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Be a Better Leader Now

Written by: Howard Litwak

Article Overview: Here are leadership lessons that anybody can apply, either for leadership of self, or leading an organization large or small. As you read this be prepared to ask yourself and act on how you can apply these lessons to be a high performance leader.

Be a Better Leader Now

  This past year, while serving as President of my local Toastmasters International Club, The Clifton Park Speakers, I learned many lessons.   These are lessons that anybody can apply, either for leadership of self, or leading an organization large or small.  As you read this, ask yourself how you can apply these lessons to yourself or your organization.

 Goal setting works.  At the first Leadership institute of my presidency, as a sat in the presidents only session, I committed our club to being Presidents Distinguished, the highest level of distinction available.  Then I asked myself "What have I gotten myself into?"  As a club, we hadn't been distinguished in 8 years.  So I sat down with the executive board of my club and mapped out our plan with the help of the Toastmasters International Distinguished Club planner. This included all of the requirements of membership, administration, and education for a club to be distinguished, or recognized as performing at a high level.  Hint!  Having a plan helps to achieve your goals.  We took a look at our membership and determined the people who were closest to their first speaking and leadership designations, as well as who was working on advanced designations.  It became clear that this was in fact very achievable.  With this realization, the board was excited to move towards this accomplishment and we took focused action towards helping these members achieve their designations and thus our club reach its goals.  What goals are you working towards?  What is your plan to achieve them? 

Create a comfortable atmosphere and make it memorable.  Part of the Distinguished Club Plan goal is membership, which our club had always struggled with; so this was always on my mind.  I came across an article in The Toastmasters Magazine which said to warmly greet your guests.  Hmmmm.  Sometimes the answers are right in front of us and we don't see them.  So I started to focus on greeting all new guests by introducing myself as the president of the club with a warm smile and friendly handshake.  "Welcome to our club.  We're glad you came.  Make yourself comfortable", I would say.  Then at the end of the meeting I made sure that I had spoken to each guest to ask them what they thought and to make sure that they knew they were welcome to come back as a guest to any of our next meetings.  And like magic it seems, many of our guests became members because they liked the relationship and atmosphere established right up front.  How memorable are you?  Is the atmosphere around you one that others want to be a part of? 

Structure works but fun and friendly works better.  You've maybe heard of Roberts Rules, rules and procedures governing parliamentary procedure. They are fairly complex and rigid.   Toastmasters uses them as a framework within which to run an organized, structured meeting. Somehow, I made it through my whole year of presidency without fully grasping all the nuances and procedures.  When I made a mistake or wasn't sure how to proceed, one of the members would intercede with a suggestion on what to say and I would take it with a laugh.  Our meetings always have an agenda that we follow and that is where the structure starts and ends.  The meetings are always interspersed with fun comments and good natured ribbing of our members back and forth.  This keeps the meetings fun and quick moving; quite different from what you might see at a meeting in a corporation where it's all business.  Of course, we do get done what needs to get done. I think people appreciate and share in the atmosphere of fun created by the easy banter. People definitely appreciate the fact that the meeting is so well run from start to finish and everything gets accomplished that's on the agenda.  How effective are meetings that YOU are a part of? 

When the leadership door opens, don't just walk through.  That is only the first step.  Be committed to making it a success.  Because as you do that, you can learn and grow as a person to become the successful leader that you want to be.  I had never been a President of anything before so as I ran the club meetings and board meetings I just pretended that I knew what I was doing until I was able to figure it out.  In the "becoming" phase, you never know what new opportunities will open up for you.  After 6 months of my term, I was asked to be Co-Chair of the Fall Conference being held in my division this year.  Another door opening...This one led to more responsibility, more becoming.  And I am now interacting with people at a much higher level of Toastmasters which is a great opportunity because there are some amazing people at that level that I can continue to learn from.   How committed are you to your success and the success of your organization?  What other opportunities may be available to you if you were more committed? 

