Be Different or be dead

December 6, 2010

Every remarkable leader has these 16 simple strengths to use

Source: Unsplash

Every remarkable leader has these 16 fundamental strengths to use.

The most critical role the leader plays is to bring in the right “human essence” to their organization to ensure its success and survival in the long term.

These are the competencies remarkable leaders look for…

Lifelong learner — Look for evidence that prospects have been active learners. What areas are they interested in? Who have they learned from? How can their learnings be put to use in your organization?

Infection agent — the ability to “infect others” with the virus of your business plan is critical in terms of executing it. Some people have the interest, passion and tenacity to get others excited about advancing the cause.

Listener — you can’t discover customer secrets and create dazzling customer moments if you are not a 100% Listener.

Apologizer — a successful recovery act after you have screwed a customer around begins with “I’m sorry”. Make sure you covet people who do this naturally. Some can’t. Some don’t want to.

Human being lover — Dazzling customers is all about taking care of them and it can’t be done if your people would rather be doing something else other than dealing with humans.
Look for people with a born desire to serve. Memorable customer moments are possible only through employees that have the natural ability and desire to serve others.

High pain tolerator — greatness doesn’t come without disappointment and pain along the way. Resilience pays off.

Successful failure — Progress requires people trying stuff and failing along the way. That’s innovation. But failing is only useful and strategic if the learning from it advances the organization’s strategy. Failing begets learning.

Friend maker — deep customer relationships result in a revenue stream that goes on forever. Such connections depend on trust and friendship.

Storyteller — stories “breathe life” into a strategy. They paint pictures of what it looks like when a strategic game plan is being successfully executed in the field. You need people who can “light their eyes up” with a story about some aspect of your strategy. Talk the event.

Simple thinker — Execution is simplicity. Elegance that can’t be implemented is worthless. Think Simple. Find Simple. Dumb everything down.

Connector — think about this one from an internal perspective. Results (i.e. delivering what the customer wants) are produced through processes working across the organization and vertically.
This requires the ability to connect with others and build effective relationships with them. Service breakdowns often occur when a link in the teamwork chain breaks. Constant connections go a long way to avoiding such problems.

Reaction maniac — a huge aspect of surviving a customer screw-up is responding to what has occurred in the right (read as “Loyalty Building”) way. The truth is, a successful Recovery actually builds Customer Loyalty MORE than if the mistake never happened. Counter-intuitive I know, but true.

Service Recovery = FIX it + Do the UNEXPECTED.

Chillax-er — you really do need folks that react well under extreme pressure. STOP—PAUSE—THINK—RESPOND THOUGHTFULLY. This is tough to train people in (sometimes I think it is impossible).

Rememberer — a good memory will go a long way to dazzling a customer. It shows you paid attention the last time you connected with the person. It shows you care enough to remember.

Nano-inch seeker —  there’s no such thing as a silver bullet. Progress is made by having a distinguishing strategy and executing it flawlessly inch-by-inch-by-inch. Get an inch of progress FAST. Look for people who have demonstrated this capability.

Customer empathizer — can you look at yourself through the customer’s eyes? Objectively. Compassionately. ‘Solution-mindedly’. It’s not about your organization; it’s about the customer moment and you need practising empathizers if you want raving lunatic fans as customers (which we all do).

Competency coveting is the responsibility of senior leaders to ensure the right people with the right skills, experience, aptitude and attitude are in the right places to execute the strategy of the organization — delegation of this task is simply not an option.

Cheers,
Roy
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• Posted 12.6.10 at 12:00 pm by Roy Osing
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