The Two Most Important Keys to Effective Leadership

• Trust and confidence in top leadership was the single most reliable predictor of employee satisfaction in an organization.
• Effective communication by leadership in three critical areas was the key to winning organizational trust and confidence:
  1. Helping employees understand the company's overall business strategy.
  2. Helping employees understand how they contribute to achieving key business objectives.
  3. Sharing information with employees on both how the company is doing and how an employee's own division is doing - relative to strategic business objectives.

By F. John Reh

 These are the things that can help all of us be a little more of a leader.

He knew what he wanted to do. It is awfully hard to get others to do what you want if you don't know what you want. If you manage a customer service center, is your goal to have the lowest cost operation or to answer all calls within 90 seconds.

 The goal isn't as important as knowing what it is.

He told people what to do, not how to do it. He was a very smart, well educated man, but he knew he wasn't smarter than everyone. He encouraged people to think, to innovate, to be creative. He didn't blindly accept what you came up with, but he expected you to come up with something appropriate.

He did his homework. Before starting a new challenge, he always tried to find out what others had tried that had succeeded or failed. He researched the obstacles and opponents. He tried to give himself the best chance of winning by learning as much as could at the beginning. He was always learning and always thinking.

He led by example. He pushed his people hard. He demanded a lot of them. But no one ever worked harder than he did. He was the first one in and the last one to leave. And he worked hard the whole time he was there. He knew how to play, but he knew how to separate that from the job.

He demanded excellence, not perfection. He expected you to work as hard as he did and to be as committed to the goal as he was. He didn't expect you to do as much or as well as he did, he insisted, however, that you do as much and as well as you could.

He took care of his people. He knew everyone who worked for him as an individual. He knew their strengths and weaknesses, their aspirations, their fears. He always took the criticism from outside the group, but let each of them take the praise for what they contributed.

He was humble. I never understood why. With all he had done and had accomplished in his life, he was always modest. There was one time, about ten years ago, when he made a little boast. That one probably doesn't count though - he was stating a fact and we were both a little drunk.

He had character. He was honest and truthful. He was dependable. When he gave you his word, you always knew you could count on it. He didn't cheat. He didn't try to find the easy way out of a tough situation. He didn't waffle on his principles. He was not inflexible, but there simply were limits that he wouldn't cross.

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

This is Dale Carnegie's summary of his book, from 1948

Table of Contents

1. Fundamental facts you should know about worry
2. Basic techniques in analyzing worry
3. How to break the worry habit before it breaks you
4. Seven ways to cultivate a mental attitude that will bring you peace and happiness
5. The perfect way to conquer worry
6. How to keep from worrying about criticism
7. Six ways to prevent fatigue and worry and keep your energy and spirits high

Fundamental facts you should know about worry

1. If you want to avoid worry, do what Sir William Osler did: Live in "day-tight compartments." Don't stew about the futures. Just live each day u ntil bedtime.
2. The next time Trouble--with a Capital T--backs you up in a corner, try the magic formula of Willis H. Carrier:
   1. Ask yourself, "What is the worst that can possibly happen if I can't solve my problem?
   2. Prepare yourself mentally to accept the worst--if necessary.
   3. Then calmly try to improve upon the worst--which you have already mentally agreed to accept.
3. Remind yourself of the exorbitant price you can pay for worry in terms of your health. "Those who do not know how to fight worry die young."

Basic techniques in analyzing worry

1. Get the facts. Remember that Dean Hawkes of Columbia University said that "half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision."
2. After carefully weighing all the facts, come to a decision.
3. Once a decision is carefully reached, act! Get busy carrying out your decision--and dismiss all anxiety about the outcome.
4. When you, or any of your associates, are tempted to worry about a problem, write out and answer the following questions:
   1. What is the problem?
   2. What is the cause of the problem?
   3. What are all possible solutions?
   4. What is the best solution?

How to break the worry habit before it breaks you

1. Crowd worry out of your mind by keeping busy. Plenty of action is one of the best therapies ever devised for curing "wibber gibbers."
2. Don't fuss about trifles. Don't permit little things--the mere termites of life--to ruin your happines.
3. Use the law of averages to outlaw your worries. Ask yourself: "What are the odds against this thing's happening at all?"
4. Co-operate with the inevitable. If you know a circumstance is beyond your power to change or revise, say to yourself: "It is so; it cannot be otherwise."
5. Put a "stop-less" order on your worries. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth--and refuse to give it anymore.
6. Let the past bury its dead. Don't saw sawdust.

Seven ways to cultivate a mental attitude that will bring you peace and happiness

1. Let's fill our minds with thoughts of peace, courage, health, and hope, for "our life is what our thoughts make it."
2. Let's never try to get even with our enemies, because if we do we will hurt ourselves far more than we hurt them. Let's do as General Eisenhower does: let's never waste a minute thinking about people we don't like.
3. 1. Instead of worrying about ingratitude, let's expect it. Let's remember that Jesus healed ten lepers in one day--and only one thanked Him. Why should we expect more gratitude than Jesus got?
   2. Let's remember that the only way to find happiness is not to expect gratitude--but to give for the joy of giving.
   3. Let's remember that gratitude is a "cultivated" trait; so if we want our children to be grateful, we must train them to be grateful.
4. Count your blessings--not your troubles!
5. Let's not imitate others. Let's find ourselves and be ourselves, for "envy is ignorance" and "imitation is suicide."
6. When fate hands us a lemon, let's try to make a lemonade.
7. Let's forget our own unhappiness--by trying to create a little happiness for others. "When you are good to others, you are best to yourself."

The perfect way to conquer worry

1. Prayer

How to keep from worrying about criticism

1. Unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. It often means that you have aroused jealousy and envy. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog.
2. Do the very best you can; and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of your neck.
3. Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticize ourselves. Since we can't hope to be perfect, let's do what E.H. Little did: let's ask for unbiased, helpful, constructive criticism.

Six ways to prevent fatigue and worry and keep your energy and spirits high

1. Rest before you get tired.
2. Learn to relax at your work.
3. Learn to relax at home.
4. Apply these four good workings habits:
   1. Clear your desk of all papers except those relating to the immediate problem at hand.
   2. Do things in the order of their importance.
   3. When you face a problem, solve it then and there if you have the facts to make a decision.
   4. Learn to organize, deputize, and supervise.
5. To prevent worry and fatigue, put enthusiasm into your work.
6. Remember, no one was ever killed by lack of sleep. It is worrying about insomnia that does the damage--not the insomnia.