Archive for the ‘leadership’ Category

How Your Leadership Style is Perceived: Leader, Imposter, Enemy or Loser?

The way others perceive you and the way you think about yourself will determine why people follow you.

Leadership can be looked at from two perspectives. The first is you – do you see yourself as a leader? The answer is yes or no. The second is your followers (staff, superiors, market etc). Do they see you as a leader? Again it’s yes or no.

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If your followers see you as a leader, and you carry yourself as one, they will perceive you as a Leader. It’s a case of your followers saying that they want someone else to take control and make decisions. You see yourself as that someone and fill the need they have. This is what everyone wants.

If you’re not in the Leader quadrant you will have trouble.

If your followers see you as a leader, but you don’t carry yourself as one, they will perceive you as an Imposter. It’s like the team leader who has been promoted from within but won’t take charge for fear of not being liked. The Imposter is the sales person who goes to see a customer but won’t lead the sales call. The customer is not interested in doing the sales person’s job and won’t see them the next time they come back.

Where you have real problems is when the followers don’t see you as a leader.

When the followers don’t see the person in charge as a leader, but that person carries on as though they are, then they are seen as the Enemy. It’s the motivational speaker who comes out after lunch and says, ‘We’re having a great time – let’s do some star-jumps’ and the audience thinks, ‘No – you’re a tool!” It’s the sales manager who declares, ‘This month we’re going to get budget! Why? Because we’re just going to get it!’ There is no grounding in reality and you get lots of push-back. This is the most dangerous place to be.

The final place is where no one sees the person in charge as a leader. Here they are simply perceived as a Loser. It’s a case of the followers saying “I don’t want to listen to a message you don’t want to give’.

Levels of Engagement

The Loser has to deal with disengagement. No one is listening – but that’s not usually a problem as the person in charge is not speaking.

The Enemy has to deal with disinterest. They could be giving out next week’s PowerBall numbers but the followers don’t care because they think the leader is an idiot.

The Imposter is dealing with disillusionment. The followers want to follow or buy but are not getting the guidance and leadership they want. This is why good staff leave poor managers and reliable customers start looking elsewhere.

It is only when you are perceived as the Leader that you get engagement. Here people want to listen to what you have to say. In this position you have influence and can sell more. This makes your life easier. You’re happy because you’re getting budget. Your superiors are happy because you’re doing your job. Your followers are happy because they are getting the leadership they want.

From Imposter to Leader

Over the last dozen years of working with senior managers I have seen that about 90% of people hold themselves in the Imposter position. They want to be the leader, but are afraid that if they step up they will be seen as the enemy.

The key to stepping up from Imposter to Leader is courage. Do you have the courage to take the next step in the process? Don’t look for confidence and that is often too far down the track. Have a plan to follow and have the courage to take just the next step in the process.

How have you found working for Leaders, Imposters, Enemies and Losers? Leave your comments below.

Cheers

Darren


Information Is Not Power

It is said that information is power. But that’s not the case.

It is only the application or sharing of information that gives power. When you apply information it shows your level of knowledge/expertise. Sharing information shows you are an insider – a very powerful position.

From a power perspective, the fatal mistake is to share information when it can’t be applied – this is simply giving away your power to show you are an insider. But giving it away makes everyone else an insider to – or you an outsider.

But the paradox is that unless you share information, others don’t know you have power. If they don’t know you have some power, do you really have it?

True power is about knowing that you have information that gives you power yet refraining from sharing it.

That’s why people let secrets slip, leak information and like to gossip. It’s how they show they have information and therefore power.

The irony is that when they share the information they lose any power that it had given them.

Become comfortable holding information that gives you an edge on others without giving into the need to share it. This will be true power.

Would love your thoughts on this.


Leadership Skills iLead – Simple Sales – Sell with a Vision

Leadership Skills iLead – Simple Sales – Sell with a Vision

Google has democratised information. The exclusive knowledge that you gained at university is now available to anyone with just a few clicks. The process knowledge that you have on how to fix something is now redundant because there is a video on YouTube that shows me how to fix it myself.

If you’re in sales, this spells danger if you’re simply selling based on your knowledge. You need something more. That something more is what will set you apart from your competition, and allow you to have a value-based conversation as opposed to a price based one.

This change in mindset is part of the Simple Sales module in the iLead program. You can get the details on how to move beyond knowledge-based selling by clicking here or on the image below.

