The Leader's Guide Series

This book is about PLANNING. Planning is your ability to bring the future into the present by creating written plans so others can help you bridge the gap between where you are to where you want to be. Planning is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business. Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character Building. Planning provides direction, reduces risk, reduces overlapping and wasteful activities, promotes innovation and creativity, sets objectives, and develops courses of action for better decision-making. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Planning. Planning involves logic, imagination, and the ability to visualize the desired result, and the steps necessary to achieve that result. Simply stated, planning helps you decide in advance what to do and how to do it. It’s also important to pay attention to my law, Murphy’s Law. Remember, Murphy’s Law is less about being negative and more about thinking ahead. It's about predicting what could “reasonably go wrong” and coming up with Contingency and Mitigation Plans to reduce the impact of any adverse outcomes.

This book is about ORGANIZING. Organizing is your ability to logically coordinate the scheduling of all the human, physical, and financial resources needed to consistently produce excellent results. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Organizing, its definition, importance, and how to enhance it. It’s the unique ability to coordinate human effort, arrange resources, and the means to execute the overall plan to achieve the boss’s goals. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Effective people know that their ability to organize is critical to their effectiveness at work. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Organizing. Many people don’t understand the meaning of Synergize. To synergize means to combine and use resources to produce an effect greater than the sum of each resource. Organizing is done by defining positions, jobs, authority, and responsibility; by delineating division of labor, work specialization, chain of command, centralization, structuring, integrating, and coordinating goals and activities to resources to attain objectives.

This book is about COMMUNICATING. Communicating is your ability to enhance your oral, written, non-verbal, and active listening skills to produce clearer focus, build consensus and eliminate misunderstandings. Communicating is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Communicating, its definition, importance, and how to do it successfully. Communication is the glue that holds it all together. Good communication is a continuous process intended to produce clearer focus, assist collaboration, build consensus, build trust, relieve stress, reduce rumors, reduce confusion, ensure shared understanding, reduce misunderstandings, and most of all - get things done! As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Effective people know that their ability to communicate is critical to their effectiveness at work. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Communicating. How can you reduce Miscommunication? Interpretations, like assumptions, create miscommunication, which can stop or delay the successful completion of your projects. Here are the most important steps to identify and reduce miscommunications. Step 1. Find out What's Going On! Here are the most effective ways to find out what’s really going on. Create a Blog. Post questions that you'd like members to answer. Ask for feedback. Break Bread Together. This means having a meal with members with whom you work frequently. Use MBWA. This is Management By Walking Around. Spend one day a week visiting different locations unannounced to talk to members. Have Skip-level Sessions. Meet with members, selected at random, at different levels, and from different departments, to ask for problems and solutions.

This book is about CHARACTER-BUILDING. Character-building is your ability to add greater value to those with whom you work by doing what’s right and treating them with respect and kindness-no matter what. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Character-Building, its definition, its importance, and how to enhance it. Your character is constantly being shaped and reshaped based on your experiences and choices. You can’t be effective without good character. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Successful people know how important good character is to their effectiveness at work. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Character-Building. Are you a person of Good Character? You cannot possibly answer this question because you’re not qualified to judge yourself. The judgment must come from others because that’s the essence of Good Character; how you treat and interact with others-when no one else is watching. You can only tell me what others have said about you in the past. And how do you know if they were telling you the truth? This is why good references are so important. This is also why bosses ask for referrals from team members they trust. Good character isn’t something you acquire at birth. It comes as you mature and become a Fully Functioning Adult. Unfortunately, very few people in the workplace will have a fully developed sense of maturity or accountability.

This book is about MOTIVATING. Motivation is your ability to energize the invisible driving force in others that influences their behavior, improve their performance, and unleash their potential. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Motivating, its definition, importance, and how to do it successfully. Motivation is the driving force that keeps you going and comes from intrinsic (within) and extrinsic (external) sources. It provides the will to do what’s necessary and aligns and elevates member drives to team goals. Motivating others requires an understanding of the needs and desires of others. The secret to your success is to have a profound dose of inspiration with a double dose of motivation. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Effective people know that their ability to motivate others is critical to their effectiveness at work. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Motivation. Important Notes: What’s the difference between Motivation and Inspiration? It could be any stimuli around your environment, a memory, a happening, or anything that would move you to act! Being on the brink of failure could be a motivator (Appendix A). Motivation is what keeps you going. Motivation is what gets you there to show what ya got! Inspiration is the first step, and motivation the second. You may have the motivation, but you'll eventually lose your motivation if you don’t know why you’re doing something. Likewise, you may have the inspiration, but you'll eventually quit if you don’t have enough motivation to keep going. Your thoughts, words, and deeds can both inspire and motivate you and others. Motivation is what gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you up at night. Motivation is the most powerful and least expensive cosmetic on the market. It's your motivation that attracts the people and resources needed to achieve your goals. Most people want to be around someone who is up to something, excited, and driven to accomplish something important.

