President’s Day: 5 Leadership Lessons From Past Presidents

Past leaders can teach us a great deal about how we can become leaders today. Biographies, memoirs and documentaries abound which underscore the achievements and abilities of the numerous outstanding leaders who came before us. The history of the United States in particular is filled with past presidents who are excellent examples of great leaders. Their various qualities and characteristics are often cited as the key to their leadership abilities, and these qualities are often emulated by others.

Anyone can learn to be a leader. After all, the often quoted phrase says “leaders are made, not born.” This is in part because leadership is not a single trait, but it is an over-arching skill set comprised of multiple abilities. As such, the lives of different leaders exemplify different elements of leadership. Elements of leadership include the ability to take criticism gracefully, to communicate well with those around them and to have a clearly stated goal or vision. These elements of leadership can be learned through studying the lives of past leaders who used these elements to alter or redirect the course of history. Here are five leadership lessons from past presidents which highlight a particular skill used during their time in office.

1. Abraham Lincoln imagined what could be and made it happen with civility. When Lincoln set out to create the Emancipation Proclamation, he imagined a reality that so many couldn’t, and one that many refused to. Not only did Lincoln change the course of history through this movement, but he did it with such grace against great opposition.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of Lincoln in her book “Team of Rivals,” that in the days leading up to the Emancipation Proclamation the president would often say, “To win a man to your cause you must first reach his heart, the great high road to his reason.”

As a leader, Lincoln showed us how to see through a conviction with grace and civility.

2. Franklin Roosevelt possessed financial wisdom. Roosevelt was our longest-serving president, leading our country through a tumultuous era. Roosevelt was elected during the Great Depression and remained in office until his death, just months before the end of World War II in 1945.

Even during our country’s most vulnerable seasons, Roosevelt discovered ways to strengthen our financial protection by increasing the role of the federal government and instilling programs such as Social Security.

It was Roosevelt’s financial stewardship and wisdom that helped America to rise from such a trying season.

3. Thomas Jefferson remained innovative. Most widely known as the author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson is also remembered as a creative. Some even refer to Jefferson as “the last Renaissance man.”

Having mastered six languages and playing the violin, Jefferson also designed the architecture of his home. Jefferson’s innovative and renaissance spirit shaped much of what America is today. He paved the way for many new steps in America and all the while continued to never lose interest in learning, growing and trying new things. Jefferson once said, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

An innovative entrepreneurial spirit can lead a nation or a company where it’s never been before.

4. Ronald Reagan embodied constant character. Although presidents of the past have led with character as well, Reagan may be most remembered for possessing this vital leadership trait during trying times.

In an essay, Peggy Noonan wrote on the courage Reagan held to reinstate a conservative nation following a wave of more widely-accepted liberal leadership. Noonan wrote, “Yes. At the core of Reagan's character was courage, a courage that was, simply, natural to him, a courage that was ultimately contagious. When people say President Reagan brought back our spirit and our sense of optimism, I think what they are saying in part is, the whole country caught his courage.”

Reagan’s spirit influences leaders and even politicians today that staying true to your values and vision requires courage and character.

5. George W. Bush led with empathy. Many may have considered Bush’s emotional tendencies as a negative trait, but his passion and empathy were strengths he possessed as president.

Bush often wore his heart on his sleeve and embodied a great passion for people during some of America’s darkest days. Leading the nation through the terror and tragedies of 9/11, Bush’s empathy brought peace to America at a time when little would. He put himself right on the scene in New York City and cared for the people impacted by this event.

While it may take you out of your comfort zone at the time, lead the people around you with compassion and empathy.

There is no doubt that something is to be learned from each man who has led our nation, but some men simply stand out above the rest. It’s not based on their religious beliefs, their party affiliations or even their charisma, but it is based on how they chose to lead.

Lean Quote: Letting Go; Delegation to Empowerment

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it."   —  Andrew Carnegie

Delegation is often taught as a time and task management tool, and it's a pretty good one of those; but it's also the first practical step toward putting empowerment to work - and, if done right, a purposeful stride down the road to servant leadership. To delegate in a way that results in empowerment, it's important to first understand the difference between the two.

Delegation is essentially about task and process - you assign a duty or action to someone else, giving responsibility - and perhaps some authority - over to them, then you hold them accountable to deliver. Empowerment is different. Empowerment means you put someone else in charge - giving both responsibility and authority over to them, but you stay engaged in a supporting role.

To empower a team the leader should delegate with these six behaviors:

1.     Offer Guidance - Give your teammates the training necessary; cast the vision and educate them on the purpose of the assignment. Understanding the context of their work will enable them to innovate and find alternate solutions to problems themselves. It's also likely you'll need to provide some course correction along the way.

