Leadership Done Right

Brandon W. Jones

Leadership Done Right Blog

Finding Your Leadership Niche

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When you are in leadership, you can become the strongest leader when you find your leadership niche. There are a wide variety of areas where you can be a leader. You lead in business, sports, politics, education, non-profit organizations, etc. Each requires a different skill-set. Some leaders need to be kind and compassionate, while others need to be hard nosed and strict.Finding Your Leadership Niche

Finding Your Leadership Niche

If you are a compassionate person, you will probably find more success in an industry that allows you to be compassionate. At the same time, if you are a strong willed and hard nosed, you will do best in an environment where that type of leadership is required. Of all the leadership niches, you must pick a specific leadership niche that best applies your strengths.

Incorrect Leadership Niche

A couple of years ago I knew a leader that was a good leader, but not able to become a great leader in his current position.  Where he worked, he wasn’t able to achieve all of his goals because he didn’t have the support he needed.  He wasn’t given the freedom to make the decisions he needed to make.  I spoke to him a number of times, and he was always very frustrated because he wanted to make a number of changes to improve processes. However, every time he tried to make a change, he was shot down by one person or another.  [Read more…] about Finding Your Leadership Niche

Attention To Detail – Don’t Become The Prey!

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As a leader, it is essential that you are honest and have integrity. You must do all you can to be upfront and honest in your conduct, especially when dealing with your customers. Part of being honest means that when you make great claims, you must have the details and documentation to back them up.

Pay Attention To Detail

Whether or not your claims are true, if you don’t have details and documentation, people will be skeptical and may not believe you. You can’t just make great claims with nothing to back them up. Attention to detail and documentation are extremely important.

My Experience

Recently, I had a very interesting and potentially scary experience. Over the past several months my wife and I have been trying to refinance our home in Carson City, NV. We went to several different lenders and one after another denied us for one reason or another. All cases, however, were tied to the fact that we have excellent credit and a perfect payment history.

Loan Modification

About a month ago we received a phone call from a loan modification company, Direct Mortgage Counseling, directmortgagecounseling.org. They said that they could modify our loan and give us a new great loan (30 year fixed, 2% interest, reduced principal). We were somewhat skeptical because the loan modification seemed too good to be true. We did some research and found that they had the proper business licenses to do this type of work. That gave us enough confidence that we gave them a few of our documents, so they could give us additional information.

Once they received our few documents, they put together the loan modification paperwork. From there, they requested quite a bit more information (basically every financial document we had) so they could finalize our loan modification. Since I have experience writing legally binding contracts, I made sure I read through their contract completely before I signed it. I was especially careful because I was skeptical of them from the start.

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4 Leadership Lessons From The Olympics

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If you are in leadership, you probably face many challenges on a regular basis. As a leader, you must determine how to overcome those challenges. Just as leaders face challenges, Olympians also face challenges in reaching their goals and winning their competitions.

With the Olympics just underway, there are many people everywhere that are glued to their television. All the Olympians are leaders in their event because they have obtained a level of excellence. They have learned how to face challenges and overcome them. The challenges that athletes face are, in many ways, different than those faced by business leaders or leaders in other aspects of life, but there are leadership lessons to be learned and applied to all aspects of leadership.

Hard Work

Every Olympian has worked hard to master their event. They have gone through many hours of practice and have put in a lot of extra time to succeed. They understand that nothing worth obtaining comes easy or without a price. That price is hard work.

Great leaders also understand the importance of hard work. They understand that their success will come as they put forth a great amount of effort. Leaders know that if they don’t work hard they won’t get the desired results for which they hope. Hard work is a key to success.

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Wake Up And Be A Leader!

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If you follow this blog, you have probably noticed that I regularly write posts about leaders in the news and the impact they have on the world.  Leadership is an important responsibility because leaders determine where people end up and how their lives change. 

Today, I was going to post an article about leaders in the news. As I looked through articles to find one to write about, I was sorely disappointed in the number of articles I came across where the leader overspent, was dishonest, took the organization in the wrong direction, took too many risks, or did something else to ruin the organization.

In many ways I feel like I am probably preaching to the choir when I say this, but leaders everywhere need to wake up and BE leaders.  Leaders need to stop being deceitful and do all they can to stop others from being deceitful.

Be Honest

As a leader, you must be honest.  I wrote another post that focused solely on the importance of being honest, but I feel like I can’t say enough about the importance of being honest.  Leaders have been in the news so much lately because they have been dishonest.  It completely disgusts me that leaders are more concerned with making a few bucks than maintaining their honesty and integrity.  Your honesty and integrity should be worth more to you than anything else.  Once you give up your integrity, you lose your good name.  Is money worth the loss of integrity?  If you think it is, you are a fool. [Read more…] about Wake Up And Be A Leader!

Your Leadership Responsibility

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The leadership quote below is one that I came across that impressed upon me the importance of leadership.

Each of us is responsible for the welfare and the growth and development of others. We do not live only unto ourselves. As we serve with diligence, as we lift and strengthen and build convictions in those lives we touch, we magnify our [leadership].  To live only unto ourselves, on the other hand, to [lead] grudgingly, to give less than our best effort to our duty, diminishes our [leadership] just as looking through the wrong lenses of binoculars reduces the image and makes more distant the object.

~ Gordon B. Hinckley

The leadership quote above is a very powerful.  It impresses upon all leaders the importance of being a great leader.  Leadership is a responsibility that all leaders must take seriously.  As a leader, you will influence and change the lives of others.  The little things you do on a daily basis ranging from how you treat others to the decisions you make, determine how others act, what they do, and how they respond to things in the future. [Read more…] about Your Leadership Responsibility

Don’t Be Afraid To Say, “I Don’t Know, But…”

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This week I had an interesting experience related to customer service. Over the last few weeks, I have had a number of problems with my vehicles. I heard an unusual knocking noise from the engine of our truck and the car just wouldn’t start.

