In my previous blog post, I asked people to define “what is leadership to you?”

There were a lot of great definitions and answers that were contributed and allow me to share with you mine.

Leadership is all about INFLUENCE. It is about who listens to you when you speak and how much influence you have over them. People who have higher influencing ability tend to have a larger group of people following them. If you want to know whether you have strong leadership ability, it is pretty simple. Just look behind and check if anyone is following you.

Most people tend to find leaders by their titles given to them, eg. he’s the group leader or she’s the director of this department. However, I want to caution you that this is the lowest level of leadership. This is because you can be a leader by position, but that does not mean that you will be able to lead people by their hearts. A higher form of leadership exists where people follow you simply because of what you say, stand for and believe in, rather than your position.

So, how do you influence more people? I would like to suggest that there are many ways, but I will list down a few principles:

1.    Move in integrity. When you are integral in your life (meaning, your thoughts, actions and speech are coherent), people will have more faith and trust in you.

2.    Willing to spend time and invest in people. When you develop a person’s life in some area, whether through coaching. mentoring or teaching, you are demonstrating that you are truly interested in their growth.

3.    Establish clear communications. Everyone knows exactly what you mean and will not misinterpret your message. To have less communication breakdown, you will need to spend time with people (point 2).

4.    Lead themselves well. A great leader leads himself or herself well, with or without people around them. They understand that their credibility and consistency is important before people listens to them.

It is in my firm belief that anyone can develop in their leadership ability, since it is an observable behaviour. However, to be a great leader, you must have outstanding character and talent as well. Before you lead others, lead yourself first!

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Often times we need to create a team to get a certain task accomplished. If you are still working alone thinking that things get done quicker by doing it yourself; you have not seen what it means to divide the work and double the effectiveness through a dedicated team. Your income and productivity is really tied to your ability to create and work in a high performance team. Ignore this law at your peril!

Creating an effective team can sometimes be a difficult task. This is due to the fact that people are very dynamic in character and getting that many differences to work together for a common goal is in itself challenging.

Below are three steps to creating a successful team that will be focused, committed and achieve the desired results.

1. Define the Expectations

If a team is created without expectations, the team will inevitably fail. Expectations need to be in place and clearly defined.

My Personal Tips:

- Give a solid background on why the team was created. The team members need to know their purpose.
- Let them know the importance of their role. Team members that understand that higher management will be waiting for the outcome is always motivation to get the job done well. Even in a top company like Genetech, janitors know that they have to do a good job so that the rest of the company can focus on developing life saving drugs that will make a difference!
- Support the team. Make resources available to the team if they request them. You cannot expect a team to produce the desired results if they do not have the right tools.
- Give the team perspective: the company needs to communicate to the team how their role in the team will help the company. Show them how the outcome will directly impact and affect the company and the initiatives they have laid out. Knowing how something will fit helps in building a puzzle. Essentially, this is what you are asking your team to do.

2. Commitment and Ability

These are both important factors when building a team. Select team members that are committed in accomplishing tasks. A personality trait that goes far with a team is the willingness to accept challenges with drive. Find a good variety of distinct attributes to create a successful team.

3. Central Control

There should be one person that is distinguished as the person who “coordinates” the group. It is important to note that this person does not contribute to the group thoughts and processes all the time. This person only intervenes to keep the group on track with goals set by the team.

Utilizing these three points will be a great start to accomplishing your team goals. Always be sure to set aside time to review these points with your team. The consequences of not allowing enough time is to backtrack, which takes even more time. So… ready to create your ‘A’ Team now?

If you like this article, please subscribe to our blog by getting the Free Report on “7 Transformational Secrets to creating a Dynamic and Cohesive Team”. If you have comments, I would love to hear them. Please post them below.

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Have you ever heard people say the following phrases:
“I’m not sure if this job suits me!”
 “Why does Sarah always leave things to the last minute and then do it?”
“I just need to get this job done fast, why is she asking so many questions?”
 “Why can’t my boss make decisions quickly and instead of sitting on things?”

If you look closely at each statement, you can actually see that personality has a part in every one of them. The BIG question is how we can effectively communicate with the different personalities.

If we truly understand each personality, it is possible to say the right words that can connect to people quickly and emotionally.  This is extremely critical since everything we do at work or home, is all about handling relationships. This works the same for people in customer service, sales staff, managers communicating with staff, or you with your peers.

There are many different types of personality profiling tests in the market today, but one of the most famous assessments is the DISC Personality Profiling. Although everyone is different, everyone is predictably different. Using DISC greatly aids you in identifying why people work in a certain way and then relate to them in a way they want to be related.

DISC is a simple tool that assesses human behaviour into four types and is the acronym for Dominant, Influencing, Steady and Compliant.  It is wise to say that we are not just one personality type, but a combination of all. The question is the degree of which is more.

High “D” personalities are competitive, demanding, decisive, pioneering, love challenges and solve problems.  They prefer not be bogged down with supervision and details and love freedom from controls.

A High “I” person is generally motivated by flattery, praise and attention they get from people. They strive in a friendly environment and love to handle the relational aspects of things. They are the people-person, enthusiastic and sociable. They are the ones who say that there is no such thing as strangers, only people you have not met.

High “C” behaviours have exceptional standards of quality. When you have finished a 10,000 word essay, they will point out the 3 words that you have misspelt and offer to correct your sentences. They are meticulous people and love logical flow of information. They also provide perspective in all your brainstorming and anchors you back to reality when you get too idealistic.

High “S” personalities are usually dependable, passive and patient. They are also loyal and relaxed. When it comes to people volunteering for a job, they will never be the first to raise their hands and prefers to wait for others to take action first.

In a team setting, you will definitely need a mix of personalities to cover the full range of tasks taken. It is important to know your personality and how you can contribute effectively to the team. Know yourself and know others. Work on your strengths and allow others to compensate for your weaknesses. This creates synergy in the team and frees each person to excel in their capabilities.

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