Sarah Lakhani Consulting

Helping entrepreneurs build businesses with clarity and ease through strategic business design

Sarah Lakhani

Can You Say Who Your Customer Is?

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I know – you’re probably thinking, “of course I can say who my customer is”.  But I challenge you to identify 10 things about your ideal customer – 10 things that paint a picture of who your customer is.   

If you were able to do that exercise easily, I still urge you to keep on reading because (a) I’ve got a list of questions below that can help you learn even more about your customers and (b) if you haven’t already, you should try to validate your understanding of your customer, just to make sure your information is absolutely correct.  

On the other hand, if you were not able to describe 10 things about your ideal customer, then this article will most definitely be of immense value to you.  

Let’s start off by defining an “ideal customer”.  Every business (or at least every product or service within a business) should have an ideal customer in mind.  Your ideal customer is a real or imagined personality for whom you make your products and services.  

It not only helps, but is absolutely necessary for the success of your business, to know exactly who your ideal customer is.  Why?  Because then you can make sure that you:

  1. Design your products and services in the best way to serve them
  2. Write marketing copy that speaks directly to their needs, wants, concerns and more
  3. Have enough information to be able to cultivate a relationship with them (which is great for long term revenue)

Typically, businesses have one of two issues with their customer profiles.  They either believe that everyone is their customer (or a wide range of very different people), and therefore cannot narrow down their customer profile to one person (or type of person), or they know they have a target customer, but don’t have the detailed information on that customer.  

To build your ideal customer’s profile, you can start off with any data that you already have and use that to get the foundation of your customer profile ready.  But the truth is, a lot of the information that’s really going to make a difference isn’t going to be available in your CRM or alternative data mart.  To see what I mean, go through the toolkit below.  Questions like “Do you know your customer’s fears?” are most likely not going to be found in the customer data that you already have.  The detailed customer profile covers a lot more than demographic and socioeconomic information.  So to fill in the gaps and get a full, informative profile together, you’ll need to reach out to your customers (or potential customers) and ask them some questions.  You can do this via an online survey, a face-to-face discussion, over the phone or any other way you can think of.  

I’ve listed questions below, but if you go to Customer Profile Questions in the Customer Experience Toolkit section, you’ll get a more visually appealing print out that you can write your answers in directly.  

Basics
How old is your customer?
Where does your customer live?
What is your customer’s nationality?
What is your customer’s ethnic background?
What is your customer’s gender?

Work & Education
Do you know your customer’s educational background?
Can you describe your customer’s work experience?
Can you describe your customer’s current job?
Can you say what your customer’s income is?

Relationships
Can you describe your customer’s relationship status?
Can you describe your customer’s marital status?
Does your customer have children?

Beliefs, Needs & Wants
Can you describe what your customer’s core beliefs and values are?
Do you know your customer’s fears?
Can you describe your customer’s life goals?
Can you describe what makes your customer happy?
Can you describe your customer’s struggles?
Can you describe your customer’s needs?
Can you describe your customer’s wants?

Daily Life
Can you describe your customer’s typical day?
Can you describe what your customer thinks of first thing in the morning?
Can you describe what your customer thinks of before sleeping at night?

Personality
Can you describe your customer’s style?
Can you describe your customer’s personality?
Do you know who your customer’s role models are?

Media
Do you know what your customer likes to read?
Do you know what your customer likes to listen to?
Do you know what your customer likes to watch?
Do you know which social media channels your customer likes to use?

Activities
Do you know what your customer likes to do for fun?
Can you describe what your customer does to unwind?

Brands
Do you know what brands your customer loves?
Do you know which brands your customer likes to follow?
Do you know which influencers your customer likes to follow?

So now let me ask you again – can you say who your customer is? 

What are you biggest challenges with understanding your customer? Do you have any current or planned projects to develop detailed customer profiles? Post your comments and any questions below, and if you can help anyone else out with an answer, don’t hesitate to do so! As always, if you’ve found this article useful, share it with someone who’ll benefit from it as well!

Why is Organizational Design Important?

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If you’ve come across the term “organizational design” or any variation of it (“organization design”, organizational design and development”, “organizational development”, etc), you hopefully already know it is an important topic, and one that is critical to the success of your business.  The main reason for this is that OD brings together the organization’s purpose with the people and support systems required to bring it to fruition – which is absolutely critical for success. 

For information on what Organizational Design is, go to the article “What is Organizational Design”. It will open in a separate tab so you can come back to this article afterwards.