In order to save money, I have always tried to fix my cars by myself or with help from one of my friends wherever possible. I am no master mechanic, but since I am mechanically minded and have had a lot of great tutors along the way, I have been able to do a lot of my own mechanical work.

With each fix, I have had to run back and forth to the auto parts stores. Through the years I have worked with different people at the auto parts stores. Some have been very knowledgeable on cars and the parts and products, while others have not been.

The Problem

This week as I began fixing the truck and car, I had several questions on which parts to use and whether or not they were available. I started out by calling the auto parts store to tell them my situation. They told me they had just the parts I was looking for and I should come in to buy them.

Once I got to the store, I approached one store employee and began to ask him my questions. As he answered my questions, he really didn’t know the true answers but gave me a response anyway. He suggested a couple of options I should try and identified parts I should buy for each.

Just as I have done in the past, I bought the recommended parts and went home to begin working on the car. Once I got home, I began taking things apart. It didn’t take long to realize I had all the wrong parts.

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Maintaining Integrity As A Leader

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No family can have peace, no home can be free from storms of adversity, unless that family and that home are built on foundations of morality, fidelity, and mutual respect.  There cannot be peace where there is not trust; there cannot be freedom where there is not loyalty.  The warm sunlight of love will not rise out of a swamp or immorality.

~ Gordon B. Hinckley

This quote is one of my favorite quotes.  Many, if not all, of the values I hold dear were taught to me by my parents in the home.  My parents were great examples to me.  My parents taught me the importance of having mutual respect and trust for each other.  That trust and respect permeated their relationship and helped them remain strong through the challenges of life and marriage.  My parents have now been married for 36 years.

Maintaining Integrity As A Leader

Integrity

They also taught me that I must have integrity and be honest in all I do.  In addition to teaching through their words, they also taught through their actions.  They were great examples of honesty and integrity in all they did. [Read more…] about Maintaining Integrity As A Leader

Five Of My Favorite Leadership Bloggers

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I follow many other leadership blogs on a regular basis and have my favorite leadership bloggers. As I read the posts, I learn a lot about how to be a better leader.  The posts help me learn leadership techniques I can use to improve my skills and abilities.  They also show me techniques that have worked, as well as, those that haven’t.

So you are probably asking yourself, “What bloggers do you follow regularly?”  Because I follow too many bloggers to share on one post, I will just start with five in this post.  I am not going to name them in any particular order.

Bret L. Simmons (PhD) – Positive Organizational Behavior

Bret’s About me page says, “I am passionate about leadership and management.  My purpose is “to change your mind about the value of partnering with others to build healthy, responsible organizations where everyone can thrive.” I try to keep everything I do — training, speaking, teaching, research — consistent with my purpose.”

Bret does a great job showing how leadership principles taught in the classroom apply to real life. He regularly explains how leaders can and should do a better job to make their organizations more effective.  He also spends a lot of time focusing on everyday interactions that have a significant impact on the level of customer satisfaction.  As he addresses them, he points out the good things that have happened as well as the bad things.  From there, he analyzes what they did right and what they did wrong. [Read more…] about Five Of My Favorite Leadership Bloggers

This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Blog Posts – 6/22/2012

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As a leader, you probably have many leadership responsibilities.  This week has been one of those weeks for me and it has been a challenging week to keep up on blogging.  Because my time was so limited, I just decided to highlight some of the posts that I really enjoyed without taking the time to post my thoughts on each post.

Some of the posts that I am highlighting in this weeks top 5 leadership blog posts were about leadership relationships.  As a leader, it is very important to work to maintain good relationships with those you lead.  The relationships you make as a leader are very important because leaderships are, in many cases, far more important than the actual work you do.

I hope you enjoy my favorite posts from this week!

4 Essentials For Cultural Leadership By William Powell

It’s been said so many times, but it’s worth repeating, “Good leadership is more than getting tasks accomplished.” Quality leadership develops people. It builds people up, inspires confidence and makes a genuine, positive difference in everything it touches. One thing that leadership MUST do is influence, maintain and perpetuate culture.

Often times leaders get so focused on WHAT to do that HOW to do things becomes open for interpretation. Don’t misunderstand what I mean by this. It isn’t a license or call to micro-manage people or bureaucratically babysit them. It is a delicate balance – a dance if you will. People need their autonomy and enough freedom for the individuality to shine through. The line needs to be drawn where the desired expression of individuality begins to erode the desired culture and THAT is where cultural leadership must be effective. [Read more…] about This Week’s Top 5 Leadership Blog Posts – 6/22/2012

Benefits And Challenges Of A Flat Hierarchy

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In leadership, a common hierarchy has one person at the top that oversees everyone else. That one person is responsible for making all the decisions and telling everyone else what to do. They are the leader and will be held responsible for the success and failure of their company or organization. This hierarchy has existed for so long that many people don’t think you can be a leader unless you are responsible for leading your group or organization.

Flat Hierarchy

Today, however, many people are starting to have leaders in a flat hierarchy organization. There are leaders in organizations where everyone is on the same plane. These organizations have no bosses and not one person has all the control. Many people would say that this type of a setup can’t exist and be successful because there is no leader. Some people would even say that leadership, success, and a flat hierarchy don’t belong in the same sentence.  [Read more…] about Benefits And Challenges Of A Flat Hierarchy