“Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.” – Jack Welch
Without a vision, you will get nowhere. Great business leaders all create a vision, articulate their vision, and are passionate about their vision. Too many managers settle for mediocrity and believe that if things are working, why fix it? The problem with this attitude is that there will always be someone else looking to the future, looking to improve, looking to find innovative new ideas. Sooner or later, the ones that have settled, find themselves in last place and are struggling just to catch up, let alone be the best.
Integrity and Humility
“With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.” – Zig Ziglar
Always be honest and truthful. The automotive industry is desperately trying to recover from the days where Salespeople tried to gauge their customers by lying to them. This will NOT work anymore. Today's leaders must be #transparent with customers. Why do you think every other major purchase for consumers is a great experience in life? For example, the amount couples spend on weddings, or someone buying a new home, for the most part, is a great experience. However, when purchasing a new car, most people do not trust the salesperson or the dealership. Leaders must teach and reflect honesty with their staff, in order to change the culture of a dealership
“The more you can contain your ego, the more realistic you are about your problems. You learn how to listen, and admit that you don’t know all the answers. You exhibit the attitude that you can learn from anyone at any time. Your pride doesn’t get in the way of gathering the information you need to achieve the best results. It doesn’t keep you from sharing the credit that needs to be shared. Humility allows you to acknowledge your mistakes.” – Larry Bossidy
Great leaders now are different. The skills you must have to motivate your staff today is to work with them, not above them. Millennials will not be motivated by someone telling them what to do, they need examples. Today's leaders must not delegate, they must work with their teams and inspire them. They need to show them by their actions, and teamwork.
Today's leaders must be humble. Humility doesn’t mean that you’re weak. It means that you have the self-confidence and self-awareness to recognize the value of others without feeling threatened. You need to build up your team and not be threatened by them. Give credit where credit is due – which many people struggle to do. Leadership is the ability to have people work for you because they WANT to.
Focus
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They stay focused on their past successes rather than their past failures, and on the next action steps they need to take to get them closer to the fulfillment of their goals rather than all the other distractions that life presents to them. – Jack Canfield
There will always be mountains to climb. There will always be failure. The great leaders of the world are the ones that work through the failure. Life is a journey. The easy route is when you stumble, you turn around and take another route. The problem with that is that you never learn to cross these pitfalls, and the competitor will get there faster by continuing on the path through these pitfalls. Any new process and vision takes practice, takes hard work, and diligence. Don't quit! Make sure that your team sees how committed you are, and that they know that they are going to be part of something that will be successful. Think long-term, set goals and keep them.
Passionate and Compassionate
You must be passionate about what you do, if you aren't, then you need to do something else. When you have passion, you inspire those around you. In turn, you must have compassion. Love your staff, love your customers. It is amazing to see leaders who genuinely care about their team. The compassion you have for your team will trickle down to your team caring for your customer. The most critical attribute of a great leader is to praise people, you will see improvement in leaps and bounds!
Lastly, don't be competitor focused, be customer focused. If you are customer focused, you are always making things better, always looking for the next way to make your customers say WOW!
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