Business Success in This New Economy – Avoid These 5 Leadership Blunders
In this new business economy having strong leadership skills means more than just having effective habits or the ability to persuade. Those are old outdated tools. People have noticed there is a big ethics crisis within our leadership. This ethics disaster has created a global downward spiral in the confidence of current leadership, the first ever global economic crisis and an overwhelming amount of fear and grief.
The behaviors of the leaders who helped catalyze this crisis are from an old out dated leadership model involving cronies, good old boys and hierarchical leadership structures that were disguised as strong valued-based leadership.
Our CEO’s and corporate executives have shaken confidence in our economic future and corporate model. People are in an uproar about the lack of ethics and un-kept promises leaders have recently demonstrated. This lack of ethics has bankrupt many industries, created large job losses and created the first ever global economic crisis. Confidence in the future is at an all time low and stepping up to the leadership plate is a much harder job because of the aftermath left by previous leadership and their ideas of the leadership model.
Now people want leaders to demonstrate what it is that they espouse. People no longer want to follow someone’s pedigree. The CEO’s that have participated in today’s crisis all had degrees from prestigious universities and still many took huge “golden parachutes,” while the masses lost everything. Now more than ever, people are watching to see what it is that leaders believe in. People want to follow a leader’s actions and results. People no longer care what you say you are going to do; people instead watch the results of what you do, and how you support them.
Whatever you advocate as a leader, you must demonstrate in word, deed and action. It must be a mindset that clearly demonstrates excellent self-command. Leadership has taken on new meaning in the new business economy. People want to follow someone with new ideas that are based on serving and creating opportunity for everyone to win, not just the leader and his cronies. Leaders are creating career blunders by not understanding what kind of leadership the new business economy is demanding.
Here are 5 things you must avoid now if you want to succeed as a leader and have a team of people follow you into the new business economy.
Don’t let these blunders trip you up.
You must not have lack or limited thinking.
Lack thinking is part of why we are in this current crisis right now. Somewhere along the way someone thought that they could not get ahead doing business fairly. If you want to lead now, you must be skilled at possibility thinking. This allows you to explore and create new innovation and systems that will enhance your business, life and overall well being. Negative thinking is now know to be poisonous to the body and harms your abilities to be creative. It also slows your drive down and harms your abilities to focus creating undue stress.
Having an “I’m a company man” attitude and philosophy.
Leaders must think and create plans that demonstrate the ability to benefit everyone. Leadership such as “Newman’s Own” proved that a CEO could serve human kind, benefit the whole and still create wealth. No longer will people follow a leader whose ideas benefit only the company and its bottom line.
Not having self command.
Leaders must learn the new tool of self-command, which is the ability to take authentic action in a direction and maintain a powerful level of sustained focused action to complete the task. Self command is taking charge of what you are telling yourself because what you say to yourself either impairs you or empowers you.
Not having a big enough vision.
If you are a leader and your company’s vision is not big enough to create a “purpose and a cause” for others, you will ultimately fail. People want to be a part of something that can change the world and make it better. The size of your company does not matter anymore it is the vision of your company that matters. People want to support visions by giving of their time, money and loyalty. How big your vision is says something about your type of leadership and what you think is possible.
Believing that you are what you think.
You are not what you think. Thinking is a tool not who you are. You can however, experience what you think. There is a big difference here. When you understand this principle you will tap into the most powerful knowledge and skill set you can have as a leader, which is the science of results oriented thinking. This is the understanding that things show up in your life because you are creating the thinking, actions and circumstances that produce them. You do not become what you produce you simply experience the outcomes of what you produce.
Our current and future leaders are now being put under a microscope because of our past leaders’ actions. If you are looking at having a leadership position where others are depending on your abilities to get the job done or create stability in the aftermath of another’s lack thinking leadership model; then understand you must lead from a new perspective and others will develop confidence in you and your ability to lead them. You must understand that people are frightened and distrustful by past actions of our leaders and are wary of giving a new leader a fair break. Leaders who want to influence others must project the hope and possibilities of creating a better tomorrow, today.
New Economy Slang: 15 New Terms for a New Economy
Welcome to the new economy. There are lots of things about this new place that leaves people learning about what’s new but nothing more though then language. The new economy has new words that are continuing to grow in usage and some even added to the dictionary.
