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By Michelle Braden, CBC
Follow me on Twitter | @CoachingLeaders
 What a thought- provoking question. Would you be motivated by your leadership style if you led yourself? Leaders can be “stuck” in a way of doing things and blame others when things do not work. A good way to discover if you are a leader who makes a difference, is to learn what individuals are looking for from their leaders.
You can begin your list of what followers are looking for by reflecting on three personal questions:
- Who was the most inspirational boss in your life and why?
- Who was the most difficult boss in your life and why?
- If we asked your employees, which category would you fit in?
Answering these three questions for yourself will give you an abundance of insight. Personal stories are the best way to connect you to authenticity, and authenticity is one of the key ingredients of successful leadership. We dedicated our last two newsletters to passion (www.msbcoach.com/resources) . Passion is another ingredient followers are looking for in a leader.
Let’s identity 5 key areas followers are looking for from their leader:
- Authentic
– followers want to be led by a real person. Leaders are not going to share everything with their followers, but it is important for them to see their leader’s human side. It is essential to know your leader has had not only successes, but also failures. An authentic leader knows their roots and how they lead from their story. This increases a leader's ability toward empathy. Authentic leaders influence their followers to discover their purpose and inspire growth. MSBCoach offers coaching and an entire program based around authentic leadership. For more information, see www.msbcoach.com/authenticlife
- Passion – followers want to follow a leader with passion. Passion is arousing. A passionate leader has purpose and others want to follow that. Passionate leaders that understand their values and vision create energy and enthusiasm for their employees - and who does not want to work in a stimulating environment?
- Relationship – people long for relationship. It is how we are wired. Followers are looking for a leader who can actualize proper leadership relationship with them as well as a culture of community. People want something to belong to; they want to feel like they are a part of something bigger. Healthy working relationships combined with passion and purpose establish this culture.
- Purpose – followers want to believe what they are doing makes a difference. They want their daily activities to line up with what they believe in, and what their leader believes in. Leaders who give their followers purpose in their career and give meaningful, thoughtful feedback develop purpose.
- Vision – Finally, yet importantly, is vision. When a leader wraps passion, relationship, purpose and authenticity with vision, their followers will be inspired and empowered. Vision points the way, bringing clarity and openess. When the vision is clear it will influence purpose. It is important for followers to understand why they do what they do each day, and where they are headed with it.
Let this article be a "spur in your boot" to reflect on your leadership style. Are you meeting the needs of your team through practicing all 5 key principles? It is not easy, but does get easier with practice.
MSBCoach is dedicated to inspiring and empowering leaders to be the individuals their team will want to follow. For more information about us contact: info@msbcoach.com, visit our site at www.msbcoach.com -
www.emergingleader.info or give us a call at 804-502-4319. We hope to hear from you.
By Kelly Sloan
Social Media Director, MSBCoach
President, Simply Social Media Management
Do words like social media, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, send hives all over your body? Do you feel stressed trying to figure it all out? Join the "club". Many people do, especially the Gen Xers and Baby Boomers. These new techno-terms are quickly becoming common words - words that have not even made it to the dictionary. Social Media is the latest craze in today’s techno-social world and is growing at an incredibly fast rate. Businesses and the public are joining these social networks to help boost their products, services, and to promote themselves to find a job.
There are over 300,000 businesses on Facebook with over 250 million members on the network itself. Approximately 8 million are joining Facebook Fan Pages every day.So why should you use social media to promote your business? The answer to that question is:
- According to the Social Media Marking Report 81% found that social media generated exposure for their businesses.
- Owners of small businesses were more likely than others to gain exposure.
Using other social media websites such as Twitter can create even more exposure with over 40 million users. The median age is 31 and growing extremely fast.
I like to call Twitter, “the snowball effect.” This is because when you “follow” someone, they will more than likely “follow” you back, other “followers” will see that and will “follow” you too. Confused? Sorry, it can be confusing, but it does work!
The purpose of social media to create connections, expand your network and exposure through using these social media tools. If you are an adventurous person willing to take risks, try out these new tactics of social media. It is FREE, yes FREE, which is also one of the other benefits to using these networks. You can lower your marketing and advertising costs. Alternatively, hire someone like myself who is interested in managing or setting up these accounts to help promote your company. Believe me, social media is the way to go right now and if you have not joined the crowd, it's time to do so!
Kelly Sloan currently serves as Director of Social Media for MSBCoach. She is also the President of Simply Social Media. You can contact her at kelly.msbcoach@gmail.com; we also encourage you to join our social networks:
 Leading from Passion and Self-awareness.
What you will take away:
- An understanding of Authentic Leadership and what it means to you.
- Self-discovery and heightened self-awareness.
- Reconnection with your passion in ways that will revitalize your business relationships and decisions.
- A new sense of freedom through being your true self across all areas of your life.
- A support team to empower you to grow beyond what you can be on your own.
- Knowledge of how your life story affects your leadership.
- An understanding of your personal values and principles and how you lead according to them.
- A working familiarity with how are you motivated intrinsically & extrinsically.
- The ability to empower others to become authentic leaders.
Led by Leadership Coaches Michelle Braden and Elizabeth Swider. See www.msbcoach.com
6-session program beginning January 21, 2010
in Charlottesville, Virginia
meetings every other week
Cost: $350 per participant
Discovery reception to meet the course leaders and other potential group members:
January 14, 2010 6:00pm – 8:00pm.
Location To Be Announced.
RSVP to Elizabeth at 434.989.0593 or eswider.msbcoach@gmail.com.
Check out our new site!
GET READY AND HOLD ON TIGHT!
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