Tracy Brian - How the best leaders lead: proven secrets to getting the most out of yourself and others

How the
Best
Leaders
Lead

How the
Best
Leaders
Lead

Proven Secrets to Getting the Most
Out of Yourself and Others

Brian Tracy

American Management Association

New York Atlanta Brussels Chicago Mexico City San Francisco
Shanghai Tokyo Toronto Washington, D.C.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tracy, Brian.

How the best leaders lead : proven secrets to getting the most out of yourself and others / Brian Tracy.

p.cm.

Includes index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1434-7

ISBN-10: 0-8144-1434-6

e-ISBN: 978-0-8144-1435-4

1. Leadership. 2. Management. I. Title.

HD57.7.T724 2010
658.4092dc22

2009044946

2010 Brian Tracy.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

About AMA

American Management Association (www.amanet.org) is a world leader in talent development, advancing the skills of individuals to drive business success. Our mission is to support the goals of individuals and organizations through a complete range of products and services, including classroom and virtual seminars, webcasts, webinars, podcasts, conferences, corporate and government solutions, business books and research. AMAs approach to improving performance combines experiential learninglearning through doingwith opportunities for ongoing professional growth at every step of ones career journey.

Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is fondly dedicated to Roger Joseph, my friend and business partner for many years and one of the most competent and inspirational leaders I have ever met.

Contents

INTRODUCTION
The Race Is On

CHAPTER 1
The Heart of a Leader

CHAPTER 2
Leaders Know Themselves

CHAPTER 3
Counterattack! Business Lessons from Military Strategy

CHAPTER 4
Masterful Management!

CHAPTER 5
Hire and Keep the Best People

CHAPTER 6
Building Winning Teams

CHAPTER 7
Problem Solving and Decision Making

CHAPTER 8
Communicate with Power

CHAPTER 9
The Leaders Questionnaire

CHAPTER 10
Simplify Your Life

Great hopes make everything possible.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

We are living in the most challenging times for business and economics that we have experienced in our lifetimes. Only the fit will survive. The race is on, and you are in it. If you are not committed to winning, to conquering against all odds, you will be brushed aside and passed over by people and companies more determined to win than you are.

Some time ago, Harvard University made three predictions that apply to the current economic situation. First, they said, there will be more change in your business in the year ahead than ever before. Second, there will be more competition in your business than ever before. And third, there will be more opportunities in your business than ever before.

But these opportunities will be different from the business that you are accustomed to in the present, and you must move quickly to take advantage of them if you are going to survive and thrive against your competitors.

As it happens, these predictions were made in 1952. A fourth prediction was added later: Those individuals and organizations that do not quickly adapt to the inevitable and unavoidable changes of today will be in different fields or out of business within one or two years.

Charles Darwin said, Survival goes not necessarily to the strongest but to the species that is most adaptable to changing circumstances.

Damon Runyon once wrote, The race is not necessarily to the swift, nor the contest to the strong, but thats the way to bet.

You have heard the old saying that the Chinese character for crisis is the same character used for opportunity. This is because within almost every crisis there is an opportunity of some kind, if you can find it.

When Vince Lombardi took over the Green Bay Packers, he was asked if he was going to change the players, the plays, the training, or other key aspects of the team. He replied, Im not going to change anything; we are simply going to become brilliant on the basics.

The Green Bay Packers had been doing poorly for some years. In his first meeting with the team, he famously picked up a football and said, Gentleman, this is a football.

From then on, Lombardi concentrated on the basics, running drills aimed at making his team faster and more effective at executing plays than any other team. He took the Green Bay Packers to two Super Bowl Championships and made football coaching history.

Consistent with the Lombardi method, the key to leading and succeeding in times of crisis and rapid change is to become brilliant on the basics.

In this book, based on my work with more than a thousand companies in fifty-two countries, I will share some of the best thinking and action skills used by top executives and company owners to achieve outstanding results in difficult markets against determined competition.

When you practice these ideas and put them into action, you will get results out of all proportion to your efforts. Sometimes a single change in direction, inspired by an insight or an idea in this book, can change your business, and your life, quickly and dramatically.

There are seven basics that never change, the key responsibilities of leadership in any organization. On a scale of 1 to 10, your ability in each of these seven areas determines your value to yourself and your contribution to your organization. Here they are:

The number-one reason for business and executive failure is the inability to achieve the sales, growth, and profitability goals for which the leader is responsible.

Setting and achieving business goals embraces every part of strategic and market planning, including products, services, people, productivity, promotion, finances, and competitive responses. We will touch on these critical factors in the pages ahead.