Categories
Planning & Management

Leadership: What Is It? And Why Is It So Important to Us?

Google the word “leadership” and the search will return 360 million results. This staggeringly large number points out one “truism” about leadership – it is a topic about which much has been said and written.

A brief survey of even the first page of Web results will reveal that there are nearly as many opinions on the subject of leadership as there are people talking about it. One of the things about leadership that I often strikes me in the 30 years that I have focused on the topic is that, despite the fact that so much has been said for so long on leadership (one of the earliest writers on leadership was Plato who lived between 424 to 348 B.C.!), there seems to be no one commonly accepted definition of what leadership actually is.

And yet, clearly, leadership is important to us. As humans, we seek out leadership, “know it when we see it”, and rely on it to thrive and succeed in so many settings, be it in work, school, or civil society in general.

While there is no one accepted definition, detailed behavioral description, or methodology to discover and train leaders, it’s worth understanding the general schools of thought on what leadership is and how it works.

The full scope and range of leadership theories can’t be summarized without some degree of simplification and exclusion, but my historical research (and personal views – more on this later) on the subject of leadership lend itself to four broad categories:

1. Trait theories – leadership is based on a cluster of individual  attributes or traits

2. Style theories – there are multiple ways to lead and each approach consists of a group of behaviors that define the style

3. Situational theories – based on the idea that effective leadership is completely based on context, and that no single optimal psychological profile of a leader exists

4. Contingency theories – based on an amalgam of the three previous theories, contingency theories propose that effective leaders should and do adopt different styles depending upon the situation

Nearly three decades ago, during my days as a corporate executive, I probably fell into the first camp, believing that leadership was simply a collection of certain traits that certain people had and other people didn’t. But over the years, my views on the subject have changed.

In working with executives, entrepreneurs, coaches, and teams of all types, my business partner Gary Jordan and I have found each of these approaches to be incomplete when viewed as “the answer” to leadership. That’s why it’s so important to explore each of these theories, in addition to an approach to the subject that has proven most useful to us in helping people develop their natural leadership skills.

But first, you can gain a lot of insight into the subject just by asking yourself a few questions, based on the truth of your own experiences:

Is leadership inborn? (Do certain people have it, and others don’t?) Can leadership be learned? Can different types of people be leaders in different ways?

Do certain situations make leaders out of anyone? And do different situations call for different types of leadership skills?

Assess your answers to those questions, and then we will begin exploring the theories.

About the Author: 

Lynda-Ross Vega: A partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., Lynda-Ross specializes in helping coaches, coaching clients and entrepreneurs . She is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.YourTalentAdvantage.com

Categories
Human Resource

5 Wise Steps to Choosing the Right Advisors

Article Contributed by Bert Doerhoff 

From the early stages of creating a business it is well known that a board of advisors benefits, adds value and provides guidance for your business’ future.   The key is to not only discover and engage the right advisors for your business but to build a network of trusted advisors and keep them.  Just as any business advisor must invest their time to provide your business with advice, the business itself must as well invest time into the relationship.

How to Discover the Right Advisors

1.     Define your needs

Here is where you lay out your objectives, key areas where guidance will primarily be needed, and the type of advice and information that is essential in or$er for you to achieve your business’ primary objectives.  This is when you come to understand the complementary skills and diverse area of expertise needed within your board of advisors.

2.     Grasp your struggles

Build your dream team of knowledge.  It is likely that you as the business owner will not financially be able to hire from every area of expertise, but a few must not be overlooked.

Experts with related intelligence from your industry, especially areas you lack, is crucial. For example, you struggle with keeping your books, and would much rather focus on other areas of your business. This is where outsourcing yourkbookkeeping services to a professional accountant comes in handy.

Financial professionals that are well respected can significantly benefit your business.  If possible, hiring those with an extensive amount of experience in addition to their expertise and past success in their area is a wise decision.

3.     Set up-front expectations

If you desire a formal board, you must consult with each advisor about what they expect out of your relationship. Scheduling monthly meetings to discuss what needs to be done to continue the success of your business is a great idea. However, you may prefer more of an “informal” board to advise your business.

Informal boards are less structured and more of a mentorship opportunity for those looking to assist early entrepreneurs. Whether you decide on a formal or informal board of advisors, it is best to cover all details and expectations from the start. 

4.     Friendship

This is your business.  Choose advisors that you can get along with, challenge and cooperate with effectively.   You will want to keep an open and honest exchange of feedback with your advisors in order to maintain a mutual understanding of your vision. Since they are there to optimize the future of your business, this type of two-way relationship is essential.

5.     Matching objectives in mind

You want advisors that provide honest and applicable advice to your company.  These advisors should share the vision you have for your company, and should aspire to achieve the same goals. If not, there will be a constant push in different directions, putting the company at risk.  People who keep the company’s success top of mind make for excellent potential candidates.

