SUCCESSFUL LEADERSHIP

ArtT H E O F

The checklist every leader needs to understand and hone their skills.

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DRIVE • Personality Traits

• Self-Awareness

LEAD • Communicate

• Delegate

ACT • Agility & Adaptability

GROW • Cultivate Wisdom

• Effect Change

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEAR READER,

Geoff Brandt Co-Founder & Partner

Brian Downard Co-Founder & Partner

Do you want to be a better leader? Are you willing to be honest with your self and improve on your weaknesses? Using this easy-to-follow guide we’ll take you through the building blocks of effective leadership and the things you need to do if you want to become a better leader.

More than ever this world needs great leaders who are willing to pursue their dreams and positively impact the world for future generations.

01DRIVE

The argument over nature vs. nurture will likely never end. But regardless of how successful leaders come to be, there are core traits and abilities that they have in common which drives them forward and keeps them motivated when things get difficult.

• Personality Traits

• Self- Awareness

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1 | Self-Motivated

Motivated leaders desire to achieve above and beyond expectations. This comes from passion, pride, desire to become better and the desire to do things better than everyone else. To succeed as a leader, you need to be motivated, and no one else can do that for you except your self.

s 2 | Patience

Smart leaders know not to expect results over night, whether it’s a new marketing campaign or an entirely new business. Leaders know that patience is not about waiting around for results, it’s about executing the plan, not giving up when you face hurdles and learning how to enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

3 | Standards

Leaders hold them selves and the people around them to a higher standard than most. Both on a professional and personal level, leaders understand that in order to achieve a higher level, you need to hold your self to higher standards. Remember you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

4 | Confidence

Unfortunately confidence is one of those things you either have or don’t have, but it can be practiced and learned. Confidence has to do with your inner perception of your ability to fulfill a particular role in society and is largely built through your experiences and dealings during your life.

PERSONALITY TRAITS

✓ Self-Motivated

✓ Patience

✓ Standards

✓ Confidence

✓ Intuition

✓ Optimism & Positivity

✓ Organized

✓ Accountable

✓ Focused

These are the core traits that make successful leaders who they are.

8 | Accountable

Being accountable means that you accept responsibility for the outcomes expected of you, both good and bad. You don’t blame others. And you don’t blame things that were out of your control. Until you take responsibility, you are a victim. And being a victim is the exact opposite of being a leader. Victims are passive, leaders are active. Great leaders take initiative to influence the outcome and take responsibility for the results.

9 | Focused

A primary task for leaders should be to direct attention toward what matters. Focus isn’t only about filtering out distractions as much as it is about cultivating awareness. Leaders should develop these three kinds of focus: an inward focus, a focus on others, and a focus on the wider world. The first two help to build emotional intelligence, while the third helps in devising strategy, innovating, and managing.

5 | Intuition

Intuition is to art as logic is to math. That is to say, leadership is often about following your gut instinct. It can be difficult to let go of logic in some situations, but uncertainty and risk are a natural in business. Learn to trust your self and not everyone else.

6 | Optimism & Positivity

Where others might think a project or task is too difficult, leaders face those challenges with energy and positivity. Positivity is contagious, so be sure to focus on your attitude and understand you set the tone for your business and the people around you.

7 | Organized

You can’t sail your ship if you don’t know where the sail is, likewise, you can’t run your business if you aren’t organized. Leaders know that value in keeping their personal and professional things (both physical and electronic) in order.

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10 | Emotional Intelligence

The ability to understand and manage your own emotions, and those of the people around you is crucial. People with a high degree of emotional intelligence know what they're feeling, what their emotions mean, and how these emotions can affect other people. For leaders, this is essential for success.

11 | Emotional Control

Similar to emotional intelligence, once you can understand your emotions, you can learn to control them. The ability to stay calm and assess your self then make adjustments comes down to simple self-control. If you can control your emotions and reactions to the world, you can better control the outcomes…

SELF-AWARENESSBeing able to control your

emotions, decisions and focus is crucial to being an effective leader.

✓ Emotional Intelligence

✓ Emotional Control

✓ Understand Opportunity Cost12 | Understand Opportunity Cost

Leaders know that many situations and decisions in business involve risk and there is an opportunity cost associated with every decision you make. An opportunity cost is the cost of a missed opportunity. This is usually defined in terms of money, but it may also be considered in terms of time, person-hours, mechanical output, or any other finite resource. Great leaders understand the consequences of their decisions before making them.

