Summary: You Can't Lead with Your Feet on the Desk: Review and Analysis of Fuller's Book by Publishing BusinessNews

Author:Publishing, BusinessNews [Publishing, BusinessNews]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Must Read Summaries
Published: 2014-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

5. Give yourself the toughest jobs

You must lead from the front if you’re to stand any chance of getting people to respect you. In practical terms, that requires that you give yourself the really tough jobs instead of handing them off to associates. There’s just no other way you can earn the respect you need.

“On a flight aboard a Chinese carrier’s 737, I watched as the copilot left the cockpit to use the restroom. When he came back, he couldn’t open the cockpit door until finally the captain had to let him in – leaving the plan to its own devices. Soon thereafter, the copilot reemerged with a screwdriver. He worked on the door, tested it a few times, and convinced the captain to leave the cockpit to come out and examine the results. The door was shut – and then neither pilot nor copilot could open it. It was probably my imagination, but I thought I felt the plane begin to waffle with no living person at the controls. After struggling unsuccessfully to open the door, the copilot ran to the rear of the plane and returned bearing an axe. The pilot and copilot began hacking at the door, finally closing the curtain as they realized passengers were watching in horror as the drama unfolded. Nevertheless, the curtain could not mask the sounds of them hacking at the door of the cockpit. Obviously it ended on a happy note!”

– Ed Fuller

Most of the time, the challenges you face as an organization will be much more down-to-earth than being in a plane where the flight crew have managed to lock themselves out of the cockpit but the fact still remains when you’re a leader, you personify your company and your brand. Everyone – your employees and customers alike – will take their cues from you and therefore you have to lead by example, whether you like it or not.

Some suggestions on how to be a great leader are:

Don’t skip the hard stuff – give yourself the tough jobs

To have credibility as a leader, you’ve got to personally take on all the toughest assignments there are. If there’s something unpleasant that needs to be done – like firing a close associate – you’ve got to get into action and do it yourself. If people observe you skipping the really hard stuff, they will figure they can do the same without any repercussions and that’s bad.

When people see you doing the hard yards, you will win their respect. They will feel good about following someone who is prepared to get into the trenches with them.

Be decisive – don’t dither

Job #1 for any leader is to make decisions for the entire organization. No matter how decentralized your company is and how much authority has been delegated to others, there will always be some decisions which have to be made by the leader. When that moment of truth arrives, be decisive. Things will only get worse if you delay so make a judgment call and then get busy on executing your decision.

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