Remember to remain strategic and precise in deciding on your board of advisors.  These individuals will help guide your business as it grows, and will enjoy the success with you. Good advisors are an invaluable resource to your success as a business owner.

About the Author:

Bert Doerhoff is owner and founder of Accubiz, a firm providing accounting services out of Jefferson City, Missouri. Accubiz specializes in small business accounting, bookkeeping services, and wealth management. Prior to opening his own firm, Doerhoff worked for Peat, Marwich, Mitchell & Co, which is currently known as KPMG. Frequently, he speaks at state level and national conferences on various business management topics.

Categories
Online Business

10 Reasons Your Site Needs To Be Obvious For Users

Article Contributed by Longhorn Leads

There’s a fine line many web developers walk when designing their sites that toggles between coyness and pushiness. We don’t want to beat people over the head with our pitch, yet we fear losing visitors if we don’t make that pitch effectively. By pitch, of course, we’re talking about the message or intent of your website – telling the visitor what you want them to know. Answering the question your site is meant to answer. There are very good reasons why your site needs to be obvious to users, and we’re going to look at ten of them here:

  1. First Impressions – We all know the old adage about them, and it holds true as much online as anywhere else. If your visitor doesn’t get their question answered right away, or isn’t clear on what your site is about, they likely won’t come back to find out later.
  2. Distractions Lead to Detours – If there’s a lot going on all over your website, your visitor can easily overlook its import. You need to guide them to do what you want them to do and go where you want them to go before they get lost on a tangent that takes them someplace else.
  3. They Can’t Say Yes If You Don’t Ask – Visitors need to know what it is they need to do when they land on your page in order to get what they came for. Your site should be easy to navigate, and action buttons or windows should be prominently displayed above the fold.
  4. Short Attention Spans – Remember, more often than not your visitors will be coming from a search engine link. This means your site will be one among many options they have to find what they’re searching for so you need to tell them quickly and clearly why your site is the one they should use.
  5. Web Surfing = Channel Surfing – There’s a reason the terminology has been carried over to internet browsing: the psychology and methodology of the two are very similar. Web surfers are looking for a reason to stay put. If they don’t see one right away, you’re history.
  6. If You Lead, They Will Follow – People respond to clear instruction, and even prefer it. If you tell them exactly what to do, visitors are more likely to do just that and will appreciate the uncluttered, direct approach.
  7. Too Many Options = Too Many Wrong Choices – One of the wrong choices we’ve mentioned already is that they will leave your website. However, it’s also confusing and unnecessarily complicating your purpose to offer a visitor too many options. Provide the shortest path possible to your objective.
  8. Inspire Confidence – A website that asserts its message and establishes itself as a concise source of whatever the visitor is searching for tells them that they’re in the right place. They are less likely to continue their search if you make it plain that it isn’t necessary.
  9. Keep It Simple – Don’t put a lot of speed bumps or roadblocks in your visitor’s path. Have them click as few buttons and follow as few links as possible to arrive at their destination and your objective. Any extraneous action is just another opportunity to leave before they arrive.
  10. Page Ranking – When your content is relevant, high quality, and answers the visitor’s search query, your website will rank more highly in search results. That means more traffic coming to your pages, instead of turning them away.
Categories
Sales & Marketing

Why Your Business Needs to be on Pinterest

Article Contributed by Samantha Peters

Where are you when it comes to your business growth? Are you seeing vast returns or do you look at your numbers and think that they could be better? In most cases, you want to move forward from where you are, and if you are invested in social networking and search engine optimization, you’ll discover that Pinterest holds the key. Pinterest is an interesting social media website in that it focuses primarily on images. On Pinterest, you can create a gallery of items that draw the eye, and once you examine it a little more closely, you’ll find that it is a perfect way to promote your company.

It’s Visual Unlike virtually every other social media network, Pinterest relies on images rather than text to get the right kind of reaction. The old saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words, and it works for time as well. It can take a web viewer a few minutes to read the copy on your website; however, it only takes them a few moments to glance over a picture and to be captivated. If you are someone who is very visually focused, you’ll find that it makes perfect sense to use the neatly-organized that Pinterest provides in order to create an appealing effect.

Display of Goods Pinterest is, above everything else, a highly visible place to put your pictures. You may already have images of your products and of your work on the Internet, but Pinterest allows you place them in a spot where people are interested in them. Of course, you need to make the shots appealing.  Basic product shots aren’t going to do it; instead, you need to work on making sure that the photos that showcase your work are skilled and clever. This is something that will only help you move forward in the long run. The more attractive your pictures are, the better!

Identifying Interests When you go on Pinterest, you have the option to make collections, which are essentially galleries of things that you find interesting or appealing. There is no end to the way that you can group your pictures and you can use these groupings to learn more about what people think about you and your product. What collections are getting the most interest, and what can you do to make sure that people are seeing the right images? In many cases, it is all about figuring out how people feel about your work, and this is one way to do it.

