The importance of Team to a successful leader …

The World Cup semi-finals saw France vs Belgium and England vs Croatia resulting in an unexpected pitting of France vs Croatia for the finals match. Even if you are not a soccer (football) fan, there is an important lesson that can and should be learned from this year’s FIFA clash. It is a lesson that ALL Princes, Princesses and Leaders cannot afford to let pass by unacknowledged.

The names: Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar and Salah were chosen by Vox.com as the four best soccer players in the world leading up to the World Cup. However, not one of these titans played in either the semi-finals or finals of the world’s most watched sporting event. These men who are just slightly short of gods to their fans were denied even the opportunity to wear the crown of laurels at the game’s 2018 final moment because none of their teams made it to the final four.

The lesson is this: Soccer is a TEAM sport. The greatest player without the support of a great team cannot succeed, no matter how talented, driven, passionate or practiced they are.

During the last few months, we have dissected and discussed a variety of topics related to leadership that an aspiring Prince must take seriously and develop in order to achieve success. Too many people are prone to rely on only their own willpower or talent and cannot or will not entrust and empower their followers, whether out of fear or selfishness. Like soccer, the fortune or failure of a leader simply does not lie solely in one’s own hands. Development of a “team” who is inspired to greatness by the leader’s generous encouragement and fearless example is the only way to increase one’s footprint on the world and generate lasting wealth and happiness.

The skills required to accomplish this can be learned. There are many books and coaching organizations, including the Prince or Pauper series of educational tools that make this possible. Whatever you choose to pursue to get the education that you need, the important thing is acknowledgement of the need to be a great leader who surrounds oneself with a winning team and to remember that a rising tide lifts all boats … which is to say that the entire team gets to bask in the glory of success. So be generous with the sharing of rewards. Doing so will attract the best players to your team.

10 Major causes of Failure in Leadership: #10: “Emphasis of Title”:

Competent leaders require no ‘title’ to gain the respect of their followers. Leaders who make too much of their title generally have little else to emphasise. The doors to the office of real leaders are open to all who wish to enter, and their working quarters are free from formality or ostentation (by: Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich”).

William Shakespeare said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”. Clearly, those seeking to attain to Princely accomplishment in their personal wealth and influence fall into the second category.

While those born financially great; the children of wealth, title and privilege, may or may not have or acquire the leadership skills that will enhance and preserve their status, in some cases, their shortcommings can be attenuated by virtue of their family name or title. Those who continue to follow such ones do so because loyalty to the larger family or station compels them to, not because of true and pure love and devotion.

If you are reading this, however, you no doubt do not have the advantage of being born to greatness in terms of wealth and position. You are on a journey to develop the status of Prince or Princess, to create a family fortune, sphere of influence and business empire that will assure both yours and your children and grandchildren’s legacy of financial and emotional security. Therefore, you do not have the advantage of being born into a position where the support of followers is guaranteed by the legacy you have inherited. YOU must EARN the loyalty of your support system each and every day.

To do so, your team must have confidence that you possess the willingness to:

1) Get your hands dirty: You should display both the ability and willingness to do any task that you would ask of your followers.
(Note: This does not mean that you should not always strive to operate at your highest and best use, it means that on occasion, pitching in with the team “in the trenches” will send a message that you are sympathetic to the demands of their jobs and that you want to understand their challenges.)

2) Be approachable: Each and every member of your team should feel comfortable bringing their work related problems to you for advice and support.
(Note: The key to long term success here is to empower your followers. A great leader does not have the time, nor the desire to quarterback each and every issue that comes up each day. When staff brings a problem to you … help them reason out the solution and then send them away to implement the solution. Do NOT take on management of the problem yourself. Provide the tools and guidance, empower your resource and then GET OUT OF THE WAY. Over time, such empowered followers will bring fewer and fewer problems to you, enabling your time to be more productive.

3) Do not micro-manage:

There are four styles of leadership:
– 1: Don’t do anything unless I tell you to …
– 2: Check with me before you do anything …
– 3: Keep me informed and I will let you know when I have a concern …
– 4: I really don’t give a damn …

Of these 4 styles of leadership, ONLY number 3 leads to wealth and prosperity.
Style #1 breeds apathy and resentment in your followers and your goals will suffer.
Style #2 breeds distrust because your followers will never feel as though you trust their judgement and will reciprocate.
Style #4 obviously sends the message that your goals are not important to you and therefore why should they be important to your followers.

