Leadership: The Rookie Year

Karina Keith

Start your first leadership job off right Congratulations, you’re in charge! Now what? Time for a crash course in leadership? Becoming a great leader takes …

Start your first leadership job off right

Businessman giving his hand, isolated on white background

Congratulations, you’re in charge! Now what? Time for a crash course in leadership? Becoming a great leader takes work and there’s mountains of leadership blogs available telling you exactly how to do that. I’ve summarized a few of the tips I found for the rookie leader’s first year.

What to do first

Harvard Business Review’s  Carolyn O’Hara outlines What New Team Leaders Should Do First and the importance of starting your team off on the right foot. People form opinions quickly about your leadership qualities, you don’t have much time to make your first impression. Start by getting to know each other. From there, move on to sharing your vision/values and how you define success. Communicate often, more is always better than less in this case. Solve a problem early on for your team, it creates good momentum.

Read more at https://hbr.org/2014/09/what-new-team-leaders-should-do-first

Leadership lessons

The Start-Up Guide’s How to Be a Great Leader looks at 25 leadership lessons. I’m going to summary my favourite 4, but have a look at the rest, there are some great ones to check out.

  • Make sure you’re passionate about your goals
  • Make sure your team knows to never let something important go unsaid
  • Have fun – make the business environment enjoyable
  • Have an open door policy – be available for your team

Read more at: http://startupguide.com/entrepreneurship/how-to-become-a-leader/

Learning from failure

James Altucher in his blog, 10 Things You Need to Know To Become a Great Leader shares his personal and candid experiences of being a (not so successful) leader. He shares his learning from being shown the door when he was a CEO. I’ve summarized them here. Check out his website to learn more:

  • More success for others than for you – Set up your employees so they can achieve more than you, ideally so they become better than you.
  • Yes, and – Rather than saying ‘No’ to an idea, say ‘Yes, and…’. This way it shows you still value their thoughts.
  • Gratitude – “Make sure every day your employees…have at least one new thing they can be grateful for.”
  • The 30-150 rule (or…the vision rule) – Unite people under one vision.
  • Change – “A leader is always prepared for change. And realizes that pain is just opportunities to live in a bigger and more abundant world.”
  • Dignity – Treat your projects, and yourself, with dignity – always!
  • There’s always a good reason and a real reason – “A good solution solves one problem. A real solution solves 100 problems.”
  • Health – “A leader who is not grateful for the abundance already in his or her life will never lead his vision into abundance.”
  • Love – Don’t do it for the money, do it for what you love.
  • Lead yourself – Educate yourself, read books and articles.

Read more at http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/08/10-things-you-need-to-know-to-become-a-great-leader/

What tips would you share with a rookie leader? Thanks for reading don’t forget to share/tweet/like our blog just underneath this paragraph. And don’t forget, we’re always here to help with your business efficiency needs.

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Karina Keith is a consultant with CornerStone Dynamics Inc. 'Katching up with Karina' blogs focus on the top web finds for the month. Aligning project goals along with truly understanding what motivates people to get their jobs done is what Karina does best.

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