The lack of a holistic OD exercise when it comes to setting up or changing elements such as strategy, structure or talent can result in a plethora of unwanted outcomes.  I’ve listed the most important reasons to embark on a full OD project, based on my experience and the issues I’ve seen unravel in departments and organizations that did not consider all the elements of organizational design when making changes that required it.

Reason #1: To align your structure to your strategy

In “What is Organizational Design”, I described the importance of an OD engagement to create alignment between your organization’s structure and resources.  If you haven’t read the article yet, I suggest you read it and then come back to this one.  Back to our topic – OD is important if you’re interested in making sure your structure supports and enables your strategy.  And that in turn is important if you are looking to have a successful business.  

Reason #2: To ensure all required activities are accounted for 

Without the detail involved in an Organizational Design engagement, it’s very possible to completely miss some activities that may be real game-changers for your structure.  These activities might be part of solutions to existing problems or even entirely new opportunities.  By going through the OD framework, you’ll make sure that all required activities are documented.  

Reason #3: To ensure structural gaps are avoided

Following from the previous point, without the detail involved in an Organizational Design engagement, it’s also possible to miss structural requirements entirely.  This could be a missing function, if the function is small (could still be important though!).  Other potential issues are the hierarchy and reporting lines of different teams.  Using the OD framework, you’ll be able to make sure that you’re not missing any structural pieces to ensure the success of your organization.  

Reason #4: To ensure adequate headcount

If you make a mistake with your activities and teams, there is a good chance you’ll end up with the wrong (lower) headcount too.  And that’s not something that’s going to make success any easier.  So as a result of points 2 & 3 above, you’ll also be able to make sure that you’re estimating required headcount more accurately.  

Reason #5: To provide a strong base from which to draw up job descriptions, skills and role requirements

At this point, I think it’s easy to see that with the points mentioned above and the steps you would have followed throughout the OD engagement, you’ll have plenty of detail for job descriptions, skills and requirements for specific roles.  It may take some time to get to this point, but by the time you’re here in the process, everything becomes very fluid.  In fact, it is much easier and a lot more comprehensive to write up a job description after going through this process (versus doing one from scratch).  It also means that you won’t miss any important accountabilities or skills as you’ll have a complete picture of what the role does and how it fits in the organization.  

Reason #6: To easily identify processes and process steps

Similar to point 5 above, when you go through the Organizational Design framework, you’ll be able to identify processes (including, of course, who is involved in those processes) very easily.  You can then extract entire processes and use them in training, communicating new changes and documenting your processes. 

Reason #7: To provide the basis needed to define measurement 

Lastly, with all the information above, and knowing what the organization is striving to achieve, you’ll be much better equipped with identifying the best metrics and measurement frameworks to provide visibility on how well your organization is performing in achieving its objectives.  

Final Thoughts on the Importance of Organizational Design

In closing, I would like to stress that “designing a structure” is not the same as following an Organizational Design framework.  The former focuses only on the organizational structure – how to organize people – potentially leaving out important areas such as alignment to strategy, split of accountabilities and activities across teams and people, defining processes to ensure efficiency and effectiveness, defining measurement frameworks, identifying required skills and competencies, and deciding on performance rewards, frameworks and mechanisms.  So if you’re looking for something holistic, Organizational Design is it.

What are you biggest challenges with Organizational Design at the moment? Do you have any current or planned Organizational Design work that you would like more information on? Post your comments and any questions below, and if you can help anyone else out with an answer, don’t hesitate to do so! As always, if you’ve found this article useful, share it with someone who’ll benefit from it as well!

What is Organizational Design?

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Organizational Design is an extremely important topic and one of my favorite management consulting topics.  Understanding what Organizational Design (OD) is and being able to successfully complete an OD engagement are skills that will see you through many challenges in your career and business.  Here is the starting point.

Definition of Organizational Design

Organizational Design (also called “organization design”, organizational design and development”, and other variations of these) is a broad yet in-depth topic that aligns an organization or department’s strategy, structure, processes, skills/talent, measurement and reward system to set it up for success.  It is this alignment of the structure, processes, skills, measurement and rewards systems to the business strategy and objective that makes Organizational Design all-encompassing.  This is why it is such an important topic.  

Components of an Organizational Design Engagement 

An OD practitioner will ensure that several things have been put into place while working on an OD engagement.  These elements are:

  1. that a coherent strategy is available or has been developed,
  2. that an appropriate structure has been designed which supports and enables the strategy, 
  3. that roles and teams within the structure have been defined, 
  4. that processes have been mapped out to ensure maximum efficiency, 
  5. that measurement frameworks for both people and processes have been defined and set up, and
  6. that an additional rewards framework for the former has been put in place.  

