Leadership

In this article—Building a Great Organization—from Leader to Leader magazine, the leadership attributes necessary to do that are examined.

An excerpt.

“Peter Drucker wrote, “There may be natural born leaders, but there are so few of them that they make no difference in the greater scheme of things.” Leaders are self-developed; they work on themselves continually. In Talent Is Overrated, Geoff Colvin (a Fortune editor) shows how business leaders—starting from the beginning of their careers—develop themselves through hours and hours of “deliberate practice.”

“The essential skills are like parts of a mosaic, and you must work on them for a decade—or at least 10,000 hours—to master them. For our book Now, Build a Great Business!, we conducted a World Success Survey in 110 nations to determine the key traits of leaders whose impact has lasted more than 20 years. We found seven key steps to maximize the impact of your organization.

“Just as Peter Drucker’s famous “five questions” are deceptively simple—but extraordinarily poignant and challenging—so too are our seven principles. These questions are necessary for every leader to address in order to create a great organization.
1. Become a great leader: How will you develop yourself and hold yourself accountable?
2. Plan: What will it take to create a useful business plan?
3. Surround yourself with great people: How will you attract and honor your team?
4. Offer a great service: How will your products make a real difference?
5. Design great marketing: Why should this organization matter to others?
6. Perfect a great sales process: How will you engage and educate customers to buy in to your mission?
7. Create a great customer experience: How will you engage people in an extraordinary relationship with your product or service?”