The eleven most important principles to integrate to become a better leader

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Hi,

 

While browsing through some sites, found something interesting in regard to the qualities of a Leader. Please find given below the same.

The eleven most important principles to integrate to become a better leader:

1. Listening

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” – Ernest Hemingway

Listening is the foundation of any good relationship. Great leaders listen to what their customers and prospects want and need, and they listen to the challenges those customers face. They listen to colleagues and are open to new ideas. They listen to shareholders, investors, and competitors. Here’s why the best CEO’s listen more.

2. Storytelling

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.” -Robert McAfee Brown

After listening, leaders need to tell great stories in order to sell their products, but more important, in order to sell their ideas. Storytelling is what captivates people and drives them to take action. Whether you’re telling a story to one prospect over lunch, a boardroom full of people, or thousands of people through an online video – storytelling wins customers.

3. Authenticity

“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.” -Oprah Winfrey

Great leaders are who they say they are, and they have integrity beyond compare. Vulnerability and humility are hallmarks of the authentic leader and create a positive, attractive energy. Customers, employees, and media all want to help an authentic person to succeed. There used to be a divide between one’s public self and private self, but the social internet has blurred that line. Tomorrow’s leaders are transparent about who they are online, merging their personal and professional lives together.

4. Transparency

“As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.” -John Whittier

There is nowhere to hide anymore, and businesspeople who attempt to keep secrets will eventually be exposed. Openness and honesty lead to happier staff and customers and colleagues. More important, transparency makes it a lot easier to sleep at night – unworried about what you said to whom, a happier leader is a more productive one.

5. Team Playing

“Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds.” -SEAL Team Saying

No matter how small your organization, you interact with others every day. Letting others shine, encouraging innovative ideas, practicing humility, and following other rules for working in teams will help you become a more likeable leader. You’ll need a culture of success within your organization, one that includes out-of-the-box thinking.

6. Responsiveness

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” -Charles Swindoll

The best leaders are responsive to their customers, staff, investors, and prospects. Every stakeholder today is a potential viral sparkplug, for better or for worse, and the winning leader is one who recognizes this and insists upon a culture of responsiveness. Whether the communication is email, voice mail, a note or a a tweet, responding shows you care and gives your customers and colleagues a say, allowing them to make a positive impact on the organization.

7. Adaptability

“When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” -Ben Franklin

There has never been a faster-changing marketplace than the one we live in today. Leaders must be flexible in managing changing opportunities and challenges and nimble enough to pivot at the right moment. Stubbornness is no longer desirable to most organizations. Instead, humility and the willingness to adapt mark a great leader.

8. Passion

“The only way to do great work is to love the work you do.” -Steve Jobs

Those who love what they do don’t have to work a day in their lives. People who are able to bring passion to their business have a remarkable advantage, as that passion is contagious to customers and colleagues alike. Finding and increasing your passion will absolutely affect your bottom line.

9. Surprise and Delight

“A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.” -Charles de Gaulle

Most people like surprises in their day-to-day lives. Likeable leaders underpromise and overdeliver, assuring that customers and staff are surprised in a positive way. There are a plethora of ways to surprise without spending extra money – a smile, We all like to be delighted — surprise and delight create incredible word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.

10. Simplicity

“Less isn’t more; just enough is more.” -Milton Glaser

The world is more complex than ever before, and yet what customers often respond to best is simplicity — in design, form, and function. Taking complex projects, challenges, and ideas and distilling them to their simplest components allows customers, staff, and other stakeholders to better understand and buy into your vision. We humans all crave simplicity, and so today’s leader must be focused and deliver simplicity.

11. Gratefulness

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” -Gilbert Chesterton

Likeable leaders are ever grateful for the people who contribute to their opportunities and success. Being appreciative and saying thank you to mentors, customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders keeps leaders humble, appreciated, and well received. It also makes you feel great!

 

The Golden Rule: Above all else, treat others as you’d like to be treated

By showing others the same courtesy you expect from them, you will gain more respect from coworkers, customers, and business partners. Holding others in high regard demonstrates your company’s likeability and motivates others to work with you. This seems so simple, as do so many of these principles — and yet many people, too concerned with making money or getting by, fail to truly adopt these key concepts.

