The Seven Principles of Leadership Rod Pollard Director of Environmental Services UH Case Medical Center

Leadership Leadership development is crucial for individual and organizational success. Executives and managers are often called upon to find creative solutions to complex situations. It is during these critical moments when an understanding of the Seven Principles of Leadership are essential for success.

Personal Leadership

1. Take Charge of Yourself You’re responsible for what you think, feel, and do. Decide what your guiding values are and commit to live consistent with them. Understand that real power is not what you exercise over others. Real power is what you exercise over yourself. When YOU control your life, others realize that you are in control.

2. Rethink Your Goals & Objectives (& Set New Ones) Do they fit your company’s vision of who the company is and where it is going? Decide what you want and where you are going. Plan and execute the plan. Realize that change is the only constant, be it in everyday life or in a profession Therefore, upgrading one’s knowledge and resources to grow as a professional is another important career goal that one should pursue.

3. Awareness & Realignment Become aware of the company’s new goals and align your priorities to support the changes. Make sure your priorities also support you and your personal goals and values. Set goals that are realistic for you but that can also align with your company’s goals. Sometimes you must realign yourself – attitudes, actions, thoughts – before you can have real awareness.

Team Leadership

4. Effective Change Work to make the changes effective for the company and your team. Swim down stream. Ask for help. No one succeeds alone. Managing change successfully means that you need to recognize who can help lead change in your organization. When you need to manage change, you need to focus on doing it right rather than doing it fast. The culture of your organization will need to adapt, along with the functions, processes and people. Work on building awareness, understanding, acceptance and commitment to and for the change.

5. Clarity of Changes/Challenges Be clear about why the changes are occurring and what the challenges are of others. Listen, be empathetic. Understand the needs of others before concluding. Keep your focus on the action plan and handle problems using decision making and problem solving techniques. Challenges make us stronger – “Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.” William Ellery Channing We grow stronger by going through challenges. Try to think of the challenges not as a means to an end, but a new beginning. Find ways to change your mindset, be determined and tackle the challenges head on.

6. Leverage Team with others to leverage their talents, perspectives, skills, experiences, and supportive energies. Work to be creative in solving challenges, especially in relationship building. Leveraging others talents builds credibility with your leadership. Have an awareness of the need to promote continual adaptation, rather then simply protect what’s working.

7. Keep Engaged Keep yourself engaged in learning. Focus on how to better lead and be a team. Think about your customer, their business and personal needs, and how you can help them solve those needs. Find ways to engage your team and yourself that will contribute to the goal of developing leadership traits for everyone. Engagement is visible when you and your employees demonstrate high energy, vision and initiative. Remember that engaged employees are those who are productive and bring new ideas and efficiency to their job tasks.

The Seven Principles of Leadership "To lead people, walk beside them... As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate... When the best leader's work is done the people say, 'We did it ourselves!'“ — Lao-tsu