Leadership-It’s All About You! Five Steps to Excellence.

A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivation a

group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

Leaders are expected to provide vision, motivation, direction, structure,

adequate working conditions and training.

Leadership is not inherited, it is taught. The navy say’s leadership is

“teachership”. I say I agree with all that and I add that leadership is all
about you!

Recently I was honored by being selected to participate in a “Leaders to Sea”

program offered by the US Navy. This consists of visiting with the leadership
and an actual tour on a ship out of San Diego, California.

I spent some time with Captain Pete Gumataotao, Chief of Staff, naval Surface
Force, US Pacific Fleet. He stated the following;

“What you do every day defines you. The Navy has the values of Honor, Courage
and Commitment. The young men are ambassadors of the US. We must give them the
right tenants. Leadership is teachership with a cornerstone of accountability,
and it’s life and death consequences.”

He went on to say; “There must be a genuine concern for your teams’ well being.
The environment must be one of “I count” and constant growth. There is high
demand and many sacrifices.”

As I was listening to Captain Gumataotao I kept thinking to myself and finally

said, “We’re in the same business-growing people.” He agreed.

As I thought about this further I realized that being a leader is all about
leading yourself. You must be the example. You must be what you expect and
demand from others. You must have a presence. When you walk into a room there
must be something about you that says excellence.

This means that the following are not negotiable. Here are my principles of
developing yourself for leadership.

1. Know about everything. There should be no area of your business that you
have not personally experienced. Know what everyone does and what it takes
to be successful in that role.

2. Take care of yourself first. This means get alone time, exercise, be fit,
get enough sleep. Eat properly and frequently. Be energetic and passionate
about what you do, who you are and your life.

3. Have an attitude of humility and constant growth. To quote Admiral Kelso,

former Chief of Naval Operations, “It’s clear that we’re the preeminent
Navy in the world…and maybe we always will be, but I would tell you that
if we’re not willing to work at this idea of continual improvement we run
the risk of going the same route industry did in the 70’s and 80’s.”

I add to this the action steps of constantly attend trainings, listen to

cd’s, be a reader.
 4. Embrace and teach accountability. This seems to be the cornerstone
amongst the gurus of personal development and I know it is my
number one value. Accountability versus going victim and blaming others. I
teach and live a core principle that states accountability-I am the source
of all that I experience.

Accountability is the key to leadership. This means that there are

penalties for non performance. The Navy embraces this. I asked Captain
Gumataotao about this and he said, “punishment is the award for your
actions.” That’s an interesting way of saying that you will be held
accountable and there are consequences for your actions. I guess he meant
that you will be awarded either positively or negatively. You will earn
your award either way.

The penalties used by the Navy are liberty and pay. This is consistent
with my philosophy that the penalties must be negative for non-performance
and we are motivated to keep what we already have as opposed to getting a
reward.

5. Leaders interrupt. This means that leaders are excellent observers. They
observe patterns of mediocrity and interrupt. Leaders need to interrupt
habits of neuron patterns that are wired together and constantly firing in
response to circumstances.

I’ll refer to a case study as an excellent example of leadership in action.

Select Family of Staffing Companies is a nationwide staffing company
headquartered in Santa Barbara, California. The owner of the company heard me
speak at an industry association conference and brought me in to speak to his
team. Prior to my visiting with them the sales team averaged $3,500 per
person per week. After implementing an accountability system called
behavioral contracting the averaged more than doubled by jumping to over
$7,000 production per person. Over a sales force of 160 people at the time
that represented an over two million dollar per month increase in performance
due to one small change.

This one small change, behavioral contracting, consists of each individual

making one commitment for one activity that they agree they will accomplish
over the next seven days and then agreeing to a negative penalty if they fail
to perform. Each manager ran the behavioral contracting and the results were
immediate. Select has this motto: Measure, Report, Review, Consequence.

Accountability is the key. I challenge all of you who need to and want to
lead others to be the example. I challenge you to run your life from a
platform of excellence. Take care of yourself, have habits of excellence, be
fit, sharp, well planned and interrupt others.

Bob Davies

To view a 7-minute video of a Bob Davies keynote presentation go to:

http://www.bobdavies.com/motivational_video.html

To hear a 45-minute audio interview of Bob Davies go to:

http://www.bobdavies.com/philosophy.html
NEW To view a 3:15 minute video of Bob discussing the limits of human perception, observations and the
"gorilla" click here:
http://www.bobdavies.com/videos/Davies.wmv

You Tube Link:

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Bob Davies, named in the top 100 greatest minds of personal development world-wide by Excellence
Magazine.

Bob Davies, M.Ed Psychology, Springfield College, B.S. Health Rutgers University
M.C.C. Master Certified Coach, International Coach Federation #1013
High Performance Training, Inc.
20992 Ashley Lane, Lake Forest, Ca. 92630
World-wide 949-830-9192 Domestic toll free 866-262-3284
www.bobdavies.com e-mail info@bobdavies.com

For motivational speaker, convention speaker and keynote speaker visit www.bobdavies.com or
you can e-mail him at info@bobdavies.com
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