LEAD

Sometime people forget a leaders main purpose, which is to lead. Obvious, right? But in order to fulfill their vision for a better future, leaders need to be able to effectively communicate with other people, efficiently delegate as well as inspire other people to follow them.

02• Communicate

• Delegate

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1 | Lead by Example

Actions speak louder than words. The people around you will notice if you are dedicated and working hard to grow your business. But if you’re lazy and don’t care, your team will note and follow suit. Great leaders always lead by example.

2 | Relationship Building

“It’s all about who you know.” Smart leaders know that there is a lot of truth to that saying. Leaders understand the value of building long-lasting relationships with people in their industry and make a point to pursue partnerships whenever they can. Building a network of valuable people is critical for your long-term success.

COMMUNICATEIn order to be a successful leader

you need to have excellent communication and social skills.

✓ Lead by Example

✓ Relationship Building

✓ Social Skills

✓ Public Speaking

✓ Sense of Humor

✓ Honesty & Transparency

3 | Social Skills

More often than not, leader are charismatic, outgoing, friendly and approachable. They have the ability to speak with anyone in a calm, respectful and engaging way. Both employees and customers want to work for and purchase from people they like, you need to be one of those people if you want to succeed.

6 | Honesty & Transparency

There are no more secrets today, everything is out there on the worldwide web and those who try to hide it usually end up having an example made of them in mass media. That’s why honesty is the best policy.

People respect those who are able to honestly share and react calmly to good and bad news while being able to quickly put a plan in action to move forward. We now live in a transparent world, embrace it.

4 | Public Speaking

Leaders should not have any issues with speaking in front of crowds. Situations where public speaking is required can range from just speaking up at a meeting, to pitching a new idea in a room full of people. Not only is this important for you to be able to get your message across clearly, but it improves your credibility as a leader.

5 | Sense of Humor

Many leaders are perfectionists which tends to make them critical of themselves and the people around them. However, leaders who take them selves too seriously risk alienating people. Effective leaders have the ability to laugh at them selves and understand that they are only human and can make embarrassing mistakes like everyone else.

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DELEGATELeaders know they can’t do everything alone, that’s why

delegating is crucial to success.

✓ Clarity

✓ Ability to Teach

✓ Interested in Feedback

✓ Trust in Your Team

✓ Ability to Inspire

✓ Identify Strengths

✓ Sharing Your Vision

✓ Turning Vision into Reality

7 | Clarity

When great leaders speak, they are able to clearly relay their thoughts in a way that’s easy to understand. Then they make sure there are no miscommunications and that their point(s) got across clearly. This ensures projects and tasks that are delegated get done the right way and without mistakes.

8 | Ability to Teach

Leaders need to be able to share the methodologies and processes that make their business run with the people they work with and hire. If your managers are poorly trained, your staff will be poorly trained and it will reflect in your sales and operations. Remember the best way to learn something your self is to teach it!

9 | Interested in Feedback

In the same way great leaders are able to teach, they also value learning. That involves being open to honest feedback and the ability to have a positive attitude about that feedback and use it make adjustments that benefit everyone.

12 | Identify Strengths

When delegating work leaders know their team inside and out. They use that knowledge to decide who gets assigned which projects/tasks so that everything gets completed the right way.

13 | Sharing the Vision

There are a lot of people out there who think they have the next great idea. Sadly, as great as those ideas might be, they will never go anywhere if no one else knows about it. Leaders have the ability to share their vision and get people to buy into their ideas.

14 | Turning Vision into Reality

Not only can leaders share their vision, they have the ability to break that vision down into steps and a strategy that can be understood by others and executed over time.

10 | Trust in Your Team

This can be difficult, but your trust in your team largely depends on the people you hire, your ability to train them and the work you delegate to them. If you believe in their ability to do those things, you need to trust your team to get the results you want and not micro-manage every project.

11 | Ability to Inspire

Let’s face it, it’s difficult to love every part of your work no matter what you do. But great leaders have the ability to inspire their team and make sure they know what they are doing has a bigger impact than they realize. Nike is about celebrating athletics not sneakers, Apple is about changing the world, not computers. What are you about?

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ACT

Business is about getting there first. Great leaders need to be able to think and act with speed and consistency. They understand that their competition does not wait and they keep an open mind which allows them to adapt and pivot quickly to stay ahead of everyone else.

03• Agility & Adaptability

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1 | Urgency

The competition doesn’t wait and there will always be someone out there trying to outwork you. Leaders understand that in most cases it is about who gets there first and knows the value of both patience and urgency.

