Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 33 seconds.

TODAY’S IDEA: 7 Principles of Leadership

— From No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline: 21 Ways to Achieve Happiness and Success by Brian Tracy

Leadership and business guru, Brian Tracy, refers to 3,300 studies of leaders done by James MacPherson where the latter states that the first quality of leadership is vision.

“You become a leader when you accept responsibility for results,” says Tracy. “You become a leader when you begin to think, act and talk like a leader. You become a leader when you develop a vision for yourself and for your company, your life, or your area of responsibility […] and then share this vision with others and gain others’ commitment to make this vision a reality.”

And while there are hundreds of books written about leadership and vision, Tracy boils them down to one single word: success in the leader’s field. For instance, “a military leader has a vision of victory, from which he never deviates. A business leader has a vision of success for the business based on excellent performance, to which he or she is completely committed.”

But that’s not all. The author also points to the fact that in addition to a clear vision, “the leader must have a set of values and organizing principles that guide behavior and decision making.” Thus, he shares the following seven principles of leadership as a starting point:

1. Clarity: “This is perhaps your most important responsibility. You must be absolutely clear about who you are  and what you stand for. You must be absolutely clear about your vision and where you want to lead your people.”

2. Competence: “You must set a standard of excellent performance for the organization [or project] as well as for every person and function [involved].”

3. Commitment: “The leader is absolutely committed to the success of the organization… This passionate commitment to the organization–—and to success and achievement—motivates and inspires people to do their best work and put their whole heart into [whatever they’re doing].

4. Constraints: “The job of the leader is to identify the constraints or limiting factors that set the speed at which the [organization achieves its goals]. The leader then allocates people and resources to alleviate those constraints and remove obstacles.”

And I would add to this one that leaders not just alleviate constraints, but help the team work creatively within the constraints to come out ahead. When how can we get rid of this constraint?, is no longer working or simply not feasible, the leader changes the mindset to how can we achieve our goal within or despite this constraint?

This reminds me of a quote by George Bernard Shaw that I love:

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, while the unreasonable man persists in adapting the world to himself….therefore all progress belongs to the unreasonable man”.

5. Creativity: “The leader is open to new ideas of all kinds and from all sources.”

6. Continuous learning: “The leader is personally committed to reading, listening, and upgrading his or hers personal knowledge and skills… and encourages everyone in the organization to learn and grow as a normal and natural part of business life.” Hint: I know of a blog that can help you with that… 😉

7. Consistency: “The leader has the self-discipline to be consistent, dependable, reliable, calm, and predictable in all situations. One of the great comforts of business life is… to know that the leader is completely consistent and reliable… calm, positive, and confident—especially under pressure.”

As you can see, these seven principles of leadership are rather simple, yet not easy. While they are obvious and should be a given in leaders, they aren’t always! Have you ever met someone who embodied these seven principles in their leadership? Let me know in the comments here, I’d love to know.

ACTION

TODAY: Create your list of values and principles, the ones that you hold dear, live for, and fully believe in. What are they? Pour your heart into it.

FUTURE: Share your list with the people that surround you so that they can be aware of your principles. Ask them to do the same. You’ll have the most wonderful conversations about this and will get to know each other so well!

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