Behavioral Component of Organizational Design 

OD also includes a behavioral component that supplements the scientific approaches to designing an organization.  This is so important, because it indicates a recognition that the human aspect of OD has a large influence on the scientific or “business” aspect of it.  A big part of the behavioral component is anchored in stakeholder management and change management.  Other pieces of behavioral considerations include an understanding of organization culture and how specific structures, hierarchy, areas of responsibility and specific accountabilities may be threatened or even unsuccessful within the current organization’s environment.  

Why is Organizational Design Important?

The OD practice is important, most of all, because it drives success for the organization.  The stitching together of strategy, structure, processes, skills and more provides the organization the best possible chance for a positive outcome.  Without the alignment created by Organizational Design, you could have a great strategy, great people and effective processes, measurement systems and rewards in place, but they could be completely misaligned, not supporting or enabling the business strategy or objectives at all – clearly a big problem.    

What does Organizational Design Entail?

End-to-end, Organizational Design involves the following steps:

1. Articulating the strategy, goal, current state and gaps

Although the OD engagement may not include setting or defining the strategy, it is important for there to be a strategy in place.  The strategy must be well articulated so that the OD practitioners, stakeholders and other team members can use it to ensure the rest of the OD work supports and enables the right strategy.  

2. Designing the structure

It should come as no surprise that the OD engagement will include designing the organization structure.  The difference between merely constructing a structure and constructing one within the context of an OD engagement is that the latter ensures the structure supports and enables the strategy, whereas the former may not necessarily follow a methodology to ensure it does.  

3. Defining roles, teams, hierarchy, span of control and accountabilities within the structure 

An OD piece of work provides users a methodology and framework with which to identify roles & teams.  Although this can be done separately, when doing it as part of an OD engagement, you’ll find that the outcome is clearer and easily to achieve.  

4. Creating job descriptions for all the roles within the structure, highlighting both hard and soft skills

Because of the detail involved in the OD work, it becomes very easy to produce job descriptions and, if needed, team descriptions.  Both will cover accountabilities, responsibilities and required skills of either the team or the individual.

5. Mapping out processes for at least the main or major activities throughout the organization/department 

Again, because of the detail involved in the OD work, mapping out the major processes is also something that can be done fairly easily and quickly.  One of the key benefits of an OD engagement is that by putting in the work required by the methodology in the beginning, all of the details become clear and easy to identify later on.  

6. Defining measures of success for teams and processes

After defining the team roles, job descriptions and major processes, it is necessary to articulate the measures of success for teams and processes.  With the information already available at this point, these measures are also fairly easy to identify, as the team accountabilities and processes have already been defined.  

7. Deciding on rewards for performance

The last part of the OD engagement covers rewards for performance.  This is very often left out, but it shouldn’t be, as it cements leadership’s commitment to the strategy and to ensuring everything is being done to achieve it.   

A Final Note on Organizational Design

Hopefully your interest in Organizational Design has been piqued.  It is, as I mentioned earlier, one of the best ways to ensure success in your organization – and who doesn’t want success?

Do you think your organization could benefit from some Organizational Design work?  What alignment do you think could be approved in your area? Post your comments and any questions below, and if you can help anyone else out with an answer, don’t hesitate to do so! As always, if you’ve found this article useful, share it with someone who’ll benefit from it as well!

Curiosity Might Have Killed the Cat, but it Could Save Your Business

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What if you had to choose just one skill to hire against?  What would it be?  

Would you go for a technical skill?  A soft or interpersonal skill?  Would it be something learned at university or perhaps acquired in a previous role?  

My answer:  I’d hire for curiosity.  

Why?  The short version – curious people naturally have an interest in learning, seeking and acquiring information and knowledge.  This interest remains with them, and because of it, they always find ways to move forward.  In summary, their natural drive to seek and understand means they will build on their skills and capabilities and continuously grow.  

The problem with hiring for specific skills and experience at any given time is that those requirements will definitely change, and unless your employees are able to change too, their once relevant skills and experience could very well become redundant.  You need your team to be able to adapt to new requirements, to continuously grow and learn new skills and solve new problems – otherwise, you’ll find that the team is unable to meet new demands and challenges as they come up and become the new basic requirements.  As explained in this TED post, the important question you should ask when evaluating candidates for a role is not whether or not the person can currently do the role, but whether he could learn it.  And the people who are able to learn new skills continuously are those that have an innate sense of curiosity.  

