Critical Leadership Differences

Leadership as the ability to take individuals, including yourself, on a journey to a vision. This is accomplished by creating unified teams that focus all of their energies and achieve the leadership’s vision in a reasonable period. Leaders take teams to where they would not have gone on their own. Alternatively, management was defined as those that have direct responsibility to monitor the progress of an activity to its successful execution. In the process, they may directly order others to act in a particular manner. A manager’s authority is a direct result of the position and not necessarily the result of true leadership ability.

It’s important to understand that regardless of position or seniority, everyone in the company is a leader. That’s because people influence each other. You know the old expression: One bad apple ruins the bunch. We see this in business time and time again. Suppose you hire a salesperson or dismantler with a bad attitude. It doesn’t take long before that person’s negativity affects everyone else around him or her. Before you know it, there’s a cancer spreading that must be eliminated before it destroys the whole body, or business. Conversely, I’ve seen situations where people with questionable attitudes do a complete turnaround because the owners made sure they were surrounded by enthusiastic and productive team members.

At The Rogers Group, we believe there are three kinds of leaders. “Extraordinary leaders” are regarded as displaying above average ability and capable of leading an organization to a process of continuous improvement. These are the difference makers, the ones that insure that the team and the team members will not be left behind. They achieve every goal with great enthusiasm and fun. They promote organizational excellent organizational health.

“Healthy leaders” are regarded as a positive influence because they have the attitudes, knowledge, and skills to inspire others to excel. These leaders are necessary to keep the daily routines operational and up to quality standards, both of which are critical to maintaining daily profitability. They are the stabilizing force of the organization while contributing to its overall health.

Healthy leaders tend to be cautious about leading their team into uncharted processes/territories. Regardless of the situation, however, it’s incumbent upon extraordinary leaders to provide guidance while insuring that healthy leaders incorporate those ideas that have proven to be successful.

“Diseased leaders” are not regarded as a healthy influence by peers, superiors, and/or team members. Because these folks rarely achieve their own goals and discourage others from achieving their missions in a timely fashion,/> they’ll always retard the progress of the team.

It may seem harsh to think of leaders as being diseased. But if you have someone who becomes an obstacle to team success, wouldn’t you better off making that person expendable and sending them off to the competition?

The bottom line is that you only want people who add value to the organization. And by doing so, they become healthy or extraordinary leaders, both of whom make the company stronger and more profitable year-in and yearout.

In fact, about 10% of the staff from a healthy company should be extraordinary leaders. Everyone else should be a healthy leader. Needless to say, there is no room for diseased leadership of any kind.

Now it’s time for you to do an exercise. First write down the various traits that you believe make for extraordinary, healthy, and diseased leaders. Then take a good hard look at everyone in the company or on your team —starting with yourself—and determine whether they’re extraordinary, healthy, or diseased leaders.

Once you make this assessment, you’ve got to determine how to proceed. The good news is that leaders are not born, they’re developed. And as a leader in your company, one of your prime responsibilities is to develop your people. We at The Rogers Group have seen many examples of people who improved their leadership skills with training, and in so doing became valuable assets to the company. Of course, you also need to determine who the diseased leaders are, the people whose destructive actions drive away customers and divide the employees. You know what to do with them.

Although necessary, none of this is easy. But being a leader never is. As President Harry Truman once said, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” And if you need any assistance along the way, The Rogers Group will be there for you.