10 Things Not to Do When Interviewing (and 4 Bonus Tips)

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 By

Herb Greenberg and Patrick Sweeney

Sep 19, 2012, 5:19 am ET

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Below are some “don’ts” to keep in mind when interviewing, many of which relate to the most common interviewing errors. It’s from our book How to Hire and Develop Your Next Top Performer, 2nd edition: The Qualities That Make Salespeople Great, @2012, McGraw-Hill Professional; reprinted with permission of the publisher.

  1. Don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. If you uncover anything during the reference check or employment history review process that warrants tough questioning, do not be afraid to ask about it during the interview. Begin your relationship with a new hire on a frank basis.
  2. Don’t oversell your company. Don’t use pat statements such as, “Since the company was founded a little over a decade ago, we’ve been on the right path, and that road is now smoother than ever.” An adept interviewer will lay out the strengths and weaknesses of the firm, putting them in perspective. Do not paint an unrealistic picture of your company in order to lure an applicant on board.
  3. Don’t ask for information you already have. For example, “Why don’t you tell me about yourself? Let’s see, how long ago did you start your current position?” This shows a lack of interest in the candidate because this information was most likely obtained earlier, via the candidate’s resume. The interview should be used to obtain new information or to confirm or reject tentative information already acquired.
  4. Don’t allow yourself to be interrupted unless there is an emergency. Too many interviewers allow the interview to become disjointed by not taking steps to prevent interruptions. Your office door should be closed. Put calls and messages on hold.
  5. Don’t talk too much. For example, “Well, I’m sure you have a lot of questions about the company and the job. Let me try to anticipate some of them for you.” This is a classic case of an interviewer who loves to hear his own voice. At the most, an interviewer should say 1 word for every 10 spoken by the person being interviewed.
  6. Don’t use the interview as your therapy. Too many interviewers use their sessions to spout out their concerns about the company. When an interviewer vents emotions in an interview, he or she may feel better but may lose a prospective employee in the bargain.
  7. Don’t be afraid to spell out in detail the requirements of the position. For example, if an applicant asks about the specific requirements of the job, don’t brush them off with the pat answer, “But then, I wouldn’t be concerned about that if I were you. I’ve always believed that if you can sell, you can sell.” People should know what is required of them before beginning a job. The interview is the time to outline the job’s requirements, as well as your criteria for evaluating success in the role.
  8. Don’t gossip or swap war stories. Many interviewers try to find familiar ground they can tread over with the applicant. Although this might seem like a comfortable way to get an interview under way, inquiring about friends and relatives can get things sidetracked, wasting a huge amount of time. The interview should be devoted to obtaining as much information as possible in order to make a sound hiring decision.
  9. Don’t put the applicant on the defensive. There is no point in creating unnecessary tension during the interview. Knowing an applicant’s personality strengths and weaknesses is vital to making the best hiring decision. For example: an applicant makes a statement about detail on her former job. This might provide valuable insight, particularly if a personality assessment provided evidence that there was indeed a sufficiently strong dislike of detail to create concern. A speech embodying a long-held philosophy is inappropriate, but a frank discussion of the importance of detail in the job and how the candidate might deal with that aspect would be constructive and would allow both people to make a more reasoned decision.
  10. Don’t be afraid to make the interview as long or as short as you deem necessary. To be effective, the interview should make the fullest use of everyone’s valuable time. There are no set guidelines on length as long as you clearly spell out the anticipated length of the interview and as long as the time is spent wisely.

Additional Mistakes to Avoid

Don’t ask questions that can only be answered by a simple yes or no. Instead, try to ask questions that must be answered at some length and with some explanation. The key to a good question is not only to get a specific answer but to get that answer by listening to the interviewee’s response.

Don’t simply indulge in generalized conversation as though nothing had occurred prior to the interview. The interviewer should have a great deal of information in hand relating to the applicant’s past experience, feedback from references, early impressions from the telephone interview, and of course, the data provided by the psychological test. All these impressions should be checked throughout the interview, and conflicts should be resolved.

