Leadership

I have took the last few days off from the blog to recover from my brief illness. I have been pretty tired lately, taking a lot of naps to get my energy levels back up into peak performance. I feel like I am close to being back to old me, not that its much difference from current me, but I digress. So, I have been doing some thinking on what kinds of things I want to talk about. I know I can talk about sports, but that does not interest everyone and thus does not have a wide range of appeal as compared to other topics that I could discuss. So, the idea I came up with is basically a "word of the day." I will choose a word that I feel has some relevant meaning to it and that I can discuss a fair amount about. Some of the discussions will be centered around sports. Others will deal with non-sports related themes and some topics will incorporate both into the discussion.

Tonight's "word of the day" is Leadership. Something that we all have been associated with in some capacity throughout our lives. We all have opinions on what makes a good leader good and what makes a bad leader bad. There are no set criteria that I feel that an individual has to have to become a successful leader. Now I define successful as someone who can manage the people they are leading well by developing a positive, open culture where people feel like they can communicate freely with one another. Meaning that the leader communicates well and encourages that communication on a consistent basis. I think one of the best traits a leader can have is the ability to listen. To listen and be able to understand where people are coming from is crucial for any leader and for any person in general. I think a good leader should be humble and willing to say that they do not know the answer to everything, but that they could go find the answer from somewhere else or that they could trust someone right below them that might have the answer that they do not have. This is tough for many people because you are swallowing some pride. It takes a lot to admit that you do not know the answer to something. A good leader knows how to manage people, knows when to take charge and knows when to step back and let situations resolve themselves. A good leader can delegate responsibility and recognize where people's strengths lie so that things can get done quicker and most importantly more efficiently with good quality. I think leadership requires self-confidence as well. You have to believe in the mission of your organization. If you do not believe in it than how can those underneath believe in it. You have to be constantly aware that people are watching what you are doing all the time. Actions do speak louder than words and it is important to realize that. I think if people see that you are one of them and that you do not expect special treatment, than they will respect you. If they respect you they will trust you. They will trust that you have their best interests at heart. Some of the strongest leaders in the sports arena, are well respected by their teammates and by their opponents. Micheal Jordan, one of the best NBA players of all time, had respect from everyone who played with or against him. How did he do it? He did it with hard work, toughness, delegating responsibility in certain situations, taking the shots when needed, making the pass to get the easy shot, or playing defense on the opponents best player. He was selfless and wanted to win at all costs. I have heard many people say recently, especially in sports, that leadership is not something where you say I am going to be the leader of this team or this organization today, it is something that is earned. People follow leaders they do not follow titles.

In my Business Ethics class we have talked about many companies that have CEO's and CFO's cooking the books and misleading people into believing that they are making profits, when they are really losing serious money. Companies like Enron and WorldCom caused many people to lose large amounts of money. All because they wanted an extra million or two in their accounts each year. They saw the $$ signs, and forgot the reasons why they got into the business in the first place. They forgot their humble beginnings and let the slippery slope continue on until it became something they could not control. This is frustrating for so many of us out here. These companies openly deceived their investors into believing that things were ok and that everything was going just fine. Men that are in charge of these companies and the accounting firms that do their auditing for them are not leaders. They are just empty titles. These people thought they could slide by and that they were exempt from the rules just because they were CEO's of some major corporation. Well guess what, in the end, you lose. Cheaters can only get away with cheating for so long until they get caught. I heard a statistic recently, do not know if its true, that only 37% of the auditing done by companies on organizations is believed to be truly accurate and truly a reflection upon the companies true financial success. So that means that the auditors done by the accountants are inaccurate as well as the companies are being dishonest about how their business is going. How sad is that? Where are all the honest leaders? I know we live in a free market economy, but it is getting a little ridiculous. If these companies would quit trying to cover these things up and came out with the truth. They would save themselves and so many others a lot of money. It is plain irresponsibility and it is good hard-working folks that have to pay for their selfish greediness.

Well that is all I have to rant and rave about tonight. Let me know what you think of this new format and if you have things you would like for me to discuss. Please feel free to share them with me.
Thanks.

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