The Leader's Leader—

Editor's Note:

TheNetworkMarketingMagazine.com has been privileged to work with some of the top leaders in the industry. We have been especially proud to bring you Jack Lannom's series on The Leader's Leader. As a leader himself, Jack began to compare and contrast strong, growing organizations with those that falter and he saw that a company is only as strong as its leadership. In order to offer his clients the very best recommendations for growth and improvement, he studied the best books related to the principles and practices of leadership, written by respected leaders from the corporate, military, political, educational, and religious arenas. To his astonishment, he couldn’t find a single volume among the hundreds he surveyed that outlined a systemic approach to leadership. He was searching for a practical manual—one that began with a foundational first principle, moved through a determinant order of self-consistent, interconnected points toward a logical conclusion that summarized a comprehensive and complete system of thought—but came up empty. Jack was convinced that the study of leadership must begin with the study of leadership theory. Theory precedes practice, and only the best leadership theory will elicit peak performance. He says “a study of leadership theory should begin with the fundamental principles that are the foundation for great practices, and the first

principle of leadership is knowledge. Every action a leader takes should be grounded in a theory of knowledge that is self- consistent—not self-contradictory or self-refuting.”

Jack Lannom has traveled throughout America, speaking, training and consulting with a great many businesses, ranging from small organizations with less than ten employees to the most prestigious Fortune 100 companies, having the privilege of talking to – and learning from – tens of thousands of men and women. Far from being a starchy intellectual study, the principles he outlines have been refined in the furnace of thirty years of practical application.

At TheNetworkMarketingMagazine.com we are glad to offer you The Leaders' Leader program as the best way to extract excellence from people, where Jack explains the best theory of leadership and describes what that theory look like in practice.

Scroll down and click on the link, Our Authors, click on Jack Lannom and you will find all of the Leaders' Leader articles. Read them, study the principles and practices, and you're bound to see great things as you become a Leader's Leader.

What follows below is the final worksheet in the program... the Authority Success Strategy Personal Action Plan. And with that, we are complete with this program!

Mary K Weinhagen ~~Editor, TheNetworkMarketingMagazine.com

The Authority Success Strategy Personal Action Plan

Here is the third Personal Action Plan contained in this study on the beliefs and behaviors of the Leader’s Leader. Recall once again my definition of Authority: real power is the power that makes other people powerful. Completing the eight action steps outlined in this week’s newsletter will bring you well down the road to exercising real authority in the workplace.

• Identify three people who make you feel powerful. Write down their names and the reason(s) why you have selected them.

a. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ b. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ c. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________

• Identify three people whom you are making feel more powerful. Write down their names and explain what you are doing to empower them. If you this is a skill set you haven’t been practicing, select three names and write out how you plan to make them feel powerful.

a. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ b. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ c. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________

• Identify whom you would like to make powerful and how you intend to accomplish that. Are there individuals in your organization who you believe need to be empowered? Do you think these individuals might ask you to give them more authority if they thought it was “safe” to do so? (These questions may jog your thinking about Step 2, above. Feel free to revise your answers to Step 2, but when you have completed Steps 2 and 3, you should have named six people whom you are consciously working to empower.)

a. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ b. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________ c. ______________________: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________

• Make a list of those in your organization who fall under your area of positional power. Schedule an interview with them. (If you are a mid-level or senior manager, list those who report directly to you.) Ask these men and women to give you a grade on how much authority you currently grant them. Ask them if they believe they need more authority. Be sure to ask them if you are doing anything that dis-empowers them!

___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________

• Rate yourself against the chart below. Check the boxes next to the action steps you are currently taking to give authority to others. Circle the boxes next to the statements that you will begin to practice today.

How to Transform Employees from “Pusillanimous Performance

Puppets” into “Powerful Purpose Partners”

Eliminate all rules that dis-empower people.
Give people more control over their time, i.e., “flex time.”
Allow different people to speak and/or lead in meetings, rather than have the same individual(s) run all meetings.
Give people the opportunity to be cross-trained, especially in areas where their interest is high. Give all staffers a working knowledge of all departments.
Provide training which will stretch staffers into areas they previously believed were unattainable, such as public speaking, computer skills, writing business plans, budgeting, and reading financial reports.
Give staffers permission to fail and protection when they do fail.
Celebrate those individuals who readily accept responsibility for failure without trying to shift the locus of blame elsewhere.
Reward and celebrate independent thinking; reinforce individuals who respectfully and constructively disagree with the popular consensus.
Give staffers permission to challenge “the way we’ve always done things around here.”
Grant authority along with responsibility.
Give staffers freedom to eliminate all unnecessary steps and procedures that hinder their ability to accomplish their jobs.
Allow people to express what makes them feel powerless. Encourage them to suggest what can be done to make them powerful.
Don’t punish everyone for one person’s mistake(s).
Provide easy access to decision-makers.

Push decisions down the organizational hierarchy as much as possible. Flatten out organizational reporting structures wherever possible.
Enable everyone to see how his or her job fits into the big picture.
Clarify and (when possible) quantify the expectations for each staffer’s job.
Eliminate or reduce the steps in the approval process; increase signature authority when appropriate.
Encourage prudent risk-taking.
Give constant positive feedback.
Encourage people to pass along compliments they hear concerning other staffers’ accomplishments.
Teach people to be “right-finders” and not faultfinders. Teach the staff to be on the alert to catch people doing things right, and celebrate that!
Provide staffers with all the resources they need—i.e., information, finances, people, materials, and time—that equip them to work at peak effectiveness.

• Is it important to empower people outside the organization, such as suppliers or customers? Why or why not? How would you accomplish that, and whom would you select to empower?

___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ _______________

• Identify a mentor who has the skill and ability to help you in this specific area(s). Approach that individual and ask for his/her help.

__________________________________________

• Can you identify any restraining forces (regarding Authority) that are keeping the leadership team at your organization from successfully accomplishing its mission?

__________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ Jack Lannom is an internationally known speaker, author, and consultant. He has served as a corporate coach for several Fortune 500 companies, including Citibank, R&R Donnelly and Sons, Jefferson Pilot Communications, Caterpillar, and also Knight-Ridder Newspapers and is featured on the PBS television program, "Lannom Memory Methods".

Jack is the author of Untapped Potential, Transformational Coaching, Quantum Mind, Memory Genius, The Self-Concept Game, The Leaders Leader, You Are A Genius Children's Interactive Software, Lannom's Memory Methods, People First, and The Dynamics of Remembering Names and Faces.

He's also a talented athlete who holds black belts in six different styles of Kung Fu, including a tenth degree black sash in Wa Lu. And Jack holds the world record for breaking a 3,150-pound block of ice with a single blow from his hand!

To learn more about Jack Lannom, visit his website here: JackLannom.com where you can sign up for his free newsletter, learn more about his products and read the next 25 pages of People First.