If, for example, the résumé speaks about a previous position as a “division manager” and the reference check reveals that the applicant managed no one and the title was simply another name for a salesperson with a territory, that apparent discrepancy should be discussed: “Tell me specifically what you did on the job. Do the best you can to tell me how you functioned on a day-by-day basis.”

If after this explanation the discrepancy is still not resolved, the interviewer should not hesitate to confront the applicant with the evident discrepancy and ask the applicant to discuss it. Obviously, this discrepancy might be more or less important depending on the nature of the job for which the applicant is being considered.

Similarly, if the applicant described his or her previous job as involving hard, frequent closes, and the test indicates some doubt about the applicant’s level of ego-drive, questions could be raised about the discrepancy, giving the applicant plenty of opportunity to sell the interviewer on the fact that he or she was able to close despite what the test says — and getting the applicant to explain precisely how he or she accomplished this. What we are saying here simply is to try to avoid general conversations and home in as precisely as possible on specifics.

Don’t ramble. Although there is no precise ideal length of an interview, it is important to show the interviewee that there is a respect for time, not only the time of the manager but also the time of the interviewee. While being friendly, stay on course, and keep the interview moving in a clearly defined direction.

Finally, unless by the end of the interview you have ruled out the individual, don’t leave him or her with a generalized, “We will be in touch.” Rather, spell out what the next steps will be, even if those steps simply involve a management decision and notification to the applicant. If future interviews are going to be requested, say so. In other words, the applicant should leave the interview knowing, with relative precision, when a decision is going to be made, on what basis it might be made, and what other steps, if any, may be required in the decision-making process.

 

A Recruiter To-Do List

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While browsing through a portal, i found something interesting. Thought to post it in my blog and share with all my friends and well wishers.

  • Always get back to candidates. Just do it. Don’t make it a big deal. Send a quick email. Don’t worry about being rude. Or being short. Or shattering someone’s dreams. Just do it. It’s the right thing to do. If they are treated right, candidates multiply. So do clients for that matter.

 

  • Use the tech you have. No matter if your company just invested in a fancy new ATS or if you have a 1999 Palm Pilot that you are entering contacts into, make sure to use the technology that you have. Everyone always says that with CRMs, you only get out what you put in. This year, don’t even let the thought cross your mind that technology is management looking over your shoulder or “big brother.” Document everything you do religiously, and enter in every bit of candidate information that you can. Information, more than ever, is your arsenal. You need all that deep data to put you above and beyond your competition, who is more than likely just zipping though social profiles and forgetting they even have an ATS. Over time, your database of clients and candidates grows in value into something much more than any public source of data. It’s your own success that you are building by actually using recruiting systems systematically.

 

  • Have a smart template system. If you’re a corporate recruiter responsible for processing hundreds of applicants a day, the first to-do doesn’t apply to you well. Instead, review your template system generated upon candidate actions, such as for application and interview. However, for any candidate that you have a personal interaction with, make sure you do follow up. Just because you’re behind a big corporation, it doesn’t make you exempt.

 

  • Don’t get stepped on. Recruiters are forever on the outside looking in, and it’s easy to fancy candidates, clients, and hiring managers as being somehow higher up on the totem. They are in the industry and they know the profession after all, and recruiters are just bottom feeders sucking off the side of the tank (kidding). Don’t let hiring managers push you around and don’t get entranced with high end candidates that make more or know more than you do. You owe it to yourself to act like a professional and not waste your time. Demand feedback. Demand respect. Demand common courtesy.

 

  • Fix mobile. Your candidates are definitely using smartphones, as you most likely do. But chances are that you aren’t doing anything to help them work with you through their phones. Make sure that you have a job application process that actually works for people with mobile devices. But an even more important step is to make sure that you are reaching candidates in the way that they want to be reached. Ensure that this year, you finally use your ATS and flesh out every bit of contact information. Get their cellphones. Ask them if they want text job alerts. Ask your candidates about how they use mobile. Then engage them in the way that they want to be contacted and do an even better job of staying in touch.