This book is about both PROBLEM-SOLVING and DECISION-MAKING. Let’s start with Problem-Solving. Problem-solving is your ability to add greater value by anticipating problems, determining their cause, and selecting the best solution from competing alternatives. This book will give you a far better understanding of Problem-Solving, its definition, importance, and how to do it successfully. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. Note: Decision-making (Chapter 7) is just one step of the Problem-Solving Process. Problem-solving is about making choices that range from the mundane to the life-changing. In life, countless problems are waiting for you to resolve. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect, especially regarding your effectiveness at work. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Problem-Solving.

This book is about AWARENESS. Awareness is your ability to recognize and respond to your emotions, the emotions of others, the changing situation, and the external environment. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Awareness, its definition, importance, and how to enhance it. It’s also your natural connection and affinity with others that helps you better understand their strengths and weaknesses. Effective people have a natural connection and affinity with others that helps them better understand their strengths and weaknesses and those around them. That special quality is Awareness. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Awareness. Important Notes: Have you ever struggled with your emotions and the emotions of those around you? Here are the three most important types of Awareness that will enhance your effectiveness and success at work. 1. Self-Awareness: Self-awareness looks at what’s going on inside you (your emotions, thoughts, feelings, intellect, instinct, and intuition). 2. Situational Awareness: Situational awareness involves everything around you (other people, situations, things, places, and circumstances). This also includes an awareness of your external environment, internal and external politics, social responsibility, and community. 3. Spiritual Awareness: Spiritual awareness is the realization that there is a power greater than you that created you and everything around you. There’s also a higher purpose for your life – you just need to find it.

This book is about DELEGATING! Delegating is your ability to enable others to act on your behalf to get more done better than you could on your own. Delegating is also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business. Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character Building. Delegation empowers followers to make decisions. It drives decision-making authority down to the lowest possible level. However, if done right, the delegation isn’t abdication because the delegator is still responsible and accountable for the outcome of the assignment. The delegator can never assign or transfer their responsibility or accountability for their assignment. In the business world, delegation grants or transfers authority from a delegator to a follower to accomplish an assignment. However, the delegator is still responsible and accountable for the follower’s acts or omissions in carrying out the purpose of the assignment. Effective people also know that they can never consistently produce excellent results without developing, nurturing, and enabling team members to act on their behalf. This empowers followers to act independently with proper resources to accomplish an assignment. The delegator doesn’t have to be a boss or someone with authority. Delegators are often peers, friends, or even spouses and it saves money, and time, motivates team members, and creates more effective teams. Delegating an assignment isn’t abdication because the asker is still responsible and accountable for the end result. 5% of delegating is asking someone to perform a task by a certain time. The other 95% is about following up to ensure it gets done.

This book is about TRAINING. Training is your ability to prepare others for the future by enhancing their performance to unleash their potential and encourage their professional development. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Training, its definition, importance, and how to do it successfully. Training your team members is the best way to add value to all who help you produce your results. If you have any desire to consistently produce excellent results and sustain those results, you need to assume a more active role in the training of your team members. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. Successful people know that their ability to train others is critical to their effectiveness at work. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master The Art of Training. Important Notes: Why should you train your team members? If you’re responsible for their results, you’re responsible for how they achieve those results. You’re responsible for the process of achieving those results and how to make them better. That’s why the training from LEADERSHIP MADE SIMPLE, is so powerful! It contains the most important fundamental knowledge, skill, and ability needed to maximize your true potential that isn’t found anywhere in academia or Corporate America. The most effective way to train others is by your example. However, as you learn, use, and share what you’ve learned here, you’ll also be able to train your members by: Assigning members as trainers (Train-the-Trainer) for certain critical tasks by using the Adult Learning Model (Chapter 4). Setting aside the time to train your team and use scenarios or simulations via Role-Playing (Chapter 5). Make assignments to members to use the Problem-Solving Process (PSP) to resolve problems, write a Decision Paper (Chapter 28), or make a presentation (Chapter 8). Ask HR to contract the training you need.

This book is about Followership. Followership is your ability to consistently produce excellent results that add greater value to all those who helped you produce those results - especially your boss. It’s also one of these ten core competencies of your effectiveness and success in business: Followership, Delegating, Planning, Organizing, Communicating, Problem-Solving, Awareness, Training, Motivating, and Character-Building. This book will give you a far better understanding of Followership, its definition, importance, and how to enhance it. It’s your ability to take direction well, get behind a goal, be part of a team, and deliver what’s expected. What you may not realize is that of all the core competencies, Followership is the most important competency of your effectiveness and success in business. If you fail to add value to your boss, follow his instructions, or meet his expectations, you’ll be looking for the door. As an executive coach for over 20 years, I know what your boss and customers expect. By learning, using, and sharing these best practices, you’ll be well on your way to becoming the one person who adds the greatest value to the team - making you essential. Here, you’ll learn how to use the most actionable tactics, techniques, and tools needed to master the Art of Followership.