A true leader recognizes that finite time constrains his or her ability to be involved in everything, and therefore seeks to cultivate followers who are, in fact, leaders in their own right. Empowering our followers to act with authority and confidence creates multiple tiers of support resources, expanding the influence of the Prince or Princess exponentially. That is the goal of a true leader … not to attain a title … but to increase our footprint on this planet by inspiring our many tiers of followers to adopt our goals and make them their own.

10 Major causes of failure in leadership:

#9: “EMPHASIS OF THE ‘AUTHORITY’ OF LEADERSHIP. Efficient leaders lead by encouraging, not by trying to instill fear in the hearts of their followers. Leaders who try to impress followers with their ‘authority’ come within the category of leadership through force. Real leaders have no need to advertise that fact except by their conduct, sympathy, understanding, fairness and a demonstration of knowledge of the job.” (by Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich”).

Mr. Hill here effectively compares the leadership styles of figures such as Jesus Christ, Mohamed and Ghandi with the likes of Adolf Hitler, Kim Jong-Un and Fidel Castro. How so?

In that the ultimate purpose and goal of truly great leadership should be to create a system, following, business model, political endeavor or cash-flow opportunity which, at some point in the future will be self-perpetuating.  To engender in followers the desire and passion to be prepared, able and motivated to continue on the prescribed path without the original leadership figure at the helm. The goal of a Prince or Princess is to create income and wealth that does not require daily or hourly attention to keep things flowing productively and profitably. If, upon retirement of the leader, the venture withers and dies, then the efforts of the leader will not be enjoyed by his or her heirs, successors, family and of course, the families of all of the followers who have come to rely on the income and opportunity created by the passionate and humble leader.

Therefore, a true leader (Prince or Princess) must instill a spirit of trust, faith and self-sacrifice in the followers for the greater good. No society built on wealth and prosperity for a privileged few can last. Revolution is inevitable. Long term peace and prosperity requires that followers follow because they truly love, respect and trust their leader.

I am fully convinced of this with just one minor exception.

It must be acknowledged that there are some individuals who will simply refuse to follow even the most skilled, honorable and loving leader. Even Alexander the Great was forced to cleanse his higher ranks of dissenters. A business, company or investment endeavor that entertains dissenters is doomed to failure. Therefore, such ones must quickly be excised from the team … cut off like a cancerous growth. The old saying that you should be “slow to hire and quick to fire” can and should be taken as a basic tenant of success.

How then does one reconcile the need to be humble and loving to one’s charge with the need to be somewhat ruthless? Simply because the whole can and will suffer and fail over the dissensions of a single individual. You, as a leader, also have a responsibility to your loyal followers to protect them from injury. So, while not dispensing indiscriminate terror through your following, there is also a time for surgical activity to cut out a cancer for the greater good. If you need an example to follow, just look to those historical figures who’s legacy has endured as opposed to those who have faded into infamy.

10 Major causes of failure in leadership: #8:

DISLOYALTY: “Perhaps this should have come at the head of the list. Leaders who are not loyal to their trust and their associates – those above and below them – cannot long maintain their leadership. Disloyalty marks people as being less than the dust of the earth, and brings down on their head the contempt they deserve. Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life. (by: Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich”)

This very strong indictment by Napoleon Hill of the personality trait of disloyalty can only mark such a person as a false leader. A con-artist, a flim-flam man, whose leadership position must initially have come about through false advertising and undeserved braggadocio. Let’s think about this in the context of personal wealth and your journey towards being a Prince or Princess. Have you been exposed to such individuals?

Just ask yourself, have I been coerced into investing in something with unrealistic expectations of returns? Remember the “Ponzi Scheme”? According to the website SEC.gov(SEC is the acronym for “Securities and Exchange Commission”), a Ponzi Scheme is defined:

“A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi scheme organizers often solicit new investors by promising to invest funds in opportunities claimed to generate high returns with little or no risk. In many Ponzi schemes, the fraudsters focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors to create the false appearance that investors are profiting from a legitimate business. The schemes are named after Charles Ponzi, who duped thousands of New England residents into investing in a postage stamp speculation scheme back in the 1920s. At a time when the annual interest rate for bank accounts was five percent, Ponzi promised investors that he could provide a 50% return in just 90 days. Ponzi initially bought a small number of international mail coupons in support of his scheme, but quickly switched to using incoming funds from new investors to pay purported returns to earlier investors.”

An example of a recent “Ponzi” was Bernie Madoff, who pulled investors into a scheme with the promise of a 10% Annual Return on Investment.  Imagine that … only 10%, and he could not deliver on the promise with legitimate investments, so he used money from new investors to pay the promised dividends to earlier investors.  Only a 10% return was impossible for legitimate investment to yield.  Have you been promised more than that by your financial advisor?  I personally know investment bankers who are promising 25% yields and guaranteeing their clients that there is no risk involved.  Have people forgotten everything that has happened in the last 15-years?

