#75 The Effective Leader
Hello, friends.
It's Wyndham week in Greensboro, NC. I'm sure I'll find myself walking the fairways and remembering what life was like when my dream was to be inside the ropes.
What I’m Learning
If you ask 30 people what the definition of leadership is, you’re likely to receive 40 different responses. This is due partly because leadership isn’t binary. There are variations. Some people are positional leaders. Others are legacy leaders by birthright or past credibility. Regardless of type, all categories of “good” leadership have common characteristics like responsibility or ownership, influence and servitude.
I don’t claim to have leadership figured out and I sometimes roll my eyes at the latest book or blog post about it. That said, I have a family to take care of, a few businesses to grow and personal goals to pursue. So, I work (unsuccessfully at times) on the things I can control — like my actions and my attitude.
A book I read recently gave me a nice outline for what good leaders do. I’ve been thinking about these five things as I lead my household and work with the amazing folks (partners and clients) I’m in business with.
A framework for effective leadership:
- See a problem for what it is. (Ask “why?” several times.)
- Have a vision of what could be (Where there is a why, there is a way)
- Set high standards for yourself first.
- Set high standards for others.
- Take action.
Changelog
Honestly: We’ve revamped our weekly huddles in the last few weeks to provide better communication so our team and collaborators can do their best work. It’s been fun watching small tweaks in mindset lead to bigger and better activities that add more value to our clients.
LOFT: Starting to see progress in our LOFT Portal (still working on a name). Our plan is to have our first release out by September. The app, which will serve as a hub and control center for all LOFT operations, is starting with our monthly customer app care reports.
CrewPay: We released our scheduled payments feature. This allows customers more convenience and furthers our mission to help small business owners spend less time on admin work (paying 1099 contractors) and more time doing what they want.
Pttrns: Not sure why I’ve not included Pttrns.com in NFTF before now. So, here it is. We’re slowly regaining traction after a change to the app this spring. Releasing an improvement to the login and sign up flow caused some migration pains for existing customers. Over the last few weeks we’ve been experimenting with paid social ads to attract and convert a new audience. More to report soon.
Until next time.
-David
P.S. Making a go at taking notes on the iPad. This app has helped make it easier.
P.P.S. Loving a re-read of Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. Guaranteed to make you write better.
P.P.P.S. Enjoying the new album from Hunny the band. Some records just sound better in summer (Youtube, Apple)