You challenge the pros, sometimes in their own backyards, because they can become complacent, lazy and a little out of touch with the latest thinking and ideas. And if you don’t stay in touch with what is happening, with the directions your market might take, or with new techniques to help you stay efficient and effective, well, you’ll find yourself in trouble. Quickly.

Leadership is not about blind obedience to anyone or anything. Leadership is often about striking out in a new direction, or knowing what elements of the ‘old’ to keep, how to use them, and what elements of the ‘new’ to adopt…

If you have a ‘yes man’ working for you, somebody is redundant. Don’t let it be you!

If you are following the pack, and not striking out on your own… I’m reminded of Apple’s iPod. They weren’t first with a portable solid state music player (I almost said MP3, but iPods usually use a different format…) But they made that market their own, and few can name another maker of similar devices…

So what can you, what should you, challenge the pros about? Where, when and how? After all, this is not about destroying a person or their reputation – what would that say about you?

Let me know how you get on!

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The 3rd of Colin Powell’s 18 lessons of leadership is “don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites” and could at first glance challenge many people’s perceptions, given the focus on gurus and elites in this industry!

“Don’t be buffaloed by experts and elites.  Experts often possess more data than judgment.  Elites can become so inbred that they produce hemophiliacs who bleed to death as soon as they are nicked by the real world.”

In our industry so many people will lionise gurus and experts and elite groups. There is no doubt that a small number of people – gurus – have done a fantastic job with the programmes and business models they’ve brought to the market. Also, there is a widely held belief that anywhere from 90-97% of people coming to the industry will fail to be successful. I’m not totally sure what this means and I haven’t seen the actual data & evidence…

Does this mean the gurus are talking rubbish or are the cause of so much failure?

No!

It’s a bit like the morality issue with a gun – you can use it to hunt for food and so stay alive, or use it to shoot another human being – the gun is not the issue, once it’s been invented. The issue is the intent of the person with the gun. And so it is with the products and mindsets on offer from the gurus. If people don’t put in to practice in a way that works for that person the lessons and tools on offer, then failure will be more likely. Equally, blindly following a guru, or lots of gurus, is equally asking for failure too…

So my call to action with this is simple – go in with your eyes wide open, be prepared to go ‘off piste’ as it were, to adapt things to your own situation and strengths, and be discriminating – choose your gurus with care!

Cheers

Martin

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The second lesson of General Colin Powell’s 18 lessons of leadership is summed up as follows:

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is theday you have stopped leading them.  They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care.  Either case is a failure of leadership.”

So what does this have to do with network marketing?

Well, if you have a download, they’re like the soldiers that Colin Powell refers to. So, if they stop coming to you with their problems, you’re leadership has, for them, failed.

How can you ensure they feel they can trust you, that you can help them in some way, either by pointing them to a solution, helping them find their own way to a solution, or just being there to hear and share the pain?

Years ago I served in my country’s air force on a helicopter squadron. One day we were told that we’d have to give up the weekend, that we’d have to work to support a short notice operation. It doesn’t matter here what the operation was. The squadron commander could easily have stayed away – the squadron personnel knew what to do and how to do it, and didn’t need a senior officer getting in the way… but the commander stayed, making coffee for lower ranks, making sure they were OK, getting fed and so on.

He was sharing the pain and being ‘one of us’ – so why wouldn’t we come to him with problems?

This is just one example – and I know you can find your own.

A great starting point if you are new to leadership is to take a look at the Leadership Challenge by Kouzes & Posner – see www.leadershipchallenge.com or click here.

There you will find out more about their 5 element framework – the 5 exemplary practices of leadership, listed below. Nearly 30 years of research make this a very proven & robust model.

1. Model the Way
2. Inspire a Shared Vision
3. Challenge the Process
4. Enable Others to Act
5. Encourage the Heart

Good luck!

Cheers

Martin

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I recently came across a set of PowerPoint slides that contain a summary of the “18 Lessons Of Leadership” by Colin Powell. Politics and history aside, like him or not, he has some useful, sensible and high impact things to say.

And I couldn’t help but think about how his lessons are relevant to network marketing.

You see, we’re all involved in developing ourselves and our businesses, and many of us are also involved in developing others as well as their businesses – I’m talking here about downlines.

As Colin Powell points out in his first lesson, trying to be liked by everyone is a sign of mediocrity. Do you want to be led by a mediocre leader? You can be sure your downlines don’t!

Mediocrity means avoiding the tough decisions, avoiding confrontation with people who need to be confronted, and avoiding differential rewards based on differential performance (e.g. giving somebody a bigger bonus because they brought in more commission for you…).

Behaving in this way simply angers the most creative and productive people in your downline and around you. In these challenging economic times can you afford to do this?

And it’s not just about downlines – uplines need leading too – and if you’ve read about any of the 12 obstacles I identified in recent research (in my Network Marketing Manifesto) you’ll know that I have a particular focus on poor upline and HQ support – making this situation better is going to need you to take the first step – the upline/HQ are either not aware of the need, capable or willing to do it themselves.

Having said all this, my call to action is not to go out and p*ss people off!

No – it’s to go out and be responsible – not just for the outcomes you produce, but for the outcomes you WANT.

Have a great day!

Cheers

Martin

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