How Does a Leader Lead

How does a leader lead?

The best definition of a leader, in my opinion, is a person who has a vision and can communicate that vision to organize followers to help him or her reach that vision. To be a leader, you must:

1) have someplace to go (your vision),

2) have followers, and

3) organize those followers to help you reach your vision.

I believe leaders follow a five step process. These steps are as follows.

Step 1. Have a vision or dream. You cannot lead someone if you do not know where you are going. Your destination must be clear in your mind and you must be able to define or describe it clearly in few words. You must be completely committed to the realization of this dream or the obstacles you encounter will de-rail you. It must be your dream and not someone else’s dream or something you think is a “good idea.”

Dreams can be like acorns. They must be nourished until they can grow into mighty oak trees. Please see my blog post on this subject. (hcurley.wordpress.com)

A person in a position of authority but with no vision MAY be a manager, but is not a leader. Please see my blog post on the differences between leaders and managers.

Step 2. Communicate your vision to attract like minded individuals. People will step forward to help you reach your vision only if they know about it. Therefore, communicate your dream clearly and frequently in venues where like minded people are likely to listen. Do not get into arguments, (a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still), but put forth your vision clearly and strongly.

If people present issues you have not considered, or for which you have no answers, work on being able to answer these issues in the future. If people present issues that divert you from your vision, ask yourself if this is really your dream.

Step 3. Surround yourself with people who see your dream. You will need the following groups with each group of a size determined by the size of your dream.

To lead your self, use your head. To lead others, use your heart.

Master mind group – Your Board of Directors, mentors and other guiding individuals that you meet with at least weekly.

Other leaders – Your lieutenants who will lead others toward your dream in your absence. These lieutenants may be in charge of different aspects of reaching your vision (such as fund raising, media relations, government relations, etc), in other geographic areas or covering different shifts. Strong managers may also fill these roles.

Strong followers – These are people who will do your bidding because they believe in you or your cause, but cannot or will not train or guide others. These are the people who go door-to-door to spread your ideas, for example. Managers may also fill these roles.

Other followers – These people will perform non-leadership or non-management tasks but do not have the strong understanding of your dream. These are the people you would use to stuff envelopes, for example.

Do not be afraid to use people who are smarter, stronger or more aggressive than you; they will make you smarter, stronger and more aggressive.

Step 4. Communicate your vision to keep your followers on track. This is a never ending process. Use posters, meetings, e-mail, web-broadcasts, etc. to keep your people focused. The most important communication is through a good example.

If you notice that steps 2 and 4 are both about communication you have discovered that the most important function of leadership is communication: first to find people with similar direction to you and then to keep them focused.

Step 5. Follow the mechanics of leadership. You can learn the mechanics of leadership from Toastmastes, college courses, leadership books, books on leaders, observation, and trail and error.

A partial list of mechanics of leadership is: communication, delegation, follow-up, develop/train followers, action and persistence.

Planning is probably a leadership role, implementing the plan is probably a management role.

As you study leadership and are building your plans, at some point you must stop planning and start executing. Leaders believe “the sooner the better.” ACT NOW!

Difference between Leader and Manager

What is the difference between a leader and a manager?

My dictionary gives a definition of leader as “one that leads or guides.” It then defines leads as “To show the way” and “To guide or direct in a course.” The same dictionary defines manager as “one who handles, control, or directs.”

As I study those definitions, I come to understand that both leader and manager follow the common English meaning of the words. A leader has a destination and has gathered a following that the leader is taking to that destination. A leader “leads” his or her followers to the leader’s destination. A manager, on the other hand, follows procedures to maintain the status quo or controls people and situations to reach someone else’s goals.

We need both in a fully functioning society – leaders to set direction and goals and managers to maintain control in reaching the goals and to maintain the benefits of reaching the goal.

Which are you? Where do your past activities place you? What do your desires indicate is the proper role for you in the future? How willing are you to take chances?

The following chart may help differentiate leaders and managers. Please add additional items in the comments section.

Leaders	Managers
Are controlled by a vision	Are controlled by procedures
Willing to take larger risks	More risk averse
Are people oriented	Are procedure oriented
Desires to explorer new thoughts	Desires to maintain the status quo
Willing to go-it-alone	Desires ratification or confirmation from peers or superiors.
Communicates dreams, right brain	Communicates processes, left brain
Supports followers	Supports established practices
Not easily swayed from destination, and if swayed, will quickly return.	How we get there is more important than where we are going.
Start companies or take companies through changes.	Join companies after the company is established.
Frustrated by highly established companies	Frustrated by highly dynamic companies

Acorn to Oak Tree

Acorn to Oak Tree

When I was in sixth grade, I found an acorn while walking home from school. I planted it in a small can and took care of it. I ensured it had just the right amount of water and sunlight. When it outgrew its small can, I transplanted it to a larger can – always taking care of it because it was so fragile. Later, I planted it outside in a carefully chosen place. Unfortunately, the rabbits ate its leaves, so I placed a fence around the small, young tree.