Getting Fans Pinterest is popular way to get people interested in what you are doing. If people on Pinterest decide that they are invested in what you are doing, they will sign up to learn more about your updates and to make sure that they don’t miss anything. Pinterest has its own population of fans, and you can reach people that you might never have found otherwise.

Current One of the top reasons to get involved with Pinterest is that it is the newest and most fascinating thing around. At this point, people are spending as much time on Pinterest as they can. This means that they will be hanging around on the site, posting links, sharing collections and creating a very busy environment around this social media network. While there is no real opinion on whether it will be as large or as all-encompassing as Facebook or other similar networks, it is currently a very good choice for a business that wants a lot of attention right now!

When you want to learn more about how you can move forward with your business, don’t neglect Pinterest. Whether you are a candy company, such as Candy Direct, that wants to showcase its product, or are a news blog needing to gain a greater readership, Pinterest is the place to be.

About the Author

This Guest Post is written by Samantha Peters, an active blogger who enjoys writing about anything of interest to entrepreneurs and business start-ups.

Categories
Starting Up

5 Mistakes to Avoid in a Startup

Article Contributed by Alexis Thompson

Most business startups usually fail because of a lot of reasons not shared to the world. In this article, we will tackle five reasons or mistakes that a startup entrepreneur should not commit to be successful.

Start up1. No commitment to do the “dirty work”

Starting a business as an owner is not just about performing the planning, controlling and marketing but it must also include operating on the actual tasks at hand. You need to be doing the everyday general tasks yourself that need to get done. Hiring people to do them for you or leveraging on others’ skills is not highly recommended because in that way, you won’t get much exposure and grasp of how to be at the forefront of your business.

When you’re planning for the concept of the business, you must also note and be prepared to set business appointments with clients and vendors, order supplies, manage bookkeeping, file and sort out legal documents, answer phone calls, check and reply to e-mails, and other procedures. If you can’t handle these day-to-day business activities, you might not be able to handle the whole business confidently and well.

2. No fighting spirit

One week you’re excited and the next week you’re not. Sounds familiar? If you let the ship sink, it would definitely be at the most bottom of the ocean. Remember, there are many other competitors in the market and if you’re one who’s quick to succumb to failure, you won’t realize and meet success. In the business world, you should be fast to adapt to changes and fight barriers that might cause your startup to fail. Likewise, if there are negative comments about your offerings and services, don’t take them for naught and be down; rather, keep a positive spirit, learn from the past venture and continuously improve for things to get smoother.

3. No defined product or service line

The trouble with most startup entrepreneurs is that they are too excited to offer so much products or service that will cater and satisfy a whole range of different markets. By doing so, they do not really have a target consumer that they should focus on. Too much diversification and offering too many varieties will only make the market confused and unsure of the business’ competitive advantage.

Startup entrepreneurs should decide to meet the needs of their primary target market first and just bring seasonal products or add more to the line when they get success in their initial launch of business.

4. No consideration of consumer choice

Startup entrepreneurs nowadays are sticking to the philosophy of following their passion in building a business. Yes, the saying that goes “Do what you love and love what you do” may be correct and fine but should not be taken lightly. Also, joining the hype or whatever is currently trending is not the good way to go. As your business is going to be your source of income, you should also think of the consumer and not only yourself. Completing the steps to build a business might be easy but analyzing how consumers are reacting or responding to it is a lot harder.

Mistakes

As a startup business owner, you should be more sensitive to the market conditions, customer choices with regard to demographics, location, economics, etc. The key is to understand your customers and not just do “what you love to do.” No, it doesn’t work that way all the time. This is the real business world and not your playground, Kiddo.

5. No budget plan

When you don’t have a budget plan for your startup, the tendency is to spend more. If you have a startup business and more so if it’s your first, you might put a lot on the line—your money, your parents’ money, loan from the bank, raid from your friends and other sources—thinking that the more investment or capital you place, the more income you’ll get in return. This should not be the case; rather, you should provide just enough capital to run the business, keep your overhead costs low and then provide some more only if needed. You should be able to circulate the initial amount of money and spend it wisely.

Starting a business is something serious and probably is one of the hardest things you can ever do because of unknown risks and uncertainties. The bottom line with a business startup is to put everything in black and white, plan first before implementing and stay motivated. A business majestically planned, managed and nurtured is a business that is on its way to success. And nothing is more gratifying than feeling a sense of winning from a battle in a challenging war.

About the Author

Alexis Thompson is an alumna from Martin College Australia, a former Mountain Backpacker and a 26 year old mother of 2 daughters, Sophie and Rhian. She is into almost all types of Music especially The Fray and Hillsong. She also has a passion in Singing and Scrap Booking. Follow her escapades on her Twitter.