So what makes curious people more valuable to your organization?

The inquisitive nature of curious individuals is a great asset to your organization because of the various behaviors that arise because of this trait.  These behaviors are all highly beneficial to businesses across the board because they ultimately lead to better work environments, more collaborative teams, and better idea generation.  

The most notable behaviors observed in curious people that provide the biggest benefits to organizations are:

Curious people never stop learning

They are always seeking to understand things – how something works or how something can be solved or made better.  In order to understand these things, they are constantly asking questions and receiving answers – either from other people or through their own experiments.  In fact, the more they know, the more they want to know, as the acquired information then opens up new doors and new questions.    

Curious people are better collaborators

Because they want to learn, curious individuals are open to receiving information from others, as opposed to thinking they have all the answers themselves.  They are also flexible, stemming from being comfortable with either not knowing the answer to begin with, or understanding that the answer they are seeking might contradict, and therefore challenge, information they had previously acquired.  This results in these individuals having to learn new things as well as unlearn things they  already knew.  Because of this flexibility in learning and unlearning information, curious people are more able to see things from other peoples’ points of view and ultimately work collaboratively towards a common goal.  

Curious people are more innovative 

Curious people are constantly building new circuits in their brains, through the questions they ask and answers they receive.  These new circuits set them up for creativity, as their minds remain active.  Also, as author Austin Kleon points out in Steal Like An Artist, “every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas”.  So the more ideas an individual is exposed to, the more likely they are to develop new ideas, and these new ideas are more likely to be superior to those founded on fewer, less diverse ideas.  

Curious people are better problem solvers

Curious people constantly seek new information and new ways of doing things, which sets them up to be more naturally able to solve new problems.  In fact, not only are they more able to solve problems, but they enjoy the process, making the solutions they develop more creative than others’.  This problem solving ability is directly attributable to the genuine interest that they have in solving problems and the multiple ways they can connect ideas to form new ideas, as mentioned above.  

So… Do You or Will You Begin to Start Hiring for Curiosity?

In summary, in good times and in difficult times, it is highly beneficial to any organization to have curious individuals within its workforce, and – very importantly – to nurture this curiosity.  A great organization would not only nurture existing curiosity but also cultivate it throughout the business.  

Is there another skill you would choose to hire against, and why? Are there any skills you try to cultivate within your team? Post your comments and any questions below, and if you can help anyone else out with an answer, don’t hesitate to do so! As always, if you’ve found this article useful, share it with someone who’ll benefit from it as well!

Is it Time for a Restructure?

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Times have changed.  In fact, times are always changing!  But one thing probably hasn’t changed much – your organization structure.  People have come and gone, operations may have changed, but – at least on paper and in job descriptions – you haven’t (yet!) looked at your organization or team’s structure and roles to see how they should be adjusted.  

There are so many reasons to review and update your team or organization’s structure.  Sometimes, you may not even realize you’re in one of these scenarios, and therefore won’t be aware that you should be thinking about restructuring!  To help you out, I’m going to cover four of the most common reasons leading to a need for a restructure and what you should do if you find yourself in any of these scenarios.  

Restructure Reason #1: Attrition

If you’ve recently lost a lot of employees, you may find gaps in some areas of your team or organization.  This isn’t a problem if the gaps are in areas where the workload is currently low.  However, if the gaps are in critical areas or teams, you’ll want to do a rebalancing quite quickly to make sure that your operations are not impacted.  

Action: Draw up your organization structure and indicate the following on it:
– Expected/planned number of positions
– Current filled headcount
– Vacancies 
– Risk score of current headcount (1 – low risk, 3 – medium risk, 5 – high risk)
– Movement of people to areas that are more critical at this time

Once that’s in place, re-assess the people in positions to determine whether this could be a permanent change or if you need a more in-depth review into the structure to achieve that. To do this, mark the people who you have moved from one team to another on your organization chart.  Working with your HR team, and aligning with your specific organization’s processes, determine whether the people you have moved are both willing and able to stay in these new roles permanently.  For areas with people who are not both willing and able to stay in their new roles permanently, you’ll need to work on a long-term resource solution.

