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How Are You Leading
Your Team?
Effective leaders do not micro-manage but create a strong, clear vision and plan, and then encourage employees to buy into it. They invest time, training and money in their employees, ensuring they are equipped to make informed decisions, and are then empowered and held accountable. Without the power to make decisions there cannot reasonably be accountability. Employees make mistakes. This is part of the learning and growing process. Part of being a good leader is to minimize the impact of their mistakes by only empowering your people to the decision making level they are equipped to handle. The lack of a strong team is also a common stumbling block to sustainable success. Although the words “team building” have become a buzz phrase, successful leaders agree, strong teams are invaluable. In a strong economy like Edmonton is experiencing, it is difficult to maintain an effective team when the players are always changing. However, it is worth the investment of time, energy and money to build your team because generally the stronger the team, the more profitable the company is. Strong team members show attention to detail, are consistent and have effective internal communication skills. They are also flexible, tolerant and supportive. There is less in-fighting, more humor, reduced sick days and increased productivity from your team. This equals increased profitability! Nothing out-weighs the power of leading by example. Staff tend to mirror the behavior of respected leaders. Be aware, employees use a microscope when evaluating their leader. Being the kind of person people want to follow will result in the success of your marketing strategies and develop a culture of customer service, rather than trying to use policies and procedures, which are impossible to enforce, to control your people. Many people in the position of leadership do not have leadership skills. There are only two ways of addressing this problem – replace the leader or invest in cultivating them. Not all people are open to doing what it takes to become an exceptional leader. Investing in someone with high resistance is a waste of your time and energy and unfair to that employee. Before you invest in leadership training seminars, courses and mentoring, talk to the employee. Is this something they want? Are they willing to pay the price? Sometimes moving a poor leader out of that role and into a role of team member creates an exceptionally productive, happy employee. If you must replace a leader, it is not necessary to replace them with someone who has had leadership experience. Hire for personality and train for talent. Is your candidate decisive, flexible and an excellent communicator? Do they have empathy and an attitude of gratitude? Are they passionate, positive and an excellent cheerleader? Are they the kind of person that their peers naturally want to follow? Sadly, companies find it easy to justify investing their money in advertising and marketing materials; yet find it difficult to invest in their most effective marketing tool, their people. Written by:
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Having a marketing plan without a leader with exceptional leadership skills to ensure and guide implementation is futile. In my many years as a marketing consultant I have seen the demise of numerous creative marketing strategies because there was no buy-in from staff and too much micro-management by the leaders. Effective marketing can only be realized through effective leadership. 