2 | Decisiveness

Being decisive is not just about making decisions quickly, it’s about fostering a confident and effective way of thinking, deciding, and acting. In order to make the best decisions possible, understand and assess each option carefully while approaching the right people and resources to help you make your decision. Don’t let indecision paralyze you.

AGILITY & ADAPTABILITY

Effective leaders compete in today’s fast-paced world by getting

there before the competition.

✓ Urgency

✓ Decisiveness

✓ Create the Future

✓ Commitment to Vision

✓ Consistency

✓ Does Not Fear Mistakes/Risk

✓ Ability To Pivot

✓ Open Minded

3 | Create the Future

Maybe someday we will actually be able to predict for the future, but for now, the future belongs to those who are willing to dream big, create something new and/or disrupt an established industry. It usually doesn’t happen by accident, the leaders of those business, like all great leaders, are able to envision then create a better future.

7 | Ability to Pivot

The business world is changing quickly and will continue to do so. Great leaders have the ability to recognize those changes and guide their business and team accordingly.

5 | Consistency

Like professional quarterbacks, great leaders follow strict routines to keep their skills sharp and their delivery consistent. Remember that practice makes perfect and the more consistent you can be, the more efficiently you and your business will be.

6 | Does Not Fear Mistakes/Risk

Failure often provides us with some of life’s biggest learning opportunities. Leaders embrace this as well as the uncertainty and risk that are inherent parts of owning and running a business.

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8 | Open-Minded

It’s fascinating how many business owners and managers refuse to change even minor aspects of their business because they have the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. While that might work for a time, as years pass the business and their leaders who refuse to learn, adapt and grow will be left behind. To be an effective leader you need to be open to learning about new things and exploring new experiences.

4 | Commitment to Vision

Every overnight success you’ve heard about likely has another side to the story, like the long hours, bootstrapping and testing many interactions before finding the right combination. Leaders need to appreciate the process as much as the outcome and stay committed to their vision through thick and thin.

GROW

Like a professional athlete, a goal every leader should have is to make your self and the people around you better every single day. Great leaders know that by cultivating new experiences, fostering the potential of those around you and sharing success is essential to a satisfying, not just successful career.

04• Cultivate Wisdom

• Effect Change

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1 | Creativity

Like everything else, creativity can be practiced and improved. Effective leaders make a point to keep their minds creative. This allows them approach situations in business and life with more options for solving the problem at hand.

2 | Seek Out Advice

Even though leader usually means “the person in charge” it’s important that you seek out the experience and skill sets of trusted advisors, partners, customers and peers. Outside perspectives are always helpful.

3 | Pursue New Experiences

To stay prepared for any road bump in business, leaders actively pursue new experiences that allow them to learn and grow. From starting a new venture, to coaching little league, challenge your self to be better by enjoying new experiences.

4 | Read, Read, Read

Read everything related to business and your field that you can get your hands on, both print and digital. Leaders understand that education does not stop after school, in order to stay relevant, you need to stay informed with both timeless and timely resources.

CULTIVATE WISDOM

Leaders know in order to remain competitive you need

to keep your mind sharp.

✓ Creativity

✓ Seek Out Advice

✓ Pursue New Experiences

✓ Read, Read, Read

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5 | Improve Lives Around You

Leaders working toward a brighter future want to share that future and it’s success with the people they care about. Business partners and customers, family and friends, employees and their families, etc. Leaders must act with generosity and gratitude by effecting positive change in the lives of the people around them.

6 | Foster Potential

Improving the lives of people around you also means helping them become better individuals. Help other people grow by encouraging and fostering their potential both professionally and personally.

7 | Belief That Success is Shared

Leaders are quick to give their team credit in the same way they are ready to take them blame when things go wrong. They believe that success is something to be shared with everyone because there is no “I” in team.

8 | High Calling, Purpose, Legacy

Many great leaders are driven by an inner fire that gives them a sense of higher purpose in life as well as the desire to build something that will not only outlive them but positively effect change the world.

✓ Improve Lives Around You

✓ Foster Potential

✓ Belief That Success is Shared

✓ Higher Calling, Purpose, Legacy

EFFECT CHANGEThe driving force in most leaders is

the desire to create something bigger than themselves.

THANK YOU,

We understand that there is no black and white in this world, everything is grey. That is to say, just because you don’t possess some or all even all of these skills, doesn’t mean you can’t set out to become a great leader, but you need to commit to honing the skills and traits listed in this guide.

The best thing you can do is learn to enjoy the ride, because when you arrive at your destination, the memories and lives you touch along your path in life are more valuable than any amount of success or money. So go out and lead this world to a better place!

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