2.     Provide Resources - Don't assume your team has the knowledge and access to get what they need. Your perspective, and perhaps position, may allow you to see more of the landscape; anticipate potential needs and acquire what's needed.

3.     Lay out the Timeline - Establish a deadline and milestones along the way for which the team will be accountable to you, with the understanding that ultimate accountability for success remains with you.

4.     Mitigate Barriers - Your team will encounter problems along the way. Issues with organizational processes; conflicts with other interests and internal friction are just a few of the realities your team may need you to address.

5.     Demonstrate Confidence - If you believe in your folks, they'll believe in themselves. Your team will also be keenly aware of how you feel about the value of the initiative and whether you are confident about success.

6.     Acknowledge and Support Efforts - Keep pace with your team's progress with appropriate recognition and reward along the way. Genuine and specific acknowledgement of milestone achievements will encourage more of them.

Without these six actions, any intended empowerment is really just delegation.

Business leaders may think that it's easier and faster to get things done themselves. But delegating to your team is not only essential for growth—it helps empower employees and connects them to the bigger picture.

Guest Post: 6 Leadership Hints for Digital Workforce Management

Running a business and a team has a lot of challenges, and monitoring a workforce is one of them. It does not matter if it’s a group of only five to six people or hundreds; keeping track of everything is essential. Someone has to be in charge of everything and overlook the progress their team has been making.

Workforce management is very important because you have to keep an eye on every project, the productivity of every single employee, their attendance, and all the other records. It helps keep everything in its place and helps you maintain an exceptional workplace environment.

However, due to the global pandemic, most of the workforce had to start operating online. To help leadership manage this sudden digital landscape, here are a few tips to help you with digital workforce management:

1.     Communicate Frequently

We all have heard that communication is key, but you’ll be surprised how important it is to communicate regularly with your workforce. Running a team means so much more than just assigning tasks and overlooking your company’s progress. If you want to accomplish certain goals, you need to be in touch with your workforce.

Keep in touch on a daily basis and keep them interested in the company’s overall growth. A business is nothing without its workforce and staff members. All of them need to be on the same page and working towards the same goal.

The digital domain is unknown and full of potential errors and mishaps. To manage everything effectively, you need to communicate with your team. You’ll need to follow a proper strategy, and your only way is to share every detail and concern with the employees and make sure you’re all moving ahead.

2.     Keep Up Transparency

You must always practice transparency as a company because the ideal way to work as a team is to keep everyone updated about what’s going on. This does not mean that you need to share every detail with them but give them a general idea of how the business is doing in terms of the competition around them.

Due to the pandemic, there’s no workplace environment to help the employees feel connected to each other, so informing them about the company’s accomplishments can help them stay in the loop. When it comes to the digital workforce, the important step is to make everyone feel more involved, as it’s quite normal to feel disconnected.

It will help build a trust level between the employers and employees, and they will feel like they’re a part of the team. Nothing gets you more motivated than knowing you’re contributing to a cause, so encourage your workforce by telling them how they’re making a difference.

3.     Visualize Your Goals

 

Nowadays, it’s possible to get lost and don’t see any purpose because of the uncertainty revolving around the current events. People have a lot on their plates and adapting to the change in their daily routine. There’s a new normal now, and it can be hard adjusting to the rapid change in everything.

As a workforce leader, it’s important that you show resilience so your team can count on you and feels motivated to keep working. In times like these, it’s important to visualize your goals as a company, to remind your employees why they chose a particular field. It’s normal to stop seeing the bigger picture, but you can keep the staff morale up by setting daily or weekly goals.

You can express your core values and vision on different digital platforms, so the workforce works hard to improve their progress and have better relationships with all the clients.

4.     Let Employees Have Freedom

The times have changed a lot, and you no longer feel the need to micromanage every task your workers do constantly. It’s important to let your employees have some freedom and autonomy to go about their day. The growth of your company depends solely on your workforce because they are the ones doing all the labor.

To manage a digital workforce, you need to give them the space to work in a way that makes them feel comfortable. You can be flexible and let them voice their concerns so you can deal with every issue and move ahead. There’s no physical office space, so you let them know they are free to work during their work hours.

5.     Value Team Work

As mentioned above that during these times, it’s normal to feel detached from your goals, but you need teamwork to accomplish goals as a company and stay on top of the game. It’s important that you and your employees both resonate with the company’s vision so you all can work together as a team.

In times of crisis, teamwork and staff morale should be valued, so your employees feel positive and ready to take on daily challenges,

6.     Make Required Changes

To make this sudden shift in daily lives less stressful, you can opt for effective digital platforms and software to help your workforce adjust properly. You can use different strategies to utilize all your time and work towards the goal.