 

  • Be one of them. Whatever it is you recruit for, you need to get inside their heads. If you’re not reading every trade journal for the industry or profession for which you recruit, you’re missing an opportunity. If you aren’t constantly advancing your understanding, you probably won’t be in this business very long. Go the extra mile and become your prey – you should understand everything you can about what your candidates do and how they do it.

 

  • Go beyond. Besides learning about what they do, do something different yourself. Knowledge only goes so far – demonstrate it! Write a blog, write a book, start a club, speak at an event, start a website, contribute to a publication (maybe this one?), or do some non profit work. Read a book on HR even if you don’t work in HR. Read 10 books about esoteric talent management practices. Read about interviewing tactics and jot down some notes. Just try to do a couple of things that are solidly above and beyond your job description. It’s not to get clout, it’s to develop your skills, job security, and to network beyond your usual circles.

 

  • Don’t Lie. We all lie. Admit it. White lies can be an important aspect of communication. We tell sick people they look like they’re getting better. We tell our spouses they look thin. However, recruiters are particularly vulnerable to white lies because we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. We’re dealing with important, if not life-altering events in someone’s life. When jobs and salaries are on the line, it’s easy to want to massage the message a bit. The problem is, this often creates more work for you. Instead of thinking of what you owe everyone else, think about yourself. You don’t have the time for a constantly blurred reality. Just say it like it is and give yourself a break. Your clients and candidates will appreciate it and I guarantee that you’ll be more productive yourself.

 

  • Stop wasting time on the web. When employers started putting computers on everyone’s desks, computers were a lot less fun. They were green screened calculators and fancy Rolodexes. Now we have the web, which often makes prime time television look like War and Peace. Recruiters have it harder than most, as some legit activities are very close to wasting time… like checking out social media profiles and learning about different professions and skills on the web. If you’re not careful, wasted minutes can slip into wasted days and weeks. So figure out a system to ensure you’re not wasting your time by accident. RescueTime is a cool little tool for the analytical among us. But it doesn’t have to be fancy – use an egg timer if you have to. Seriously, it’s important.

 

  • Get the right job for yourself. So you get jobs for everyone else, but are you in the right job yourself? Do you long to work a corporate gig, get into recruitment sales, or source candidates using Boolean all day? Whatever it is you want to do in recruiting, you owe it to yourself to make it happen. If you can alter your job with your current employer, do that instead of jumping – now isn’t the time to be the new guy. But if the job you want doesn’t exist or is impossible to get, it’s time to move on. Get motivated to make your move and just do it already.

 

  • Stop worrying. How many people in your office feel great about being recruiters? I would bet that you hear people every single day saying “How did I get here?” and repeating some of the same things candidates say, like “Low life recruiter” or “bottom-feeding.” This is the year to give up that negativity. This is also the year to not spend even one more second debating about whether your profession is going away, or if the recruiting industry is being transformed, or if machines and big data will supplant relationship oriented recruiting. The staffing industry is bigger than ever, executive search isn’t going away, and the recruiting function is even more valued than it was 10 years ago. Vow to not waste any more time and just succeed at the career you have. Because it’s a great one and can take you anywhere you want to go.

 

  • Have more fun. Since when was having lunch with friends and getting people jobs work? Don’t forget why you love this profession. Be sure to schedule plenty of fun networking events for yourself- whatever it is this means to you. Have lunch with old high school friends and figure out what everyone else in your class is doing. Go to a C++ class and talk to some developers. Go to a college and teach a class on getting a job. Whatever you do, just get out of your head once in a while and be sure to have fun

Inspirational Quotes by Hitler

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“if you want to shine like sun first you have to burn like it.”
― Adolf Hitler

 

“Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.”
― Adolf Hitler

 

“It is not truth that matters, but victory.”
― Adolf Hitler

 

Think Thousand times before taking a decision But – After taking decison never turn back even if you get Thousand difficulties!!”
― Adolf Hitler