David Rye - Stop Managing and Lead: Change Your Role, Change Your Results

MANAGING
AND
LEAD

Change Your Role, Change Your Results

DAVID RYE

Copyright 2009 by David Rye
All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are
made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by Adams Business, an imprint of
Adams Media, a division of F+W Media, Inc.
57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN 10: 1-59869-927-X
ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-927-2
eISBN: 978-1-44052-049-5

Printed in Canada.

J I H G F E D C B A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available from the publisher.

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their product are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Without the help of my literary agent, Michael Snell, this book would never have been written. He worked with the publisher, prompted me, and, most important, motivated me to push for the assignment. Through all of the challenges associated with the project, he never lost his patience or sense of humor. Thank you to Peter Archer for working with me to get this project accepted by the publisher, Adams Media. For all your help, I am extremely grateful.

A special thanks goes to my wife, Marcia, who helped me with this project from its inception with her motivation and inspiration. She took care of the many details of the manuscript preparation and put up with my sometimes grouchy moods after numerous late nights of working on the final draft. I love her for everything she did.

Introduction

GREAT LEADERS HAVE always fascinated us by their innate ability to inspire the best in people. The fundamental purpose of Stop Managing and Lead is to show managers how to use the power thats built into your personality to lead others to get extraordinary things done. Its about the unique practices leaders use to transform visions into realities, and how they persuade, motivate, and inspire others to follow their lead to accomplish great things. This book will show you how leaders are able to turn everyday problems into exciting opportunities. Above all, its about turning you from a manager into a leader.

From the outset, the book thrusts you into a series of challenging management situations where youre confronted by a wide variety of human behavior. Youll discover the attributes of your character and how to use the power thats inherent in your personality to become a truly effective leader, one that people will want to emulate and follow. Along the way, youll learn how the different personality types of the people in your organization influence the way in which they interact with you and with one another. Once you know how to effectively interact with the different personality types, you will succeed beyond your wildest dreams at establishing important relationships and promoting yourself as a leader. As an added bonus, you will learn the secret of developing a motivational power within yourself that you never thought was possible.

We all have the mental wiring within us to become exemplary leaders. The qualities essential for effective leadership are wired into the personality of every human being, but in many this potential is dormant, waiting to be discovered. If you want to awaken your leadership qualities, go through the steps that are covered in the first three chapters of the book. Youll get to know who you really are and discover the leadership attributes inherent in you. During this process, you will learn how to use your personality as a master key to open countless opportunities for yourself.

Stop Managing and Lead provides the tools and step-by-step guidance you will need to evaluate your strengths, identify your blind spots, and plan a course of action for mastering your leadership competencies. When you dive into this book, you may find that you are able to breeze easily through several chapters at a time. You may even be able to knock out the whole book in one sitting because its fun to read. Resist that temptation. Take your time. Stop Managing and Lead is designed to be absorbed strategically and methodically.

Live with the book for a while. Read a chapter; then give it some thought. Reflect on the various subjects discussed. If the theme of a chapter touches on one of your weaker areas, spend some time addressing the issues before you move on to the next chapter. Acquiring leadership is a step-by-step process. You have to develop it on the inside, before your leadership traits show on the outside. When that happens, people will follow you wherever you want to go.

Part I

Understanding Yourself

IT ALL STARTS with understanding yourself. Do you have the driving forces within your personality that will give you the courage and motivation to successfully become a leader? Part I addresses this issue. It forms the foundation for the rest of the book. Chapters 1 through 4 explain how to lay this foundation.

Everyone has the potential to become a leader. If you want to be one, wake up and move to the starting line. Along the way, youll need to answer some tough questions to help you determine if you are ready to become a leader people will want to follow. What do you know about your personality? What are your leadership strengths and weaknesses? What do you know about the personality attributes of the people youll be working with to reach your leadership goals? Youll learn how to know yourself, and from there to recognize the personality types of others so that you can influence their thinking and actions.

Indispensable Leadership Qualities

CHAPTER 1

Awakening the Leader in You

Leadership is the capacity to inspire and rallypeople to endorse a common cause.

THE WORD LEADERSHIP wasnt a part of the English language until the early 1800s and at the time there was confusion about what it meant. It took 100 years before social scientists undertook serious studies of the phenomenon of leadership. It has only been over the past thirty years that researchers have made a lot of progress in determining how people become effective leadersalthough this is still an ongoing area of study. We used to think that leaders were born and not made. Back in the old days, when strong social class barriers made it next to impossible for anyone to become a leader, we were trained to think that leadership was inherited. If your name wasnt Rockefeller, Firestone, Rothschild, or some other famous family name, you were not destined to become a leader.