Fundamental beliefs

These are some of my fundamental beliefs which help shape the way I lead and manage people. They form the basis for my leadership philosophy. I will go into more details on these topics in subsequent posts.

• Everyone who comes to work wants to do a good job and be successful.
  As a Leader, my job is to put them into a position where they can be successful.
• Most people can be successful, or at least effective, if you can show them how and focus on whats important.More often than not, when teams are ineffective its because they are focused on the wrong things. It doesn’t matter how well you do the wrong things, you will never be successful.
• Reward and recognition is the fuel in the fire of continuous improvement.
• Success breeds more success.
  
• As i don’t do any of the work, my people are responsible for my success, so treat them right.
• If you expect failure, you are putting your people in a position to fail, are abdicating any accountability  and the most likely outcome is failure.
  If you expect successful outcomes, you make yourself partly accountable, which changes the whole dynamic, and you will be more supportive of your people, which increases the probability of success.
• When you empower people, you allow them to take accountability, which increases the probability of success. No empowerment, no accountability, no success!
• If you want to be a Leader, then you need followers and people will only follow people they trust.
• If your teams not functioning well, not performing and you want to know where the problem lies, then get a mirror and the person responsible will usually be right there.
• Make people accountable for success, not for failure. As their Leader i am accountable for their failure.
• Show confidence in your team and they will return the compliment.
• As a leader one of my key responsibilities is to develop the people who work with me, to push them to new heights, to develop the next generation of leaders.
• Leaders often talk about the importance of  motivating people, but for me whats more important is not demotivating them. Often when i see teams in need of motivation, its because they have been demotivated, not because they lack motivation.
• If you can create Win-Win situations in all areas, there is no limit to the success that can be achieved. Win-win means that everyone is aligned, everyone is aiming for the same goal.
• If people know why they are doing something, why its important then this improves the probability of success.
• Simplicity, Transparency and Focus are key elements in ensure success in project.