Keys to Successful Leadership

I had the good fortune to be invited to a leadership forum this week and was especially impressed with a discussion led by Cheryl Bachelder, who has had a wonderful career in business as a CEO and innovator in her industry. Her messages to inspire successful leadership were basic, common sense and relevant, for sure.

Key values to Cheryl’s ability to rise and thrive as a leader are the values of bravery and courage, instilled in her by her father. Another value that Cheryl holds highly is serving others in her companies. She approaches conversations by learning what the needs, priorities and ideas of her people are. She understands that serving her people consistently delivers results.

I felt like standing up and applauding when Cheryl offered that attentive listening is our most important skill as a leader. We most successfully serve our people and clients when we truly listen to understand their needs, ideas, and challenges. Our attentive listening communicates that we value our people and our clients, we appreciate them and do not take them for granted. Both are our top priorities!

A telling example Cheryl gave of highly effective leadership was when she asked the field offices, “When I fly in, what makes a meeting successful and what makes our meetings unproductive?” They responded, “When you fly in with a PowerPoint and lecture us, that is an unproductive meeting. When you come in with a blank piece of paper, no personal agenda, and open the floor for discussion to let us share and dialogue, that is an engaging, successful meeting.”

Our people have the solutions, we need to give them the opportunity to share, to be heard and for us to give them our support for them to thrive. Cheryl’s example exemplifies: listening to the ideas of our people confirms that bottom up ideas are the best and serving our people by listening to them drives and delivers results.

Cheryl also spoke about diversity in leadership, i.e., gender, race and ethnicity. We must appreciate the differences and take full advantage of the blended views and ideas to reach our maximum potential going forward into today’s demanding, competitive business environment.

In closing, Cheryl presented that she always tries to be aware of her:

• Purpose – which is to meet goals through serving and caring for her people, knowing they will then deliver
• Priorities – know her three top and stay focused on them
• Principles – the foremost being treat her people with the human dignity we all deserve

Essentially, Cheryl’s theme was great leaders serve and care about our people, and highly value the contributions of others, our colleagues. They realize they cannot do it themselves. Success comes from the team working together.

Here is a link to Cheryl Bachelder’s book: Dare to Serve: How to Drive Superior Results by Serving Others – 2^nd edition will be released September 25, 2018.