100 Leadership Tips

Leading at any level is tough.  In this blog post I share with you my top 100 leadership tips.  Feel free to comment and add your tips based on your own experiences.

1. Be crystal clear about what you want to achieve for the organisation, function or team that you lead.
2. Get the buy-in of all key stakeholders.
3. Focus on long term sustained success.
4. Know what you do well and where you do not perform so well.
5. Keep thinking about ways of doing things better.
6. Take responsibility when things go wrong.
7. Set standards around what are acceptable and unacceptable behaviours and make sure everyone understands and follows the standards.
8. Be a role model.
9. Praise others when success is achieved
10. Get a basic level of knowledge in all key business areas.
11. Learn to listen.
12. Don’t ask others to do what you are not willing to do.
13. Build a great team around you.
14. Encourage others to take balanced risks.
15. Help people learn from their mistakes.
16. Learn from your own mistakes.
17. Never fall into trap of thinking you don’t need to continue to develop.
18. Don’t micro manage.
19. Empower people to deliver results.
20. Tackle poor performance.
21. Keep people informed.
22. Don’t pretend you know it all.
23. Help people work out solutions to problems.
24. Build good relationships.
25. Be decisive.
26. Focus on results.
27. Encourage constructive challenge on teams.
28. Treat everyone fairly.
29. Be consistent.
30. Don’t set up people to fail.
31. Don’t be a bully.
32. Know your priorities.
33. Focus your time and energy on priorities.
34. Support others in achieving their career goals.
35. Be willing to change and adapt to new circumstances.
36. Keep your stress levels in check.
37. Take holidays.
38. Set boundaries around working hours.
39. Be honest when things are tough.
40. Understand the key drivers of organisational success.
41. Monitor the key success drivers effectively.
42. Set aside time to think.
43. Address skills and knowledge gaps.
44. Have someone external to act as a sounding board.
45. Set the right tone.
46. Face up to the realities of a situation.
47. Understand the basics of Finance.
48. Know how to influence.
49. Keep raising the bar.
50. Keep asking yourself what you could do better.
51. Simplify things.
52. Never underestimate the importance of your team.
53. Support others to gain new experience.
54. Take decisions, don’t procrastinate.
55. Don’t fill your calendar so full that there is no room for the unexpected.
56. Know the 20% of your activities that deliver 80% of your results.
57. Keep calm when everyone else is losing the plot.
58. Always try to understand others perspectives.
59. Don’t try to do it all by yourself.
60. Accept people might approach things differently to you.
61. When things go wrong don’t look for others to blame.
62. Accept that you will make mistakes
63. Provide constructive feedback.
64. Acknowledge that money is rarely a long term motivator.
65. Encourage others to suggest solutions.
66. Treat your team well.
67. Get everyone aiming in the same direction.
68. Keep reminding everyone of the core focus of the organisation.
69. Help people distinguish between fact and opinion.
70. Remember people only buy into change when they are clear about where it will lead to.
71. Be alert to complacency.
72. Bounce back from setbacks.
73. Don’t dwell too long on what has happened.
74. Focus on what can happen.
75. Set results based objectives.
76. People will help you achieve if you look after them.
77. Try to hire your successor whenever possible.
78. Be clear on core values.
79. Seek regular feedback.
80. Accept that there will be some who won’t buy into what you are trying to achieve.
81. Remember you are judged in results.
82. Remember achieving anything requires persistence.
83. Make sure you get relevant information and not a bunch of data.
84. Remember most problems and challenges are not completely new.
85. Be able to interact with people at all levels.
86. Remember forecasts are just a best estimate at a given point in time.
87. Reputation takes a long time to build and can be destroyed in minutes.
88. Always tell the truth.
89. Don’t lead by fear.
90. Recruit people who are a good fit.
91. Accept some people are happy with the same routine day after day.
92. Remember that not everyone can be a high flyer.
93. Never promise what you can’t deliver.
94. Make sure your word and actions match.
95. Look after your team and they will help you deliver sustained success.
96. Have a plan but be adaptable.
97. Always seek to create a win-win outcome
98. Deal with destructive behaviours on teams
99. Keep developing
100. Remember that you never stop learning as a leader.

 

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