WHEN TRYING TO identify what makes someone a great leader, one can look into everything from their upbringing and education to their work experience and contacts. In most cases, what really makes the difference gets overlooked. There is no mention of it in standard resumes and it's usually skirted over in personal profiles. However, closer investigation often reveals that what sets certain individuals apart is their emotional intelligence, or EI.
Four Steps to Leadership Success
THERE IS NO shortage of books on leadership. It seems that hardly a week goes by without some senior business executive or management guru going into print with their thoughts and insights on how to get to the top and become a great corporate leader. Visit any bookstore and you will find entire sections dedicated to weighty volumes on the secrets of leadership and management. There are television shows, websites, magazines and seminars focusing on the same topics. The reason is clear: businesses have to achieve better results in a highly competitive environment and must keep finding ways to do more with less.
Death of a Salesman
LET'S FACE IT. No one studies law, accounting, marketing, engineering or another field because of a burning desire to become a salesperson. We choose these fields because we want to be lawyers, accountants, marketers, engineers and so on. Unfortunately, business has changed. As professionals we are expected to be experts in our field. We're also expected - and in some cases required - to sell. If we want to move up the corporate ladder, there's a point where we must take on a client-facing role and along with that comes business development responsibility.
Make Your Voice Heard
IN THE WORLD of business, if you don't have an opinion, one thing is certain: you won't get very far. Whatever your role, be it employee, supplier, service provider or adviser, whoever is paying you will expect value for money and, in their eyes, that will include ideas, suggestions and clear evidence that your grey matter has been fully engaged. Previous business generations largely favoured the command-and-control model. Rigid hierarchies determined which people in an organisation or a working partnership were expected to do the thinking and whose role was more or less just to follow instructions.