The “Fab-Five” leadership principles of all time

by Dave Anderson

While there are many leadership principles that qualify for the “Fab-Five” leadership principles of all time, these are the best. As you read them, determine how well you and your team live them, because they will have profound influence on the sustainable success of your business.

Leaders serve followers; followers do not serve leaders
The leader holds responsibility for adding value to and serving the follower, not the other way around. When you make it a priority to add value to others, your efforts come back multiplied.

Too many managers think otherwise. They think leadership is all about privilege and perks, when it is about responsibility.

In addition to serving the follower, the leader must connect and establish a relationship with his followers. If you believe followers are there to serve you, and don’t understand you responsibility to them, you know nothing of leadership. All you know is tyranny.

Don’t treat unequals equally
Leaders don’t define fairness as trying to be everything to everyone, and by treating all alike. Leaders know that in the context of business, fairness doesn’t mean sameness; fairness means justice.

Justice means people get exactly whey they earn and deserve based on past performance: nothing more and nothing less. While everyone is held to the same standard of character, work ethic and customer care, leaders invest more time and resources where they get a return.

This means not everyone gets the same schedule, pay plan, time and attention, latitude or discretion. Effective leadership must be a good steward of resources rather than a squanderer. A good leader accomplishes this by giving the best to the best and less to the rest.

Building a foundation on moral sand doesn’t last
Effective leaders use the same standard of high moral ethics in all areas of their lives. As John Maxwell points out in his book, business ethics do not exist; there are only ethics, period. 

Ethics should not depend on the situation. Too many leaders have one set of values at home, in church and with friends; and an entirely different (and deficient) set of ethics in business. While one can often rise to a position of prominence with bankrupt morals disguised, they eventually rear their ugly heads. The ensuing freefall from a sandy foundation can happen astonishingly fast.

Effective leaders make the right decisions, not the convenient ones. They also measure others according to core values and hold these behavioral metrics sacred as performance measures. If this sounds old-fashioned, it’s unfortunate. Years ago, the corrupt stood out as pariahs, not the virtuous.

Hold others accountable for results
Effective leaders care enough to confront employees who are off track, slacking, underperforming or otherwise not measuring up. They know they owe no apologies for holding people accountable. However, they do owe apologies if they allow their people to remain deluded and in a gray area for fear of offending their employees.

Leaders know their first obligation is to the good of the organization. They cannot allow a performance that damages the team to go on unchecked. They love the performer, but hate the performance, and realize that because someone cannot hit certain standards, doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. It may just mean they are a bad fit for the position, or the organization has outgrown them. Consequences are imposed for poor performance and people are held accountable. There also comes a time when enough is enough and they have to exercise the ultimate consequence: termination.

Here's a great lesson to teach your people: When they choose a behavior, they choose the consequences for that behavior. In other words, when an employee chooses to come in late, chooses to project a lousy attitude, chooses not to follow up with customers, or adhere to company policy, they chose the pathetic paycheck that comes along with that behavior. No one did it to them; they did it to themselves. They are not victims.

You can’t do it alone
Here is the No. 2 lesson: You can’t do it alone. You can look good for awhile going solo, carrying the load by yourself and being the one-man show. But eventually you’ll run out of energy and plateau. Anyone with substantial goals knows it takes a team to reach them.

Climbing a molehill is easy for a loner, but scaling Mount Everest takes a team.

Effective leaders also know just because a group of people shows up at the same place, at the same time, for a certain number of weeks, months or years doesn’t guarantee a great team. Outstanding teams are deliberately built. It takes a certain attitude and commitment from a leader to invest in others to share time, knowledge and power so employees can become more confident.

They know the greatest measure of leadership is not how well their team does under the watchful eye, but how well their people perform when the leaders are gone.

Weak leaders want to be needed while real leaders want to be succeeded. Thus, great leaders create an environment that allows team members to learn, grow and contribute more. The leader’s payoff? The incredible satisfaction that comes from taking others with them on the way up.

Dave Anderson, author of: Up Your Business: Seven Steps to Fix, Build or Stretch Your Organization (Wiley, 2003), is a speaker and trainer with expertise in leadership and management. He earned his business reputation by leading top national car dealerships to sales of $300 million. For more information go to: www.LearnToLead.com.

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