The 3 Stages Of Transformational Leadership – Learning How To Lead Yourself, Your Teams and Other Leaders By Manoj Sharma
January 7, 2009
Are transformational leaders born or made? The debate on this matter is as old as civilization itself. What we need to realize anew, is that we are all born with a unique mix of the same basic ingredients. It is these basic ingredients, which are either, shaped into transformational leadership by others or by the transformational leader themselves.
Once a human being wakes up to this reality, the process of creating transformational leadership can begin. And when it does, in order for the river of transformational leadership to run its full course, it has to go through the following 3 stages.
1) Primary Transformational Leadership – The Ability To Lead Oneself
Primary Transformational Leadership is a “you and only you” phenomenon. It involves no one else and it is certainly not circumstantial, no matter how vociferously those without it claim to the contrary.
Primary Transformational Leadership starts with a person being principled and doing what’s best, over the long term, for society as a whole. It calls for a proactive approach to problem solving, where others are reactively waiting for solutions to be laid out for them. It requires a certain patience to allow things to fall into place, without any loss of a steely determination to ensure a profitable outcome. It mandates one to continuously advance their level of performance and lead as a shining example. The product of the above 6 Ps is the 7th P – a certain unshakable sense of peace, which is born of the knowledge that you are on the right track.
Primary Transformational Leadership while obviously fundamental is sadly lacking in organizations, communities, regions and the world today.
2) Secondary Transformational Leadership – The Ability To Lead Others
Secondary Transformational Leadership is a “you and others” occurrence. It is a step outside of your world into the world of another. And since it involves other human beings, Secondary Transformational Leadership is really all about assisting other people to win first. This is diametrically opposite to manipulative leadership, which is of a more self-serving nature.
For a Secondary Transformation Leader to fulfill their function, they have to invest the time to raise the awareness of those they have chosen or been chosen to lead. They have to know the personalities of those they are leading and assist to polish them to magnificence. They have to gain clarity of intention of what the objectives are and align targets. They need to create opportunities for others to win and build a great team environment. They need to know how to coach people while at their tasks and keep them coachable. They need to focus not just on developing the best mind sets, but even more so, the best competencies possible.
It fast becomes abundantly clear; one cannot talk about truly leading another human being with the greatest of effectiveness until one has learned to lead oneself.
Hence, the need to establish a firm foundation of Primary Transformational Leadership as a precursor to solid Secondary Transformational Leadership! The above point cannot be stressed enough.
Tertiary Leadership – The Ability To Lead Other Leaders
If Primary Transformational Leadership and Secondary Transformational Leadership have been well honed in an individual, Tertiary Transformational Leadership, which is about “leading other leaders”, is truly a walk in the park.
All it requires for the leader, having taken on the mantle to lead their peers and even superiors, is to keep in mind the lessons of Primary and Secondary Transformational Leadership and to be of service to other leaders. A spirit of service, without “power games” will automatically tear down the fences and open the doors for mutually beneficial collaborative partnerships. Naturally, to do this takes a great deal of maturity and foresight that we often refer to as vision, when it comes to leadership. Also, the higher up you go, the more your internal congruency will be challenged and the greater your fortitude needs to be to uphold it. A firm spiritual knowing never hurt any great leader and a great Tertiary Transformational Leader would do well to acquire it.
Ultimately, Tertiary Transformational Leadership becomes less about being actively involved and more about being a figurehead. In that eventuality, being presidential and above it all, is the final hallmark of a great Tertiary Transformational Leader.
Now, that you’ve read the above and can see where you stand in comparison, what do you feel you need to get started on right now?
10 Strategies to Create a World Class Culture of Service Excellence By Manoj Sharma
January 6, 2009
While many leaders at the top of organizations are aware that service excellence is their lowest cost and highest return investment, almost all do “next to nothing”, of any true significance about it. Instead they usually chose to…
a) Ignore the need for their organization to deliver superior service,
b) Relegate the need to improve their service standards to the important but not a present priority category, and/or
c) Conduct some ill-conceived service training and development program with no heart, poor depth, little follow through and absolutely no commitment from senior leadership.
By doing so, they fast lose share of heart with their customers and then wonder why they are losing share of wallet to their competitors too.
Often times when they do actually get involved they mostly delegate the task to subordinates or human resource staff at lower levels to address their service related issues. This is often done with a, “it is them who need to improve their level of service, not me!” thinking.
This is not the mind set of organizations that fully reap the rewards of a world class culture of service excellence.
If you are interested to create a world class culture of service excellence, do consider the following best practices factored strategies and take action to implement them in your organization immediately.
