more effectively and get to the heart of things much faster.
9. Know Your People. You have to know your people. You don’t have to be best friends or even socialize outside work, but you do have to know what makes them tick. You need to know something about their personal lives because their lives outside work matter. Their lives outside work drive a great deal of their success (or lack of) at work. Keep track of simple things: birthdays, marriages, children, etc. The more you know your people the more common ground you’re likely to find, the more you’ll be able to connect.
10. Be a Follower. Benjamin Disraeli said, “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” That sums up many of the other points so beautifully. Great leaders are followers too. If you’re a leader without following, you’re a dictator. And as fun as that sounds… Being a leader-follower means finding value in your team, getting inspired by your team, encouraging your team to communicate, brainstorm and be open.

Very few people are great leaders overnight. It takes time and practice. As long as you’re open about learning along the way and working with your team on leadership versus dictating to them, most people will be happy to go on the journey with you.