Success in reaching sales goals can depend on a leader's reaction to employees' questions

Editor's note:

This new column, to appear periodically, will offer guidance on a wide variety of management issues affecting top-line and bottom-line growth. Demmie Hicks, president and CEO of DBH Consulting, whose work with independent agencies was profiled in our March 2006 issue, will direct the column. This month the column is written by two of DBH's consultants.

What are the various ways in which you serve as a leader in your organization and in your private life? Leadership is not something that only a few at the top engage in; individuals at any level of an organization can assume such a role. When you don't wait to be told what to do, but think about what needs to be done; when you think outside the box and influence others to do the same; when you think creatively and bring others on board with your vision of how something should be done; when you look into the future and think about possibilities as opposed to obstacles, and inspire others to see the future in a similar manner, you are engaging in leadership no matter where you are in the organizational chart hierarchy.

So, do you see yourself as the leader that you have the potential to be? Have you embraced and given voice to the leader within you? The task is hardly to become a leader; the task is to learn to bring out the leader within you.

Leadership is often denned as the art and practice of achieving desired results through others. What are those qualities that make a leader an influential leader?

To begin with, let's focus on the word influence. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, influence has to do with "the act or power of producing an effect without apparent exertion of force or direct exercise of command; the power or capacity of causing an effect in indirect or intangible ways." Influential leadership, then, is the type of leadership that relies on influence as opposed to coercion. It is the type of leadership that creates followers who want to follow as opposed to followers who believe that they have to follow.

The DBH Consulting Influential Leadership Model breaks down the components of influential leadership so that it can be utilized by everyone who is interested in being a more effective leader.

The base of the model stresses that a leader needs to possess content knowledge and expertise. Such expertise may include knowledge of the business and industry, mergers and acquisitions, management discipline, and function. Followers would be hard pressed to follow a leader whose technical expertise and knowledge they don't trust.

A leader also needs to possess complementary skills. Fundamental among them are the skills of delegating, conflict resolution, energy awareness, system thinking, self-care, management of diversity, organizational culture awareness, stakeholder balance, collaboration, process thinking, and timing. While knowledge, expertise, and skills are fundamental necessities for any leader, the heart of influential leadership comes from the leader's core values, such as authenticity, integrity and service.

Influential leaders believe in the value of authenticity. That is, they are who they are; what they do is reflective of their personality and character. In his Authentic Leadership, author Bill George, the former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, says that "authentic leaders genuinely desire to serve others through their leadership. They are more interested in empowering the people they lead to make a difference than they are in power, money, or prestige for themselves. They are as guided by qualities of the heart, by passion and compassion, as they are by qualities of the mind."

Another core value of influential leaders is integrity; that is. being consistently honest, forthright, and ethical; doing what they say and saying what they do. They walk their talk. Followers need to be able to trust the leader, and without that trust, influence is impossible.

Influential leaders believe in humility; they are willing to acknowledge that they don't know everything; they are open to learning from others.

Influential leaders also hold service at a high value. They want to be of value to others, contributing to the benefits of others, whether it is their employees, their business, their industry, their family, or their peers.

Leadership skills

Along with the above values, influential leaders develop a set of fundamental influencing skills that appear to be deceptively simple. Those skills include listening, reflecting, dialoguing, modeling, and use of self.

There is an art to listi'iiinfj and engaging in dialogue. Think of the last time someone challenged you in a conversation. Were you truly listening? We often listen only half-heartedly. For example, if you have a tendency to formulate your rebuttal while someone is talking to you, you are not fully listening. Many problems in business occur because of poor communication, and good listening is the first step toward better communication.