Succession Secrets

How friends differ from flatterers and how business coaches differ from friends. Includes a plug for my favorite podcast, Philosophise This, by Steven West. https://bit.ly/2I8HHaM

They say there is no silver bullet, but I think I may have stumbled upon an exception, when it comes to creating scalable businesses. Check out this week's episode.

In today's episode, I lament about the strategy of an IT resource placement company I recently met, which is selling itself to contractor candidates on the "strength" of its benefit packages.  Listen to the show to find out how successful this strategy has proved to be and what could help them, as well as you del listener, to reposition yourself in the eyes of future employees. (Hint: the Entrepreneurial Operating System is a good tool to leverage to this end too.)

We had some fierce conversations about my daughter’s pondering whether to drop a class with which she may have overreached. My wife gave her a hard time about it, which I felt was perhaps unreasonable. However, it reminded me of Sam Walton, Walmart’s founder, who stated that “High Expectations are the Key to Everything”.

Remember Steve Jobs? he wasn’t exactly a nice guy, as he had unreasonable expectations all the time. It was super-hard to work for him, but he changed the world and built the greatest company on Earth. There are other examples, like Napoleon or Cezar, whose ambitions killed millions, but who says they were not great leaders?

Tune into today’s show to hear my musings about what great expectations led to in my own company and how to set (or why avoid setting) great expectations to yourself, your family and the people around you.

How do YOU set expectations? Please tweet #asksuccessionsteve or email me at [email protected].

Visit Us: entrepcoaches.com

I received a question from Christos Nikolau the other day about the difference between Leadership and Coaching. Thanks for the questions Christos! 

Leadership is the action of influencing people to achieve goals. Coaching is one of the ways to exert this leadership.

In today’s episode, I am discussing the three ways to exert leadership. The first one is Modeling, where you are leading people by setting a personal example of the attitudes and performance that you expect them to emulate. This works well in the workplace or in your family, where people see you operating. It also works when you are visible through the media, and we emulate celebrities, artists, and politicians, for better or worse. This is why we need leaders that we can look up to and that are worth emulating. George Washington, Gandhi and Angela Merkel are good examples. 

Coaching is a tool to help individuals or groups to figure things out themselves the right way forward. It is the Socratic method of leadership that allows you to influence other’s thinking indirectly, without having to tell them what to do. It works in one-to—one and small group situations - like Vistage executive peer-groups - where direct interaction in possible.

The third tool of leadership is inspiration, when you create the desire in your listeners to want to follow your lead. Inspirational leadership is exerted through public speaking, writing, acting or through other media, like audio or video. inspirational leadership has the biggest potential impact, as you can reach millions of people with your message. The more the hesitance between you and your audience the more inspiring the message must be. Think of “Don’t ask what your country can do for you…”, or “I have a dream….”, or “Imagine….”.

How do YOU exert leadership? Please tweet to #asksuccessionsteve or email me at [email protected].

Visit Us: entrepcoaches.com