Restructure Reason #2: Changing customer expectations

There is no better reason to review your internal structure than to do it so you can meet (and exceed!) your customers’ expectations.  Keeping your customers more than happy is and will always be the key to success.  Customer expectations change in line with developments across a wide spectrum of areas such as technology, the environment, the economy, trends, etc.  Customers may expect you to understand their preferences better, now that we have data we can use to do that.  Or they may expect better delivery or scheduling options, since competitors have raised the bar.  They could even expect a concierge service for VIP customers who are part of the high tier loyalty scheme.  For all these examples, there are internal structure implications that need to be met in the form of a customer insights team, a scheduling team and a concierge service team.  

Action: Identify any customer expectations that you are not able to completely meet today.  Going through them, make note of any new roles or teams that you need to put into place to be able to meet these expectations. 

Restructure Reason #3: Changes in the external operating environment

The external operating environment, which consists of competitors, markets, regulator and regulations, suppliers, partners, and more, can also have an impact on how you structure your team.  An example of how regulation has had an impact on structures is easily seen with the EU Data Privacy Regulation.  In the couple of years leading up to its implementation, and in the years since then, organizations that have European Union residents within their customer base have had to put in place a Data Privacy Officer, and, in order to be able to satisfy the requirements in the new regulation, most have also implemented an entire Data Privacy Office.  Some organizations may even have Data Privacy Champions in each of their departments.  

Action: Examine changes in your external operating environment.  You may find it easier to first make a list of what these areas may be and then look at each one to determine whether any changes have or will be taking place.  Next to each change, note whether a change in structure (i.e. a new role or team) is required.  

Restructure Reason #4: Aligning to a new strategy

Probably the most common of all reasons to restructure.  If you’re set up to deliver against a strategy, and that strategy changes, or even if new or updated objectives are drawn up, revisiting your structure is more than recommended, it’s basically a must.  If, for example, you run a B2B business, your sales and marketing teams will be set up to interact with businesses.  Content creation will likely cover lead generation, sales decks for the trade to use, product demos and similar content appropriate and useful for a B2B business.  If, however, you decide to open up a B2C channel, you’ll have to start creating different content – appropriate for end-customer consumption – and to do that, you’ll likely need different sales and marketing skills and/or teams.  

Action: Revisit your strategy.  Has anything changed compared to the previous year?  If so, what are the skills or teams required in order to fulfill the new objectives?

A Final Thought on the Time between Restructures

You should re-evaluate your structure every 4 years.  That’s a long enough cycle to let the previous structure settle and produce benefits to the organization and a short enough cycle to ensure that the structure doesn’t get stale or fall out of touch with developments in your industry, customer expectations, technology etc.  A department or an organization that doesn’t restructure every now and again is at risk of falling behind the competition and disappointing customers along the way, neither of which is good for business.  

What is your biggest struggle with your organization’s structure at the moment?  Is there an end goal you’re working towards within your team or organization structure?  Post your comments and any questions below, and if you can help anyone else out with an answer, don’t hesitate to do so! As always, if you’ve found this article useful, share it with someone who’ll benefit from it as well!

The 5 Behaviors of Great Leadership

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Leadership – the topic of many books, articles and discussions.  Perhaps you’re interested because you head up an organization, or perhaps you’re the head of a team.  You might even be interested because you’re in the early stages of your career and you want to know what leadership behaviors to work on in order to achieve your career goal of becoming a great leader one day.  Regardless of where you are in your career, you’ll likely be wondering the same questions: What qualities and behaviors set apart good leaders from great leaders?  What are the behaviors great leaders consistently exhibit? And can those behaviors be learned or acquired, or are they qualities you have to be born with?

Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with and for many different types of leaders.  I have seen leaders go from good to great, and I have seen leaders who are able to inspire and positively influence people they not only directly manage but those they do not have a direct responsibility over, too.  What follows is a definition of what true leadership is, followed by the 5 behaviors and qualities possessed by all the great leaders I have been fortunate enough to work with, as well as others who I have followed and read about but have not had the opportunity to work with.

Leadership Definition 

Leadership is the ability of a person to lead others.  But great leadership is the ability to inspire people to bring forth their highest potential in alignment with a common objective or goal set by the leader.  It is the pursuit of this positive outcome that is sought after by people striving to become great leaders.  A great leader is able to influence many aspects of an organization – its ethos, creativity, efficient and effective operations and its culture.  This is not only beneficial in difficult times, but in good times too, as great leaders encourage the culture and behavior across their organizations (or teams) to produce great returns, be it new discoveries, more efficient working environments or employee loyalty.  Of course, when times are difficult, great leadership becomes even more important.  Your employees will look to you for reassurance and direction.  The importance of the behaviors you exhibit at this time become amplified as all eyes are on you to lead at these critical moments within your career.   