I recently received a phone call from a Broker who was offering an investment to “Accredited Investors” only (which I qualify as) … translation: a “Private Placement” which is not required to undergo SEC scrutiny to ensure its legitimacy and the viability of its possible risk component. This broker suggested that the particular investment opportunity would likely yield 200%-300% return in its first year. I’d like to remind you that the S&P500 has yielded an average return of about 8.5% over the last 45-years.

If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

I explained to this Broker that 1) I don’t invest money with people who call out of the blue over the phone, 2) I don’t invest money with people with whom I have no personal relationship with (i.e.: with whom I have had dinner with several times, who’s offices are readily accessible to me, and who have already spent several years earning my trust with smaller acts of fiduciary, and 3) that as an accredited investor, I was well aware that investments with such yields seldom pay off. I asked him if he remembered the name Bernie Madoff … a man who guaranteed his investors a mere 10% annual rate of return, and went to jail because even that modest promise resulted in a Ponzi Scheme. The Broker quickly hung up the phone.

If you are a leader, a Prince or Princess, be true and faithful to your charge. If you are a follower, look critically at your leader(s) and do not tolerate following someone who does not act as a fiduciary in your behalf.  Leadership demands honesty and loyalty to your workers and that you always make decisions that will place the least amount of risk on the lively-hood and future of your followers.

10 Major causes of failure in leadership:

#4: “FEAR OF COMPETITION FROM FOLLOWERS”: The leader who fears that one of his followers may take his position is practically sure to realize that fear sooner or later. Able leaders train understudies to whom they may delegate at will. Only in this way may leaders multiply themselves and prepare to be at many places, and give attention to many things, at one time. It is an eternal truth that people receive more pay for their ability to get others to perform than they could possibly earn by their own efforts. Efficient leaders may, through knowledge of their jobs and the magnetism of their personalities, greatly increase the efficiency of others and induce them to render more service and better service than they could by themselves. (by: Napoleon Hill in “Think and Grow Rich”)

It is hard to expand on what Napoleon Hill says here because his message and scope are so clear and comprehensive. However, it always astonishes me the number of business people that I coach who jealously keep certain tasks or information to themselves out of fear that a staff member or underling will be “too empowered”. When I once worked for a large international consulting firm, my middle-management associates would often ask me why I spent so much time training my employees to do my job. “Wasn’t I afraid of becoming obsolete?” they would ask.  My response was always that I had no interest in being in my current job a year from today, that I wanted to move up the ladder and someday run the entire office, and then the entire division, the district, the region and so on. “That won’t happen” I used to say “if there is no one competent to fill my position to enable me to move up”. The by-product of preparing and empowering your followers is that they will appreciate the opportunities for advancement that you have prepared them for and will develop a great sense of loyalty, even love for you as a leader. Once you achieve a degree of love with your followers, it no longer becomes necessary to find ways to motivate them. There is no one who will work harder for your interests than someone who loves you. An “employee” may resent your wealth. A “follower” derives great joy out of helping you become more wealthy.

To that end, whenever I am hiring or mentoring someone, and the discussion of “job description” arises, the answer is always very simple. “Your job”, I say, “is to do everything and anything that you can do, leaving me free to do ONLY the things that no one else but I can do, and, along the way I will train you to do more and more, leaving me free to spend more time on things that only I can do.”

I think that Shelby Yastrow, former chief in-house counsel for the McDonalds corporation said it best: “It is the ethical obligation of every great leader in behalf of their followers to at all time be engaged in activities that are the highest and best use of the leader’s time.”  One great example of this principle in action was Andrew Carnegie.  As a young apprentice, Andrew’s employer encouraged him to grow in knowledge and responsibility until one day Andrew himself became a great leader and empowered those beneath him.  Andrew eventually became one of the wealthiest men in history.  There is certainly more to that story including some tragedy and regret, but the fact is that Andrew Carnegie could not have become a captain of industry unless his mentor had practiced this principle.

Your followers, who enable your princely success, have the right to expect that you will at all times be working as hard as you can for the ultimate benefit of the whole team. That only happens when you inspire and empower each of them to work at their individual highest and best use. “Efficient leaders may, through knowledge of their jobs and the magnetism of their personalities, greatly increase the efficiency of others and induce them to render more service and better service than they could by themselves.”

In short, elevating and empowering followers (instead of being fearful they may become your competition) multiplies yourself.  You increase your footprint on the world and your princely influence grows exponentially.