by Mike DuBose

Peter Drucker reported “While leadership concepts are the same today as centuries ago, modern business leaders are faced with more, complex challenges.” Great leaders “create a culture where people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable success!”  Effective leadership is an endless, evolving journey -- what works today, may not work tomorrow.

Leadership to some seems natural as if they were “born to be leaders.” But, the truth is, most of us have to work at becoming leadership material. Like Sam Walton, “I have failed more than I have succeeded.” But, as we know, Sam finally got it right! The real key to successful leadership is what you do to get the best performance out of your staff. The bottom line – leadership is all about people!

After reading Jim Collins’ Good to Great, we knew it would be tough to turn our good companies into great ones. When we built one of our six companies, Columbia Conference Center, we implemented proven, customer-driven business and leadership principles with astonishing four-year results:

1. 98% of our customers rated us as good to outstanding
2. 87% of our customers originated from word-of-mouth
3. We celebrated being debt free this year

Our vision was to build the best conference center in the nation. We wanted our staff to say in an excited way that our company was “A great place to work.” We wanted our customers, when asked about Columbia Conference Center, to say with a smile, “They consistently exceed my expectations!” As leaders, we knew if we could accomplish this, profits would follow!

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT!

1. Employ outstanding people and place them in the right positions. Look for optimism, intelligence, passion, team players, and strong work ethics. Hire tough and slow with clear job descriptions. Coach and inspire employees with an open-door policy. Don’t micromanage, but supervise new employees closely until you have instilled your philosophies. Then, back off slowly to allow them to grow. Sometimes, this means letting them fail.

   Promote life-long learning. Grow think tanks, out-of-the-box thinking, and staff expressing or challenging ideas.

   Be consistent and fair with employees. Emphasize teamwork and collaboration. Build strong communication channels so everyone is on the same page. Share meeting minutes, publish employee newsletters, conduct companywide meetings, and distribute financial reports.

   Pay employees good wages, excellent fringe benefits, and profit sharing. But, care beyond money!

2. Be honest, trustworthy, and ethical! Walk the talk! Before staff can recognize you as their leader, they must trust and respect you as a person. Be nice—it doesn’t cost anything to treat others with respect and concern.
3. Acknowledge your imperfections. Know who you are. Recognize you are not perfect and never will be. Learn from your past, but focus on the present and the future.
4. Be budget-minded. Profitability is a good thing—but not when it motivates your every action. Find good niches and do fewer, high-profit things well. If it’s not profitable, don’t do it. Maintain good cash flow and savings. Underestimate revenues -- overestimate expenses.
5. Develop employee-driven, mission-focused strategic plans. Paint a shared, futuristic vision with ethical values. This creates clear expectations.

   Challenge all processes and plans for efficiency, efficacy, and simplicity. Have structured processes and policies, but avoid bureaucracy. Constantly ask questions and be inquisitive.

6. Mistakes and failures are fertile learning opportunities. Don’t point fingers. Identify origins and reduce recurrences (Total Quality Management).
7. Anticipate the unanticipated to pinpoint danger early. Maintain good insurance and “plan to fail in order to succeed!”  My grandmother said, “Hope for the best – plan for the worst.”
8. Seek “win-win” solutions and consensus — celebrate victories.
9. Don’t be selfish. Greed consumes leaders and creates serious problems for the company, employees, and you. Money greases wheels, but doesn’t buy happiness.
10. Be humble! Avoid arrogant, know-it-all, my-way-or-the-highway behavior. When things go well, share credit; when they go wrong, accept responsibility and learn from mistakes. Have a sense of humor!
11. Challenging times demand calm leadership! Avoid worrying. It never solves anything.
12. Stay organized and focused on the most important activities. Delegate where possible. Inspect what you expect!
13. Respect, analyze, and outshine competitors!
14. Encourage feedback and constructive criticism from customers and staff. If you want brutal facts, ask the hard questions; then, look in the mirror. Recognize feedback—good and bad—as gifts!
15. LISTEN. Listening has three parts—hearing, understanding, and listening. When you’re there—be there!
16. Never be afraid of calculated risk taking. Accept failure and mistakes as innovation.
17. Expand carefully! Rapid success can kill your company and staff.
18. The best products and services won’t sell without well-crafted, diversified, monitored marketing plans.
19. Set high, realistic standards! Good is not good enough. Promote factual continuous improvement---exceed customer expectations. Emphasize “customers sign our checks!”
20. Be different. Swim upstream! Follow Sam Walton -- “stand out in the crowd.”
21. Dream what your company, staff, and you can be. Believe the impossible! Dream about greatness!
22. Seek competent accounting, insurance, HR, and legal guidance.
23. Great leaders are energetic, passionate, and enthusiastic. Find time to recharge and do fun things. Spend time with God and family.
24. Be credible and reliable. If you say it, do it!
25. Make prompt decisions with facts from multiple, differing sources. Don’t procrastinate.
26. Avoid impulsive, rigid, and hostile behavior.
27. If you don’t feel good about something, don’t do it! -- Jack Welch
28. Institute succession plans. Cross train staff -- “plan to die tomorrow!”
29. Leave this world better than you found it. Columbia Conference Center gives half our profits to charities.

I have to change the way I think and act—not just for my betterment or our companies, but those I care about. They deserve the credit for making me the evolving leader I am today—God, family, staff, and customers.  Thanks to them, I’m a leader with a long way to go on an exciting trip with no final destination!

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Mike DuBose is a field instructor with USC’s graduate school and has been in business since 1981. He is the servant leader and owner of six debt-free corporations, including Columbia Conference Center, Research Associates and The Evaluation Group.

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