You can get the details on how to move beyond knowledge-based selling by clicking on the image below.

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Transcription of iLead Leadership Skills

Here’s a technique from the Simple Sales module that will help position you as a leader that others want to follow.

The ninth module of the iLead leadership skills program is Simple Sales, and what that looks at is, how do you sell your message in a simple way so others want to buy. There’s no trickery or anything like that.

Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, an expert could sell because of the knowledge they had. Then Google came along and destroyed the power position that someone with knowledge had. You can get just about any piece of information you want from Google in a couple of clicks.

Leadership Skills: It’s About what You Predict and See

If you want people to follow your message, it’s no longer about what it is that you know, it’s about the future you can predict and that you can see.

When you have a future that others can see, a vision that others want to follow, and it makes sense to all the facts and data that’s available on Google and what it is we know, we’re more likely to get on board with your message, and follow, and buy from you. This has the power of attracting people to your message. This means you can get away from being a price-based conversation and head more towards a value-based conversation. We all know the value of that in the sales world.

Leadership Skills: Sell From A Vision

When you speak from a vision, it becomes unique – no one else can have your vision and your insight, and that gives you a unique selling point within your market.

Sell from a vision, not from what it is that you know, and people will come to your message.

iLead Leadership Skills: Discussion

What I’d love is for you to pop in a comment below about those people who have had a vision that you have followed, and what the effect of that vision was on you, how it changed you, and how you bought into what it is they were saying.

Simple Sales is just one of the many modules in the iLead leadership skills program that helps your organisation develop stronger leaders, better salespeople, more effective workers at all levels, so your organisation can achieve more and hit the goals that it needs to.

Would love to read your comments and to continue the conversation below.


Corporate Leadership Training iLead – 20-20 Vision – Finding Goals

Corporate Leadership Training iLead – 20-20 Vision – Finding Goals

Setting goals is something that we know we should do. However, most people either don’t set goals or if they do, they don’t stick to them. There is a reason for this.

As part of the corporate leadership training program iLead, the module 20:20 Vision shows you how to find corporate and personal goals that will excite you to achieve. These goals then drive decisions, actions and behaviours for the next 12 months.

You can get the full details on how to do this by clicking on the image below.

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Political Leadership in Australia – What a Joke!

Political Leadership in Australia

 

What a week it has been in politics! What a last couple of months!

We’re seeing first-term governments turfed out on their ears in Victoria as well as Queensland, and Tony Abbott nearly lost his leadership position in a party room shakedown.

This is unprecedented in Australian politics, where, for almost a hundred years

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Leadership Skills – Information

Leadership Skills – The Levels of Information

Those with strong leadership skills know that there are three levels of information that your audience could hear.

  • Level 1 – Content (What)
  • Level 2 – Process (How)
  • Level 3 – Context (Why)

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Tell Show Ask | Public Speaking Tips

Tell Show Ask

Communication is a major problem in organisations. People don’t deliver the right message in the right way at the right time. if you get this wrong, it makes public speaking more difficult.

My friend Matt Church speaks of the three primary channels through which you can share a

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Joe Hockey and Poor People: Why He Can’t Win! – Public Speaking Tip

Public Speaking Tip: How NOT to argue your point if you want to win!

When Joe Hockey said that poor people don’t have cars and don’t drive as far he was technically correct. But that doesn’t mean he will win the argument.

The way you structure your message to market will determine if you are successful or not. Joe leaves out the most important element and therefore will never win. This is important in any public speaking situation, and even in one-on-one communication situations.

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How to Have Better Public Speaking Presentations in Under 3 Minutes.

Public speaking is all about getting your message across and NOT the length of time for which you speak

This video on public speaking will show you have to add impact, believability and conviction to your next foray into public speaking – in under three minutes.

G’day. Darren from Executive Speaking here.

I want to give you one public speaking secret that’ll help you lift the style and the quality of your presentations so they’re easier for you to listen to and they’re easier for your audience to engage with and understand.

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An Unusual Request – Public Speaking tip

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There are times in public speaking when you know making a request will only result in a refusal. It almost doesn’t matter what you want, it seems the answer is pre-programmed to come out as ’No’. It’s a killer for sales presentations, managers and anyone needing to influence at work.

But there is a way around this. You can bypass the automated answer and get the answer you need. You just need to think a few steps ahead. 

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