For instance, you may try applications and software to keep track of business operations, e.g., mobile apps development where you can store valuable data. It’s essential to make the required changes as a leader to set up a good example for your employees and help them achieve what they need.

Takeaway- Manage Your Digital Workforce More Efficiently

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to boost team morale and encourage productivity among your workforce. You can’t stand out from the crowd if you’re not running a team smoothly and generating better results. Having a digital workforce helps you cut down on extra expenses, but you still need to grow as a company.

Your employees are the backbone of your business, and if you set up the right environment for them, they will feel be able to work in a better way. Therefore, these leadership tips will help you make the most out of your employees’ efforts and improve customer satisfaction as well. 

About the Author: 

Arslan Hassan is an electrical engineer with a passion for writing, designing, and anything tech-related. His educational background in the technical field has given him the edge to write on many topics. He occasionally writes blog articles for Apcelero.

6 Essential Leadership Lessons Learned from Experience

There’s an age old debate about whether or not leaders can be made, or if you have to be born that way.  Nevertheless, every year, countless professionals of all experience levels and all walks of life decide to invest in themselves to hopefully become the next great leader.

There are a plethora of degrees, certificates, specializations, seminars and other educational means available to learners today. In my experience working with business leaders, I have found no magic formula or recipe to get you there, but there are some key leadership lessons that anyone can learn from, including the following:

1. Become an ardent student of leadership.

Leaders study the successes of peers and seek to emulate them. They reach to find mentors who have been there, read books on the subject, and participate in leadership development programs. Leadership requires focus and effort and doesn’t happen by title.

2. Set personal leadership goals and solicit feedback.

Business leadership requires spending more time working on the business, and less time working in the business. You can measure these activities yourself and get validation from your team. How much of your time is spent on futures, strategizing and coaching versus fixing daily crises?

3. Tackle new challenges outside your comfort zone.

If you never push your limits and never fail, you never learn new capabilities. As a new entrepreneur, perhaps you have no experience with hiring and delegating, yet these skills are not rocket science. Don’t be afraid to ask for support from more experienced peers and human resources experts.

4. Celebrate small successes and learn from failures.

People who demand perfection from themselves are rarely good leaders. Learn to celebrate small steps in the right direction and failures that are a source of real insight. Be humble and transparent in involving your team and even your customers in your successes and your mistakes.

5. Demand strong performance and deal quickly with mediocrity.

Recognized business leaders are known for their expectation of excellence from their team -- and from themselves. They do not tolerate mediocrity around them, which keeps their teams highly motivated and proud to be associated with the leader as a role model.

6. Work on improving your communication skills.

Effective leadership requires effective communication, including verbal, written and body-language. Your team, customers and partners need to understand your vision, goals and what is expected of them before they decide to follow you. Great leaders also practice active listening and full attention.

As you continue to plot your leadership journey, consider the important role these six lessons play in achieving sustainable success and significance.  Leadership is defined by these experiences and so is the one who has the courage to put themselves into as many unique and challenging circumstances as they can. The wisdom and insights you gain from these lessons will better enable you to influence outcomes and add real value to an organization.

Lean Quote: Treat Others The Way They Want To Be Treated

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people."   —  Barbara Bush

As children, we’re often taught the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you want to be treated.” But the Platinum Rule takes it to a whole new level: “Treat others the way they want to be treated.”

When we follow the Platinum Rule, we can be more certain that we’re respecting what they want, instead of projecting our own values and preferences. That doesn’t mean we should ignore the Golden Rule altogether, but we should realize its limitations given that every person and every situation is so different.

It goes without saying, this has everything to do with your ability to demonstrate your emotional intelligence and, more specifically, empathy -- that underrated leadership strength of love where you imagine the world, or a situation, from someone else's point of view rather than your own.

True success in life also includes one’s ability to identify oneself in others. Even more so, treating others with dignity and respect is an important part of a successful life. It’s always easier to blame others for their shortcomings than to walk a mile in their shoes.

In the end, it’s not our wealth that remains of us long time after we’ve gone. What truly remains of us is the contribution we have made in life. The profound impact we had on other people’s lives. The way we help to make this world a better place. Helping other people and having a positive impact upon their lives is a key characteristic of truly successful individuals.

Measure your success in life not merely by the wealth you accumulate. Measure it by your ability to make a difference.

How to Be a Calm Business Leader During a Disaster

Let’s face it, we’ve all had more than our fair share of disaster as of late. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced most of us to adapt to unexpected change, which has been made all the more difficult due to the great deal of uncertainty surrounding the situation. At times of crisis, people tend to look toward strong and calm leaders to guide them. We only have to look toward those countries where this has been notably absent to see how a lack of clear guidance can lead to chaos.

