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Editor: Dr. Wolf J. Rinke ----- Feel free to forward this eNewsletter to others. ------- IN THIS ISSUE "A great leader is a man who has the ability to get other people
to do what they don't want to do and like it." =================================================== Delegate or die. America's most visible female executive, Carly Fiorina of H-P, learned that the hard way. In this highly competitive virtual marketplace attempting to stay in control and being "self-reliant" is suicide. Because the minute you assume a management or leadership position you become dependent on your people, because they are responsible for 85 percent of your success. ACTION STEPS: Make getting really good at delegation and empowerment your #1 priority.
Master the art of letting go. And if you find that difficult to do,
get yourself a coach or at least devour my "Winning Management"
book. (See my special offer in paragraph 3.) Your ability to succeed--or
even survive--depends on it! =================================================== In the last issue of this eNewsletter (#7-6-- www.WolfRinke.com) you learned about the effectiveness of six leadership styles--coercive, pacesetting, coaching, democratic, affiliative and authoritative. In this issue we'll talk about "The Cost of Leadership Misalignment" and discover specific Smart Steps that will enable you to lead more and manage less. THE COST OF LEADERSHIP MISALIGNMENT Janet was brought on board as the director of sales of this small, fast growing niche-player mail order company. A very compassionate, warm and friendly executive--David--who was an affiliative type leader, led the company. David had taken over the business from his father about eight years ago and had built it from negligible sales to about $20 million in annual sales currently. He was an extremely hard worker, 70-hour weeks were the norm, and his approximately 70 employees liked, admired and even revered him. Having grown the company to its current level of success David felt the need to bring a VP of sales on board to help him reach the leadership team's humongous overarching goal (HOG) of $200 million in sales in 10 years. For the HOG to become reality David was especially dependent on Janet who was charged with achieving aggressive sales targets and transforming the sales department from being primarily inbound sales driven--mailing out catalogs and then waiting for orders--to also becoming outbound focused--having a cadre of highly effective sales professionals who would establish long-term relationships with their customers and be pro-active in generating sales. Janet had been a fairly obvious choice since David had gotten to know her in her role of sales manager in his sisters manufacturing business, which had recently been sold. Janet seemed just the right person to help the company achieve its HOG. She was very focused, very well spoken and seemed to fit the positive organizational culture that had been built by David. After coming on-board Janet rolled up her sleeves reorganized the sales department. She drew up plans for outbound sales, reorganized the physical layout of the sales department and changed the compensation system for the sales team. She also told the inbound sales manager--Tim--how she expected him to deal with employees "because what you've done in the past obviously has not worked around here." Janet also asked Tim to start monitoring the sales associates' phone calls. At the same time Janet focused much of her mental energies on what employees had been doing wrong and letting them know that often in an underhanded, aggressive and public manner. It only took about three weeks before Janet and Tim had their first altercation and the first sales associate had left the company. By the end of nine months, Tim had put in his resignation--"I can't work for someone who constantly belittles me and tells me what I am doing wrong. This is getting me so upset that I have been getting sick to my stomach and even had to see a doctor who told me that I have an ulcer," said Tim. In addition to Tim, five of the 24 sales associates had quit as well and complaints from others, even from customers and employees from outside the sales department, kept pouring in. It was time for David to bite the bullet and let Janet go. David concluded that Janet's coercive leadership style--which never showed up when she interacted with him--simply was not aligned with the organizational culture, and that the human costs of keeping her--even though her ideas and the systems she had put in place seemed to be on the right track--was just too great. SMART STEPS Vary your leadership style in accordance with the situation. If in doubt use the affiliative leadership style. Check for leader--culture alignment. Use multiple interviewers whenever you hire new team members. SOURCE: Based in part on Chapter 4 of my new book Don't Oil the Squeaky Wheel and 19 Other Contrarian Ways to Improve Your Leadership Effectiveness, McGraw-Hill, 2004. ================================================== Want to avoid Carly Fiorina's fate? Listen to my six-CD audio album: "Winning Management: 6 Fail-Safe Strategies for Building High-Performance Organizations." Over 5 hours of fail-safe management strategies to improve your performance, productivity and profitability. According to Bill Marriott, these "strategies provide invaluable guidance." Price: $69.95 plus get the book (same title) for FREE. You risk absolutely nothing!!! If for any reason the CD's are not everything you expected, send them back to me and I will give you your money back. The book is yours to keep! Log onto www.wolfrinke.com/wmspecial.html or call 800-828-9653. Mention this ad when ordering by phone! Offer expires 3/15/2005. =================================================== The boss joined a group of his employees at the coffee urn and told
a series of jokes he'd heard recently. Everybody laughed loudly. Everybody,
except Mike. =================================================== These full day seminars maybe open to you, especially if your company is a member of the Institute of Management Studies (IMS). Contact the Chairperson for additional information. Winning Management: Building a Peak Performance Workplace =================================================== =================================================== If this was forwarded to you and you would like to receive your own
FREE subscription click above.
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