1) Engage a professional strategic consultancy
It is virtually impossible for you to coach yourself, and it is therefore virtually impossible for you to be objective about your service standards. So engage a professional strategic consultancy and get the professional strategic consultancy to do a thorough analysis to benchmark where your organization is at when it comes to service excellence and where your organization needs to consistently be when it comes to your service mind sets, skill sets and business sets.
2) Get a 360º internal and external service perspective
Get your professional strategic consultancy to organize focus groups to get a 360º internal and external perspective of your organization’s present service standards. Factor in all points of views, uncover all preconceived notions and scoop out relevant service needs, wants and desires. And ensure that senior leadership is involved right from the start.
3) Design a fully customized service initiative for your unique needs
Factor in the service perspectives gathered and get your professional strategic consultancy to design a fully customized world class service initiative specifically for you. Check to ensure that it is aligned to your organization’s strategic vision, mission, values and targets.
4) Arrange for a strategic senior leadership service session
In this session communicate the findings of your 360º internal and external service perspective groups and introduce your fully customized world class service initiative to selected key stakeholders with the intention to…
a) Get top to bottom appreciation for the need to have your new world class culture of service excellence succeed.
b) To modify and enhance your fully customized world class service initiative.
5) Implement your fully customized world class service initiative across all levels of your organization
Start to implement your service initiative from the top down. As you do so, ensure you are getting buy-in across all levels of your organization by assisting people to clearly appreciate “what’s in it for them” when your world class service initiative is successfully implemented.
6) Ensure senior leadership gets special service coaching
While rolling out the initiative give senior leadership special professional service coaching to ensure they appreciate their role in “walking the talk”. This should involve having them certified as professional service champions to make it easier for them both now and in the long run to keep improving your organization’s service standards.
7) Draw up a post service initiative continuous development plan
Once your initial series of service initiatives are completed, you need to make sure the service initiatives becomes steeped as part of your organization’s culture.
How do you do that?
By ensuring there is ongoing personal and team service coaching in the real world work-based environment. Keep service fresh in mind through a series of service keynotes on a bi-monthly basis to highlight the various facets and benefits of service. Place reminders everywhere to ensure your service initiative is kept visible and foremost in mind for everyone.
8) Create new service business sets
Your fully customized world class service initiative should have adequately created the right service mind sets and skill sets throughout your organization. To support these service mind sets and skill sets you need to also create very clear operating standards, processes, systems, guidelines, rules and regulations that involve people within their job scopes, roles and responsibilities. This is what service business sets are all about.
9) Publicly reward service excellence
Arguably little will assist you to create a world class culture of service excellence more than rewarding great service publically and punctually. When you do so, your organization will start to create service legends and legacies that have a wonderful effect of promoting service continuity.
10) Embrace continuing service improvement mechanisms
Create a system for both internal and external service suggestions. Establish a service feedback mechanism and designate service champions that are tasked to enhance your service standards on a quarterly basis.
And most importantly restart at number 1) every single year because service is not a one time event. Know that what was great service last year will become the expected norm this year! Service excellence, at heart, is about delighting your internal and external customer in unexpectedly and surprisingly pleasant ways and that entails upping your service standards continuously.
I trust the above 10 strategies gives you a great structure to get started on creating your own world class culture of service excellence. So, get started right now, take the first step and reap the infinite tangible and intangible rewards that come with living a life in service.
How To Be A Superstar Sales Professional by Manoj Sharma
January 5, 2009
Having worked with more than 50,000 professionals internationally, for the better part of a decade I’ve come across numerous Superstar Sales Professionals. Over time, it is quite easy to identify what these Superstar Sales Professionals have in common.
The following is a checklist you can use to see where you stand and what you need to do to be a Superstar Sales Professional.
However, before you start, please take note that a Superstar Sales Professional is not just a top performer. A Superstar Sales Professional is not just someone who delivers on the numbers; a Superstar Sales Professional is someone who delivers holistically beyond their numbers. And that is what makes them Superstars in their own right.
So let’s get started …
1) Do you commit to a super high sales target?
The top sales professionals across industries are a distinct breed from the average sales professional. While average sales professionals are trying their best to figure out how to hit their sales targets, the Superstar Sales Professionals have, on their own, increased their target by up to 10 times and are figuring out how to deliver on their super high sales targets.
Naturally, when they are taking on a bigger challenge, the smaller target that is expected of them is one that is easily hit.
2) Do you put your heart and soul into achieving your sales target?
