Five steps to becoming a great leader

Are great leaders born with leadership capabilities or is leadership learned? Great leaders are learners. They are always learning, studying to be better at what they do. So, yes people can learn to be great leaders.

Mary Ann Kmetyk, of Applied Performance Strategies, who appeared as one of my guests on AHA Business Radio, introduced me to the book "The Leadership Challenge," by John Kouzes and Barry Posner. The book, first published in 1987, was the result of four years of case studies of what makes great leaders and should be in your library. The authors discovered that there are five practices of exemplary leadership:

• Model the way: A great leader does what he says. It is easy to tell people how to behave and what to do. True leaders set high standards and values and go beyond just talking about them. They lead by example.

• Inspire a shared vision: They understand why the organizations exists and set the vision for where it is going, inspiring others to follow their lead as they work to achieve the shared vision.

• Challenge the process: Great leaders recognize that staying status quo equals going backwards. They challenge the status quo and look for ways to experiment and innovate. They know the importance of taking risks and aren't afraid of the failures along the way. They learn from their failures. Without the risks, the breakthroughs and successes won't be there either.

• Enable others to act: They delegate responsibilities. They hire smart people. They encourage them to innovate, take risks, make mistakes and encourage growth and develop new skills. Great leaders build interactive cohesive teams and allow others to participate in planning and decision making.

• Encourage the heart: Great leaders celebrate and appreciate the accomplishments of others. They support and defend those working for them. When necessary, they publicly take responsibility for their employees' mistakes and coach those who made them to learn from those mistakes.

Allan Hirsh, an executive coach at Allan Hirsh Advisors and the host of AHA Business Radio on CBS Sports Radio 1300AM, can be reached atallan@allanhirshadvisors.com.

6 Attributes of an effective strategy

Picture credit: Martin Oberhäuser

At its essence, strategy is a guide to behavior. And, when communicating your strategic intent, the most important goal is conveying your unique aspects and advantages with specific and engaging words.

This is hard. But, if you’re not being challenged at coming up with an effective strategy statement, you’re not trying hard enough. Because It is a real challenge to translate strategy into execution, this is something we must continually work at, that is, communicating strategy. Research has found that only %14 of employees understand their company’s strategy and direction.


The strategy might be flawed, but even if it’s flawed communication will not fix the problem. That is why you have to be clear and specific. For example, one of the most clear specific strategy statements I’ve ever heard is from Southwest Airlines (not surprise here huh?): To be the low-cost airline.

Everything flows from that statement. It helps clarify decision making at every level of the organization to the point where there is no doubt in anyone’s mind of what they have to do. To get to that point, Southwest Airlines also had to come up with a very clear and specific strategy.

With that said, before writing an effective strategy statement, we must get the strategy right.

Here are 6 key attributes of an effective strategy, from the book The Strategist: Be the Leader your business needs:

The 6 Hallmarks of Great Strategies

1. Anchored by a clear and compelling purpose. It is said that “if you don’t know where you’re going, there isn’t a road that can get you there.” Organizations should exist for a reason. What’s yours?
2. Add real value. Organizations that have a difference that matters add value. If any of them were to go away, they would be missed. Would yours?
3. Clear choices. Excellence comes from well-defined effort. Attempting to do too many things makes it difficult to do any of them well. What has your business decided to do? To not do?
4. Tailored system of value creation. The first step in great execution is translating an idea into a system of action, where efforts are aligned and mutually reinforcing. Does this describe your business? In most companies, the true answer is no.
5. Meaningful metrics. Global outcome measures like ROI indicate whether a strategy is working, but key performance drivers, tailored to your own strategy, are a better indication. They break big aspirations into specific, measurable goals, and guide behavior toward what matters.
6. Passion. It’s a soft concept, but it’s at the heart of every great strategy. Even in the most mundane industries, companies that stand out care deeply about what they do.