That was years ago, and now that oak tree has a strength that I could never hope to achieve. My grand children can play in its limbs and swing from it.

The acorn to oak tree analogy applied to ideas.

When you first conceive an idea, it is tender and fragile. You must nourish the idea and ensure it has just the right amount of care. Later, as it grows stronger, it will take on a life of its own and, in fact, will start to control you.

Be careful of what ideas you plant in your sub-conscious or in the sub-conscious of those around you.

When we were young, well-meaning individuals may have planted negative and limiting ideas in our sub-conscious. Those ideas grew in strength and now control how we think and behave. But as adults, it is our responsibility to replace those old, negative and limiting ideas with new, positive and expanding ones of our own. Our new ideas will be like the acorn and need nourishment and care for a while, but then, like the oak tree, they will take on a life of their own.

The acorn to oak tree analogy applied to MLM companies.

When you sponsor a new person in your downline, that person is fragile in that position. Their income from the position is small, their loyalty to the company is weak, their knowledge of the product and compensation plan is only beginning; they are much like the acorn. They need you to nourish them and train them. As they become established, their income increases and their understanding of the product, company and compensation structure expands, and they become a much stronger agent. Perhaps even stronger than you. When they reach that point, the amount of nourishment and care they need will be much less, and they will be nourishing and caring for their own downline.

MLM 2 Step

The MLM 2 Step

Sponsor 5; Train 5

Would you like to have 1,000 people in your downline? How about 10,000? How is it possible to take care of even 50? The answer is, “Switch hats.” The first step is to wear your sales hat to sponsor five people. The second step is switch to your management/training hat and train those five to do what you are doing. Sponsor 5; Train 5. You train each of your five to sponsor 5 of their own and train them to Sponsor 5; Train 5. If each level on your downline did only this, you would have 19,530 on your sixth level, as shown in the chart below. Remember, each person on each level needs only to sponsor five people and train those five to do the same.

Level	People on level	Total People
1	5	5
2	25	30
3	125	155
4	625	780
5	3125	3905
6	15,625	19,530

In graphic format

Do you enjoy sponsoring new people and sharing you love for the product, company and compensation plan? After you have trained your first 5 so they have the same enthusiasm for the product, company and compensation plan as you have, you can start on your second 5. But before you move on to another group of five, make sure the first group is solid.

Step 1

Sponsor five consultants, marketers, agents, or whatever you company calls the first level under you. You can do this by your genuine excitement in the product, the company and the compensation plan. Of course, you tell everyone you meet about the great luck you have in finding this opportunity.

Once you tell someone about your great opportunity, you must listen! What do they need that you can offer. Most people will not see how your opportunity will solve their problem – in fact they may not know what their problem is. You can help them but only if you listen, not just their words, but the meaning and feeling behind them. Do they need a little more money, a lot more money, a social opportunity, the car, a fancy title like “Executive Director” or the free travel to conferences? Once you know what they need, you can show them how to achieve it.

A great pearl of wisdom that applies here is that people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Do not lose or bore them by telling them how they can get the wonderful advantages in which they are not interested. Just because you are interested does not mean everyone is or should be.

This step is a modified numbers game. It is a numbers game because the more people you tell, the more that you will find that are interested. I call it a “modified” numbers game because you can increase the percentage that will be interested by being genuine and by understanding the product, company and compensation plan.

Step 2

Switch hats now and train those five to do the MLM 2 step. It is now up to them to Sponsor 5; Train 5. You have to change from the sponsoring mode to the training mode. I think this is where most sales people fail in MLMs.

To train, your method must be duplicatable. It must be simple and understandable using only material available from the company. Perhaps you can train your immediate downline your unique method, but can (or will) they train their downline?

If you have a killer PowerPoint® presentation, lose it. Many people do not know how to do PowerPoint® presentations, many people do not have the equipment, and many people do not like them. Therefore, unless your MLM company is selling self-contained presentation equipment, your killer presentation is not duplicatable.

Work with your five until they have genuine excitement for the product, company and compensation plan, and then teach them the MLM 2 Step.

Summary

Choose the number of people you want in your downline, then Sponsor 5; Train 5 and enjoy the rewards. Remember to work smarter; the only reward for hard work is more work.