Leadership Quality #1 – Great Leaders Communicate

Great leadership is almost synonymous with great communication.  Being able to communicate and articulate your message clearly, concisely and in a manner that invokes inspiration in others is a behavior every great leader absolutely must exhibit.  This behavior is critical in conveying goals and objectives to people, in getting them to understand why the goals and objectives are important and how they they can contribute to them, and, most importantly, in getting them to want to contribute to them in the first place.  Good communication also sets precedence and creates open environments where people feel comfortable sharing ideas.  Times will get tough over and over again.  And when that happens, as it inevitably will, people will look to leadership for direction, hope, reassurance and strength.  Most leaders will choose to communicate less at bad times.  Understandably, it is uncomfortable and most (if not all) shareable information will likely be bleak.  But a good leader always communicates, even if to say “we’re still figuring it out”.  By not communicating, you open the door to rumors, loss of productivity as people try to fill in the narrative expected from you, and potentially higher than required levels of stress and concern, as people naturally associate the lack of communication in bad times as a sign that things are much worse than anticipated.  

Leadership Quality #2 – Great Leaders Listen

Great leaders listen to their employees – because these are the people creating your products and delivering your services, and as such will be closest to problems faced and opportunities available and are also closest to your customers.  Your employees have so much information and ideas, and when you listen to them, you will undoubtedly come across many practical solutions to the issues your organization faces.  Listening to your employees also helps you understand the type of information they wish you hear about from you, their concerns, their areas of focus – all of which should be addressed in some manner by you, whenever and however you choose to communicate with them.  When leaders don’t listen to their employees, a disconnect is created from the gap between what is important to employees and what the leaders communicate about.  This gap can result in employees feeling unheard, unsupported and uncared for.  And that, in turn, will affect your bottom line though attrition, loss of productivity and loss of creative problem solving or drive.  

Leadership Quality #3 – Great Leaders Know the Importance of People

Remember that it is the people who make or break your company – your customers and your staff.  Employees will treat customers the way they themselves are treated.  The companies with the best customer satisfaction scores treat their employees much better than others.  They treat them with respect and empathy, empower them, and listen to them.  Reputation studies have shown that over the course of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, customers began attributing a better reputation score to organizations that treat their employees fairly.  Another thing to consider in case of redundancies is the people who remain, as well as those you make redundant.  Don’t underestimate the impact of fear of “being next” on productivity.  This is especially important if you are making large manpower cuts.  And even more important if you make cuts that include hardworking and intelligent people – things that others will have associated with being safe, possibly from a value-add perspective.     

Leadership Quality #4 – Great Leaders are Positive

A great leader is someone who others find inspiring, who they enjoy being around, who they like to listen to and align efforts with.  It’s difficult to be that person if you’re not a positive person.   A great leader is able to maintain a positive outlook because they look for solutions, not problems.  They also maintain their positive and professional demeanor, not just because that is the more professional thing to do, but more importantly because that sets the expectation of everyone else in the organization.  People imitate what they see their leaders do.  A positive attitude, where people’s voices are heard, failures are not punished, but rather learned from, and where collaboration is encouraged, sets the tone for the culture of the organization, which is absolutely a leader’s responsibility.  In hard times, in particular, you’ll need your employees to be able to stay positive, so that solutions can be found, and so that productivity doesn’t fall, and most importantly, so that they work together to keep the organization afloat.  

Leadership Quality #5 – Great Leaders Set An Example

By now, it should be apparent that a great leader is also a great role model.  Great leaders around the world set an example that others strive to follow.  People tend to imitate those that they report into – so you’ll absolutely want their efforts to be something that contribute positively to your organization.  In difficult times, it is crucial to keep this important behavior in mind.  Be mindful of change you make to your employees salaries, benefits, working hours, etc.  and make sure to demonstrate that those expectations are set and modeled by yourself.  Your employees need to see that you are also making sacrifices, that you are in the trenches with them and that all the decisions and expectations coming from you are fair and an example to live by.  

And one day, when you look around and see your employees creating environments in which they listen to each other, communicate clearly and invoke inspiration in others, valuing one another, maintaining a positive demeanor, mindset and environment, and inspiring people around them, you’ll know you had a little something to do with that.  

What leadership qualities do you see leaders struggling with the most? What leadership qualities do you strive to build? Post your comments and any questions below, and if you can help anyone else out, don’t hesitate to do so! As always, if you’ve found this article useful, share it with someone who’ll benefit from it as well!