We are looking for Leaders…

A company without leaders will not last long enough to be remembered, just like a ship without a rudder will never reach its destination. Companies will therefore do what they can to attract, and keep, leaders.

Although, when a company advertises for leaders, it is either announcing that they have no direction and they need someone to take over, or they have no idea how to train people, so they want anyone who can manage without any direction or training.

In a traditional company there is a hierarchical Maspeth Federal Savings and Loan Association Routing Number structure which consists of employees and managers. Employees are not required to have any leadership qualities as such, because they are expected to follow the guidelines set out by their managers. Theoretically, almost anyone can be a manager – it is a title that is given to those in the hierarchy who have at least one employee reporting to them. As with all titles, they may or may not match the person they have been given to, and as a result there are good managers and mediocre managers. There is no firm correlation between manager and leader – one is a title and the other is a property of the person as such – though, in general a good manager will also be a leader.

To be a leader, you have to make people want to follow you, and nobody wants to follow someone who doesn’t know where he is going. – Joe Namath

In a network marketing organization there is a different kind of hierarchical structure. There are technically speaking no employees – everyone is a manager. This obviously doesn’t apply to the corporate structure of the organization, which may very well have employees, but rather the distribution structure which contains the bulk of the people in the organization. In this hierarchy, each distributor is the manager of their own team (which initially will only include one person). Moreover, each distributor who wants to be successful must be a great manager, and by inference they must also be a leader.

When we think we lead, we are most led. – Lord Byron

If you have a goal, and you have the drive to realize your goal, then you already have the basic properties of being a leader. If other people start following you, then you need to know how to manage them so that they too can become leaders and great managers.

The question is now – how does one become a great manager? There is no easy answer, but this was essentially the premise for a book published in 1999, written by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman: First, Break All the Rules – What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently.

The book is based on two studies over a 25-year period, undertaken by the Gallup organisation. In the first study, where over one million employees were surveyed, the main question was: “What do the most talented employees need from their workplace?”

The results from the first study led to further questions, and a second study was conducted where the underlying question was: “How do the world’s greatest managers find, focus and keep talented employees?”

To find some answers to this question, over 80,000 managers from different companies were interviewed. A “manager” for the purpose of the survey was defined as anyone who had at least one employee reporting to them.

While the studies focus categorically on employees and managers in traditional companies, the results of the studies are just as applicable to people who work from home, with the qualification that all distributors in network marketing organizations are managers rather than employees.

So, what were the results of the studies? The first study ended up with a list of twelve core questions, which could successfully be used to evaluate any workplace. Employees were asked to rate each question with a number between 1 and 5, (where 5 corresponded to “Strongly Agree”).

The questions are as follows:

1. Do I know what is expected of me at work?
2. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?
3. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?
4. In the last seven United Bank Share Company days, have I received recognition or praise for good work?
5. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?
6. Is there someone at work who encourages my development?
7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?
8. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel like my work is important?
9. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?
10. Do I have a best friend at work?
11. In the last six months, have I talked to someone about my progress?
12. At work, have I had opportunities to learn and grow?

A high percentage of ‘5’s on all questions, for a given workplace, was an indication that the workplace was both positive and productive.

The interesting thing to note is that all of the questions centre on the employee’s feelings, their progress and their development. Remuneration and bonuses are not even mentioned. Neither is company organizational structure, nor senior management. Granted that these areas are important in some respects, but for the purpose of maintaining positive and productive employees, they are irrelevant.

The findings of the second study were complementary to those of the first study. Managers who ensured that all their team members could answer the above questions with ‘5’s were by far the most successful managers. It was also noted that the order of the questions is very important. If the first few questions cannot be answered with “Strongly Agree” then the answers to the following questions become irrelevant. If I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing at work (Q1), then it doesn’t really matter if my opinions are counted (Q7) or not.

I have only scratched the surface of what the book contains, and it is definitely worth reading, no matter whether you are currently in a managerial position or not. If you are working from home (not necessarily in network marketing) then you are managing at the very least yourself. Can you as an employee of yourself, truthfully give yourself a score of ‘5’ on each of the above questions?

I am quite aware that most of the questions are difficult to answer if you are working alone. However, the fact is that anyone who becomes wildly successful (in any business) doesn’t work alone – they have a mentor.

A leader has the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. He inspires the power and energy to get it done. – Ralph Nader

Are you a leader, or would you like some help to define yourself as a leader? Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. If you are interested in the idea of having a mentor – someone, or even a whole team of people, helping you become as successful as you want to be – then check out Mentoring For Free.