Have a vision.  Create a culture around the vision. I've heard it said that everything is created twice.  First it's created in your mind, and then it's created. Further, a vision needs to be shared to make it reality.  When I committed the club to being recognized at the highest level, I knew that I couldn't do it alone.  So first I gained the help from the board.  I wanted the club to be distinguished for the first time in many years.  They bought into it.  They wanted the same thing as I did.  Then I took it to the club and told them what we were going to accomplish.  The members bought in as well and a culture of growth and achievement was founded.  Everyone was clear on what we were trying to do as a club as well as individually and we all did our parts to create that success.  Being clear on where you want to go is the first step for all achievement.  Do you have a vision for the future? 

 Challenges can be overcome with focus.  The first challenge I overcame was an individual one.  As a member for over a year and a half, I had pretty much eliminated my "umms", "ahhs" and other filler words from my speaking; or so I thought.  Once I was running the meetings I quickly discovered that with the additional speaking I was doing, they came back with a vengeance.  All of my hard work on this was out the window it seemed, at least temporarily.   I committed myself to the club as a goal at the beginning of every meeting that I would eliminate all of those filler words.  With a little focus and time, they were banished from my speaking again, a sign of an effective and practiced speaker.    

The second challenge was membership.  At the beginning of the 4^th quarter of our Toastmasters year, it was clear that we were going to make all of our educational and administrative goals, but membership was falling short.  Although we had a number of new members, we had lost some of our existing membership base and so wouldn't make a net membership gain requirement unless we took action.  We had worked too hard all year to fall short at the finish line.  As a board, we decided to increase our public relations, change our meeting location to a higher profile venue, and have a membership drive contest; all to no avail.  With less than a month to go, we were still short by 4 members.  We did have a number of new guests close to joining though.  They saw the club's focus on achieving the goal and wanted to play a part in achieving that goal.  We did reach out to a few members who did not renew at the last dues period as well and communicated that we needed them to help the club reach its goal and helped them decide to be a part of what the club was becoming.  The end result:  5 new memberships and 3 renewals of past members for a net gain of 8 members during the year and a total of 21 for the club.  An all time high!  What stands in the way of your success?  What is the biggest step you can take towards eliminating that and achieving your success? 

Remember it's all about them.  Being President gave me a title but no authority, as Toastmasters is a volunteer organization.  I viewed the position as a servant leader, and as such I felt that the members deserved credit for everything that was accomplished during my year as president.  I established the vision and direction for the year and was able to get buy-in from the club, who became the team.  Everything that was accomplished was accomplished by the membership.  When I gave my year end speech to wrap up our year, I gave the club all the credit.  After all, nothing would have been achieved had it not been for all the members working together to accomplish all of the individual parts required to be a Distinguished club.  One of the evaluator's comments on my speech was that it is a sign of a leader to take no credit and give it all away.  It was a great feeling to be recognized and that was my reward.  How ego driven are you?  How's that working for you? 

Serving as President and leader was a rewarding experience.  Leadership can be just as rewarding for you.  Although we didn't make Presidents Distinguished, the highest level, we did make Select Distinguished, the second highest.  It turned out that we just did not have enough people working on advanced designations, so it was really not achievable.  We shot for the stars and ended up with the moon.   All in all, a great year!  Our incoming President now has the challenge of following up on the clubs best year ever.  He is up to the challenge.  We had a great year and our 2009-2010 theme is "To BE Great."  That is the only way to top our accomplishments of this year, and it is a commitment to excellence that we have all made.   

I would suggest rereading this article and answering the questions at the end of each section.  The path to success and high performance leadership leaves clues, which have been given to you here.  Your own application of these clues is for you to self discover.  I wish you all the best on your leadership journey!

Copyright protected Worldwide-Howard Litwak Measurable Results LLC

 

 

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Article Tags: goal setting, high performance, leadership lessons, performance leader
Referred by: http://www.processspecialist.com/



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