How do I transform my leadership thinking in a changed world?

Recently I heard a speaker, Paul Bridle, who specialises in leadership thinking. He made many great points – here are some of his ideas on leadership that resonated with me:

• Think global
• Preserve the brand
• Be master of your craft
• Take calculated risks and leave nothing to chance
• Work with the best

This last point really resonated with me as in our new business griffin+row we are not employing but rather contracting out all activities apart from the things we know we can do best.

In choosing our strategic partners we have had to be really careful about their attention to detail and commitment to the task at hand and our ability to share our purpose – so far we have chosen well and our business life has been a lot easier.

Paul Bridle was speaking more about employees and how to empower them. He made some great points that equally apply to strategic partners in business.

To empower anyone you are working with they need to know your purpose:

• Why are they there?
• What are they doing?
• What does it mean?
• How can they contribute?
• Are there systems, standards and procedures?
• Do they understand how the systems contribute to the purpose (or are they simply systems for the sake of having systems?)
• How do they know they are doing a great job?
• Are the right things being measured? As Paul Bridle suggested the more you engage people in the process the better the results – the more they own the outcomes.

Yes I know there is nothing new about the importance of ownership of outcomes and tasks but it is good to be reminded that we are in a different world – with Gen X and Gen Y there is far more questioning and less acceptance of authoritarian leadership styles.

Not only do we need an outstanding offering, delivered in an outstanding manner but we need outstanding people around us.

That means of course that we need to become outstanding leaders!

To read more Marcia Griffin expert advice, click here.

Marcia’s latest book, High Heeled Success (pictured left), is a frank account of building a business from a solitary sales person to a multi-million dollar business with 4700 sales consultants around Australia and New Zealand. Contact Marcia to purchase. Marcia’s latest venture is skin care company griffin+row.