Leadership Lessons For Business Owners
By Rodney Tanaka Staff Writer© Pasadena Star-News, January 13, 2007
Good leadership goes beyond executive boardrooms, directly affecting a company's customer base and bottom line.
So says Ed Rehkopf, author of "Leadership on the Line - A Guide for Front Line Supervisors, Business Owners and Emerging Leaders."
Good leadership must run throughout an organization, from the CEO to front-line supervisors directly responsible for the employees who take care of customers, he said.
Line leaders need to communicate daily to employees the standards of customer service.
Supervisors should observe and counsel these front-line employees on a daily basis without chewing them out of embarrassing them.
"It never should be an abusive relationship," Rehkopf said. "Their daily morale and motivation is what takes care of those customers."
Leadership skills are relationship skills. A leader must figure out how to reach as many followers as possible, Rehkopf said. A leader also needs to be open to other ideas and opinions, he added.
"The best leaders understand they can learn a lot from the people they lead, but ultimately they make the decisions," Rehkopf said.
The mark of a good leader is learning from your mistakes, he said. "Every time I stubbed my toe, I gained a certain amount of common sense and wisdom from all the mistakes I made," Rehkopf said.
A company can foster good leadership with sound human resource practices, said Gary Kaplan, president of Gary Kaplan & Associates, an executive search firm based in Pasadena.
A company that tries to hire on the cheap, offers minimal benefits and treats employees like they're expendable does not foster a positive environment, he said.
"If you're a company that demonstrates by your policies and practices that your work force is meaningful to you, that goes a long way to foster that type of leadership development," he said.
Leaders inspire largely by demonstrating almost parental concern for the people they're directing, Kaplan said. "If you care about the people producing your products and delivering your services, it's a significant piece of the development of effective leaders," he said.
Good leaders should have intelligence, knowledge of the product and services, a winning attitude, a strong drive to succeed, courage and strength of personality.
But leaders must also care a great deal about the people they're leading, Kaplan said.
"If we can convey that we're loyal, that we care about them, that we value what their contributions are to that organization ... that goes an inordinately long way with people giving their absolute best," he said.
In the past 25 years, when operating expenses needed to
be cut, companies often reduced their work force to solve their problems, which Kaplan said was short-sighted.
"You don't have much without good people," Kaplan said. "I don't care what your product is, if you don't have people that can produce that product or provide that service you've got nothing."
