It may be my imagination but it seems like a new book on management or leadership is published about every 15 minutes. So I will not insult you with my opinion on the subject, since you’ll be reading one or more of these masterpieces in the future anyway.
It is enough to say that leading any company, no matter how large or how small, if they are serious about sustainable success in the 21st.Century will require different leadership traits and management skills in the future than they did in the past. Key characteristics of today’s leaders is the ability to develop shared goals among their followers and to consistently empower the members of their organization from the loading dock to the boardroom to deal with the new management challenges as they show up.
Do these two things and you are on your way to continued success, however just because this simplified description of managing for success sound simple, it really isn’t. In many ways it’s harder, but that’s good news for the people who master it. The question of course is where’s the help you need going to come from?
If you live in New York City, there are consultants behind every lamppost and external training programs available almost around the clock in dozens of locations at many different price points. On the other hand, if you live on your farm 50 miles outside of Alva, OK, where will your help come from?
According to US Government statistics eighty percent of the people in North America live 20 miles or farther that one of the top 200 cities. So you could always take the time to drive to town for a conference or you could enroll your successor in one training program after another in the city down the highway.
Naturally your trade association has management and leadership training among the many educational opportunities it provides too. My suggestion is you take advantage of as many of these opportunities as possible, along with your own business to business mastermind peer group.
Consider the age old mastermind group process originally developed by Napoleon Hill, redesigned for today’s business owners and their key employees. Setting up a mastermind group process to provide continual insights and leverage traditional training is really easy and costs nothing, providing a sounding board to help you flesh out the strategies being taught by professionals or at your association events.
You will be able to see how their theories will look in your specific business/family environment. What would your future look like if you had the ear of one of the leaders in your industry? In every industry the top 10% of the companies have very successful internal leadership and management training programs or they would not be in the top 10%.
Everybody else tries to pick up their tips at their association events, reads the musings of experts, and hires somebody who may be an expert at their business, leadership/management training, but not YOUR business. It makes sense then to invite one of these industry leaders to be part of your group.
There are too many ways to use your own peer to peer collaborations to build your company and leverage the insights of your industry’s leaders to cover here. That’s something you can do by clicking the link in the box below and watching the short video.
Oh yes, if you are in the top 10% in your industry, please say yes when one of your contemporaries calls and asks you to be part of or contribute to their mastermind peer group!
Business owners who think strategically, plan comprehensively, and execute flawlessly will certainly outpace those who simply set goals and hope for the best. If you want to be even more successful in the future than you are today, a business to business mastermind group will show you how to leverage the power of your peers to stay focused on what’s important to you, you family, and your business.