How to lead people, without being a natural leader

01·Where you are now

On the day you hired your first employee, nobody told you that you had just changed professions. You were a tradesperson, and now you are also a manager, without ever learning how.

Could it be that you're looking for a trait, when what's missing is an action? Most of what gets written about leadership talks about charisma, vision and instinct. And a trait is not something you can do on Monday morning.

And it costs you. Almost every business owner gives orders. Far fewer go back and check, because checking feels like a lack of trust.

And a manager who doesn't know what the job involves ends up run by whatever lands on him, and “begins to create unreal orders and situations.”

02·Who's talking to you: Axel Jedlitschka

I chose to take charge of my own future

I was asked what I'm most proud of. My answer: my decisions. The decision to take myself in hand, and to be the one who shapes my own future.

So I'm against letting the job run me. A manager who doesn't know what the job involves ends up shaped by it, instead of shaping it. Leadership isn't a trait you either have or don't. It's two actions.

Axel Jedlitschka

04·There is a way

Two actions, not a trait

The booklet is built on a source that says it plainly: “Leadership is one of the most misunderstood subjects in man's dictionary. But it is based almost solely on the ability to give and enforce orders.” An action can be learned; a trait cannot. “Most of this mystique is nonsense.” And a taut ship is not a harshly led one: the source's word for what it needs is positiveness, an order that leaves no doubt about what is needed and by when.

1. 01The two categories.Log a full week, hour by hour, and mark next to each line: policy and planning, getting people to work, or something else. The something else is the work you're doing in someone else's place.
2. 02Three tests.Before every order: can it be carried out? Is it necessary? Does it match what already works?
3. 03The second half.Note three orders you gave in the last week, and mark next to each one when you checked on it.
4. 04What we stopped doing.Pick one thing that was decided and never closed out, and bring it back to life. Launch nothing new until it has been running for a month.

Without orders there is no organization, only a collection of individuals, and it stays both small and unhappy. A taut ship is not a harsh one. It is a clear one.

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