Superstar Sales Professionals put everything into their sales targets. They wake up in the morning, living, eating and breathing their targets. They come in early and are raring to go. They have one burning question paramount in mind. “How do I exceed my sales targets today?”
I have, and I have also regularly seen the best sales professionals, sit in the office alone, long after everyone has gone home, silently going over their activities of the day. I’ve seen them looking desperate, figuring out what they need to do to improve tomorrow. Ultimately I’ve seen them go home with a tremendous sense of peace, confidence and an absolutely focused mind on what they need to accomplish tomorrow.
A Superstar Sales Professional is like a thoroughbred athletic, completely focused on going for the gold.
3) Are you a superb professional?
Professionals have a code or conduct – an ethical framework that they live their lives by. But a superb professional is much more than that.
Superb professionals are also principled, conscientious of their actions and polite to one and all. They are quick with a sorry if necessary. They are not caught up in their egos, do not strut their self-importance around and are gracious at heart.
Superstar Sales Professionals whether they have achieved superstar status or are still on their path, do their best to be generous, serene, magnanimous, appreciative and compassionate.
Most people forget that people don’t just buy products and services; they buy the people who are promoting those products and services too. One of the biggest secrets of a Superstar Sales Professional is that they genuinely connect with other human beings through the best of human qualities.
4) Do you focus on the “future now”?
A Superstar Sales Professional has to learn the lessons of the past to not repeat them in the future. Failing which the future becomes just another version of the past repeating itself. A Superstar Sales Professional has to embrace the mistakes they have made, not make excuses and avoid being in denial. They need to take responsibility for what has happened before, especially their disasters. They need to deal with them and then move forward.
Superstar Sales Professional also knows that in reality there is no future, except the future that is created now. Knowing this, they ensure they perform at their absolute best right here and right now, not saving their best for tomorrow. Superstar Sales Professionals are also not caught in procrastination. They have an urgency to seize the moment. They know the importance of doing productive, aligned work that brings them closer to their targeted results.
5) Do you sharpen yourself incessantly?
Superstar Sales Professional never rest on their laurels, they are always moving forward, forever working on their mind sets, skill sets and business sets.
To be a Superstar Sales Professional requires that you are first a communication superstar. After all, Sales is simply, communicating a point of view to achieve a mutually desirable result. From yet another angle, Sales is about leadership – leading people and assisting them to decide for themselves what would be in their best interest. So, leadership for a Sales Superstar is a mandatory skill set. Along those lines, follow the need to develop sophisticated negotiation and deal making skills and so on.
A Superstar Sales Professional never stops improving, never stops striving to be greater than they already are and never passes on an opportunity to sharpen himself / herself further.
6) Do you make service your motto?
While at the start of the day the Superstar Sales Professional is focused on the question, “How do I exceed my sales targets today?” during customer (I actually prefer to use the word “partner” instead) interactions, the Sales Superstar is entirely focused on, ““How can I best be of service here?”
Being of service is not about how well you smile, or saying things to appease the customer. While that may be of appropriate value, the degree to which you are in service is actually determined by the degree to which you are willing to put your customer’s interest over your own.
I know of a Superstar Sales Professional who after listening intently to his customers requirements, and knowing full well that he would not be able to fully serve his customers needs, actually told the customer that he would need to buy from a competitor. “Yes!” he gave up his sales commission, but I know for a fact, this particular customer not just goes back to him whenever he has any subsequent need, but also recommends numerous people to talk to him first too. Now that’s the value of service, and only something a Superstar Sales Professional secure in his value proposition would do.
7) Do you have a professional sales coach?
Nobody has ever gotten to the top of their field without a tremendous amount of professional assistance. You may not hear of it in open circles, but anyone who is someone today, has always kept close the counsel of other professionals and actively paid for their assistance.
If naturally gifted sports professionals need professional coaches to propel them to greatness, aren’t you being foolish by thinking that you don’t?
The truth is everybody has “blind spots”, huge areas that they are not aware of. Everybody can afford to improve their technical sales skills (the science of sales) and their non-technical sales skills (the art of sales). Everybody can benefit from the discipline of a structured one-to-one fully professionalized series of coaching sessions that address their personal needs.
Superstar Sales Professionals know that their investment of time and money in professional sales coaching propels them to new levels of competencies, which deliver exponential high results.
So, if you don’t have a Professional Sales Coach, consider getting yourself one. After all, getting to the top is one challenge, and to stay at the top is quite another.
So, how did you fair in relation to being a Superstar Sales Professional? What do you need to continue doing with greater diligence and what do you need to do that you presently are not?
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