The same goes for business. It’s perfectly natural to be caught off guard when a crisis occurs. However, it’s how you respond that can dictate whether your company is flailing to keep itself from sinking or addressing the challenges and adapting successfully. As a leader, your attitude influences those around you, and more often than not your employees and colleagues will emulate your approach. If you exude a sense of calm, you can set them on the right course. 

It’s not always easy, though. You are only human, after all, and not impervious to the pressures of a disaster. Therefore, it’s important to consider what strategies you can employ to make it easier to maintain calm when it seems everything around you is going wrong.

Plan Ahead

When a crisis arises, there tends to be a lot of confusion in the air. Likely, you’ll even be caught off guard yourself. This is why it’s important to formalize protocols that can be put into action when sudden change occurs. This gives you a step-by-step framework for how to proceed, even when you are still trying to wrap your head around the extent of what is happening elsewhere in the business.   

Writing a business continuity plan is vital here. The main goal of this tool is to ensure that when a disaster occurs, the company can keep running at an optimal level of performance. That said, an effective continuity plan doesn’t equate to a comprehensive roadmap for all disasters; rather, it produces protocols to respond to each type that is likely to affect operations. This generally includes power outages, pandemics, cyber attacks, and natural disasters — all of which are common dangers to most types of business. Bear in mind too, that there are likely to be specific challenges based on your geographical area. Look into the likelihood of severe storms, flooding, and earthquakes. This is particularly important in our contemporary environment, as the effects of climate change are expected to result in increased natural disasters.   

Each scenario needs to have a clear order of operations. This includes those who are primarily responsible for executing elements of the plan and how they should be contacted. Central to maintaining your calm during problems is the knowledge that you also have all the resources to fix those problems ready in your plan. Set up financial safety nets — emergency cash funds, lines of credit with backup suppliers, and make certain that your insurers have reinsurers in the case that your original underwriters go bankrupt during a disaster. 

Keep Communicating

We tend to associate calmness with quiet. However, this is almost the opposite of what a leader should be doing during a disaster. While you certainly shouldn’t be raising your voice or confusing matters with a lot of chatter, communication should remain constant. A silent leader leaves their business uncertain and unsupported. 

Your first responsibility here is to keep on top of the company-wide disaster communication strategy. Ensure that as soon as the crisis hits, you and the key members of your team engage in communications triage. Seek to understand who needs to receive communications — staff, customers, suppliers — and what the clearest, quickest, and most effective form of outreach is for the circumstances. It’s also important to be transparent here. A calm leader does not seek to hide the situation from stakeholders. Honest and accountable communication breeds trust.

Throughout the immediate emergency, and beyond, the key to success is in how you approach your communications. At a time when your staff feels at sea, you must exude confidence. This not only comes from communicating with your employees pragmatically but also maintaining clarity. If you make your expectations clear, you give the impression that these actions will have a positive effect on the situation. Your employees want to be assured that you know what you’re doing, and decisiveness is one of the qualities we all look for in good leaders. The best way to represent this is to keep in constant communication with staff about where the company is and where you intend for it to go. 

Engage in Collaboration

Part of being a calm and effective leader is knowing that you can’t take care of a crisis on your own. In fact, the failure to collaborate effectively increases vulnerability in a crisis. As early as possible, you need to gain the input and support of key staff from each department of your business.

Form a team made up of members of each department in your organization. This doesn’t necessarily have to be management; they should be staff who have in-depth knowledge of their area of business operations and be able to assess what the challenges can be during a disaster. Their first collaboration should be in the continuity planning phase; their insights into the potential for issues and how to solve them is invaluable. When a crisis hits, bring them together and make certain that they are working as a team to enact solutions. This delegation of responsibility means that the most urgent matters are being taken care of, and still leaving you free to calmly address other issues.  

 Your collaboration should also be with your industry partners and the local community. You know that these disasters don’t occur in a bubble, they affect others too. Strong partnerships are an essential part of leadership, and you should be focusing on the relationships you’ve built to improve your response to the crisis. This doesn’t just mean reaching out to seek assistance; being a calm leader is also about knowing that you have things under control, so you can afford to help others too. Seek to understand how your business can assist those in your network or local area to weather the storm too. 

Conclusion

You can’t effectively get your business through a crisis if you can’t keep a clear head. By making sure you plan ahead, you have the tools to confidently meet the challenges you face. In maintaining clear communication, and positive collaboration, you can guide your business through the worst, and inspire your team to thrive beyond it. 

About the Author: Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. Since finishing college he is trying his hand at being a freelance writer. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but technology and business topics are his favorite. When he isn't writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or gaming.