Extraordinary Business Success Comes From Within

If you are a growing small business looking to obtain and retain top talent read the tip below to develop a high performing organization.

1. Create the best. To achieve the extraordinary, you need extraordinary people. Creating them involves three stages: locate and recruit volunteers, screen and select the cream of candidates, train and motivate for excellence.
2. Dare the impossible. Give your employees demanding, high-impact jobs and the results will blow you away. Give them anything less and not only will your resources be wasted, but your employees will soon be off seeking challenges somewhere else.
3. Throw the rule book away. High impact performers thrive on innovation. As the chief innovator, you need to stay alert to opportunities and threats in your environment, encourage a shared vision with clear goals, develop a tolerance for the unusual and bizarre and reward bold ideas that work.
4. Be where the action is. A true leader leads from the front. As a leader you must share the risks, the hardships and the defeats as well as the victories.
5. Commit and require total commitment. If you are totally committed to a project or purpose, your employees will follow you, regardless of the sacrifices. Communicate face-to-face, make commitments public and don’t stop when the going gets rough.
6. Demand tough discipline. If you want your organization to succeed, you have to help your employees develop self-discipline. Set the example by obeying rules from above.
7. Inspire others to follow your vision. As a leader, you must first have a clear vision of where you want your organization to go and what you want it to be, and then make it compelling and meaningful to others. Promote your vision with a motto and other tools.
8. Accept full blame; give full credit. You can delegate authority, but not responsibility. Hold your employees accountable for their failures, but don't leave them holding the bag. When your employees prevail, give them credit for the victory—completely, unselfishly and publicly.
9. Take charge! To be the kind of leader that employees will respect and follow, you must dominate the situations right from the outset, establish your objectives early in the game, communicate with their team, act boldly and decisively, lead by example and follow your instincts.

Adapted from Secrets of Special OPs Leadership: Dare the Impossible—Achieve the Extraordinary by William A. Cohen.