I thought I would have some fun today and give you some of those words and the current definition. I say current definitions because some have a few years of usage already however they may not be in vogue in a couple of years. I mean really… nobody says “I am totally jazzed about that,” or “that’s totally rad dude” anymore and words like “synergistic” seem passé and not in the current “hip” leadership lingo.
But fear not…we have a list of the current and “hip” new economy verbiage so you will be “In the know” and look really cool (maybe) using these words.
Okay let’s begin with the first words. I use this word because every word that follows comes from the word “entrepreneur”. They seem to take the “preneur” piece of the word and add it to everything, therefore we have:
Mompreneurs: These are women who bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan and finally get paid for it without leaving their homes thus lowering the cost of daycare in their house. Okay seriously, this is the movement of the stay at home working online moms. You go girls!
Dadpreneurs: These are the same as above or dads that have a career and a homebased business in order to have a backup income source. It is very popular and on the rise.
Infopreneurs: These are the genius business owners who make their living selling information online so that you and I have it at our finger tips.
Spiritpreneur: These are old dead business men who still read Businessweek.com and try to do business from heaven…no wait I was mistaken…it is the guy who actually buys back the souls from the devil (at a discount) so he can try and get them into heaven, see there’s hope for Bernie Madoff…Okay seriously, these are business people that build their businesses around spiritual principles and serving humankind for the highest good.
Manurepreneurs: These are business owners who are scheming, deceitful, are full of S*#T and have fraudulent business practices OR business owners whose main industry is fertilizer. Lol
Thrivalist: This is a sexy word for someone who loves thriving instead of surviving. I love the word thrive. It just rolls off your tongue like honey with images of having more of your best life. There is also “thrival” meaning someone who lives in a state of thriving…let’s say it together shall we…tthhrrrivviinngg. Don’t you feel better already? I do. Become a thrivalist and change the world.
Possibilitarian: Someone who believes anything is possible. (Ya baby… another totally fabulous word.) This word is gaining in popularity among the main stream even though it was coined years ago by the great Norman Vincent Peale. It now describes a mindset that is a necessary skill set in the new economy. Such as…are you a Possibilitarian thinker? Man I love that word…it’s as good as thriving. I am a thriving Possibilitarian. (It should be a bumper sticker)
Monetize: It usually means the central bank is printing bank notes. However, online it means a way to convert ideas into money or establishing something like information or advertising into money. When you add Adsense to your site it is said to be monetizing your site so it can make you money. Monetizing…goooood.
Workation: This is a new word that I love. It was coined by two young entrepreneurs Marc Horne and Hollis Carter. These two laid-back hippie like entrepreneurs teach people the fine art of combining working and vacation together and then writing the whole thing off on your taxes because you did work a lot and play a lot. It is a fabulous combination and I personally indulge in the workcation process, do you?
Cha Ching: This is used to describe a million dollar idea that will make you and your colleague’s more money. When you have the Cha ching it is the sound of money falling into a cash register.
That’s the Money: When an idea has been perfected into a valid money making online or offline business process that will make you and your clients lots of money, you and your partners yell “that’s the money baby!” It’s quite fun to yell it while having beers (wine or cocktails too) with colleagues.
Joint Venture: This used to be a big scary word that described two companies coming together to form a third company. It involved a lot of lawyers, accountants and battling CEO’s. Now however, it means two competing companies working together to form a mutually beneficial agreement and profiting without necessarily forming a third company. Thus no lawyers, accountants and new CEO’s but WAAAAAY more profits.
Passive Income…another fabulous word describing how you make money without trading time for money. You trade value for money. You make money while playing, sleeping, eating or fishing. It is very different and more profitable than working for it. I would strongly suggest you look at how to do this.
Virtual Assistant or office: Most companies are being run from homes and even multi-million dollar companies have virtual assistants that work out of their homes. The brick and cement building is a dying breed.
Outsourcing: A word that describes the 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris. All I can say is “must read!”
Okay there ya have it. This is a small list of words you need to know to speak “new economies” with others. If you have a word that is new and not in the list, please add your comment below and let me know what it is and your definition, even if you make one up.
