Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

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Improve Your Leadership Skills

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leadership-skillsWhile you work on building your business by acquiring knowledge in your field, technical expertise, speaking skills and other business acumen, don’t overlook a trait you need to become truly successful.

The most successful people in every industry are leaders. They are the ones that others look up to, desire to learn from and aspire to be.

Leaders aren’t born – they’re created. You have to make yourself a leader in your niche or someone else will blow right past you and gain the attention of your audience.

Here are some steps you can take to improve your leadership skills.
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Beyond the Ordinary

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Here is this week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina: What is the Monday Morning Message?

The great mass of humanity is satisfied with an ordinary level. Such people are not the worst, neither are they the best. Some of them even question any advance beyond the ordinary level. Their fight is simply to hold their own.

Our job as Leaders is to embody, yes even incarnate, that Higher Level before the very eyes of those around us. If we are to have dynamic influence, we must proclaim the message of these higher ideals, and then match our words by performance—actually living out these higher ideals.

He who would be a Leader must show by his own life—in his home, his business, his church, his community—the practicability of the new level to which he bids man come. He must carry his message in his face, in his acts. in his business, in his whole life.

This week let’s definitely set our hearts on a Higher Level; and through our daily habits force ourselves to live on this level.

Comparing ourselves to others can lead to being satisfied with an ordinary level of accomplishment. After all, as long as we are doing better than some other people, isn’t that good enough?

It might be good enough for those who aspire to be ordinary, but not for those who want to be their best. And that is the key—being YOUR best, not as good as someone else or better than someone else, but the best you can be.

Until the day you achieve perfection (and don’t hold your breath waiting for that!) there will always be room to improve. Look for ways you can reach new levels in all areas of your life.

Are You a Tenth Man?

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina: What is the Monday Morning Message?

“Every Tenth. Man Does the Thinking For the Other Nine. Are You a Tenth Man?”

The above was taken from a sermonette called “Think.”

Nine men carry out the plans and ideas of some other person.

What price am I willing to pay this week to become a Tenth Man? Among a hundred fellow workers, ten are going to poke their heads above the crowd. Am I one of the Ten? What Price Success!

Then there are some Second Mile Men around me. They travel the one duty mile and then go an extra mile which is not required of them. Who could hold back such men?

Tenth Men—who lead the Crowd.

Second Mile Men—who go all the way and then some.

Tenth Men and Second Mile Men think straight and then keep on thinking. Big Men think Big Things. Little men think little things. The difference between men is all in their thinking.

Have you a plan for Thinking Straight? If not, get one.

Natural leaders emerge in every group. These are the people who are willing to come up with a course of action and commit to it. Others sit passively by waiting for a consensus to form or for someone to tell them what to do.

When you are a part of a group, do you put your ideas forth with conviction? Are you a leader or a follower?

Leaders

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This week’s Monday Morning Message from Wm. H. Danforth, founder of Ralston Purina:
What is the Monday Morning Message?

Leaders simply fascinate me. I read about them, talk about them. I sidle up to them, hoping some Leadership stuff will rub off on me.

To get a job done, find a Leader.

To distribute a product, sell some Leaders. Few people insist on what they want. A Leader does. Dealers carry what a relatively small number of their Leading customers want. Others follow the Leaders.

A shrewd observer said that when Irene Castle bobbed her hair the sub-debs of Manhattan mimicked her, and finally the buds in Battle Creek and Bloomington followed her example. The skirt line was raised first by a few Leaders on the boulevards — and then on Main Street.

What’s the biggest thing you want to accomplish this week? Put it down on paper. Then pick your Leaders at the specific point of contact to do the job. Your ability to do this will determine just what kind of a Leader you are.

Who are the leaders who can help your business?

These people may be thought leaders who can influence your customers, or leaders who can pull together a team to help you accomplish what you need to do.

If you do not personally know the leaders who can help you, figure out how you can reach them. You may know people who know them, or you may be able to make yourself known to them by doing something for them.

Figure out what you need to do, identify the leaders who can help you reach your goals, then determine how working with you can benefit those leaders.