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That’s My Opinion By Ron Sturgeon rons@rdsinvestments.com
Tools for Success – Be A Leader – Not A Boss
ow do you see yourself at work? Are you a boss or a leader? Think about how your employees see you. Do they see you as a boss or a leader? Do they see the other man- agers on your team as bosses or leaders? The difference may sound like rhetoric, but it’s real.
H Without leadership, you
won’t get peak performance from your people. You won’t get close to the results you could. Two things made me a leader and not a boss. One was hunger. We all have about the same natural ability. The real questions is how much desire we have. Desire is what makes one person the per- sistence to stay at it until he or she reach- es a difficult goal. You’re a leader because the people around you know you have that level of desire. You want to win, and you want the people you lead to play on a winning team.
When I was growing my salvage yards quickly, I used to get a question that tick- led me: “Ron, how can you hire 100 employees? I can’t find six that are worth a crap.” Whenever I hear that question, I always wonder whether the real source of the problem is the employer. As owners, after all, we create the work environment at the business. Employees can like work- ing for us, or not. Of course, money is a big part of how they feel. However, having happy, productive employees is about more than the right paycheck. Employees like to work for a growing, successful company. Do you and your management team project that image? Would a person who showed up for a job interview at your yard see the signs of growth and success?
The second thing that made me a leader was a willingness to invest money
24 Automotive Recycling | January-February 2015
to improve myself. Leaders are willing to invest in making themselves and their team members better. Are you investing time to read books and magazine articles about leadership? Have you or your top managers gone to any training on effec- tive team building? Leading teams? Effective hiring?
The investment in developing leader- ship skills will help go from boss to leader. You and your team should be going to a seminar on these topics once a quarter. Expect to pay between $100 to $200 per person, a little less if you send more people.
I have always been a great admirer of Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s. He grew from one restaurant to two, and two to three, because he had so many people who wanted to come work for him at his new restaurant. They could have found a boss anywhere. What they want- ed was to be part of creating a successful business and to work for an outstanding leader.
Develop Your Inner Leader Have a mantra of constant develop-
ment and improvement. Read a business- building book per month. Dog-ear pages,
make notes, make sure you have take- aways, executable ideas. We all start at the same place. Some of us expand, and oth- ers don’t. And, some of us who expand, keep expanding until we can’t anymore (that’s can’t, not won’t).
If you read eight best sellers about mar- keting, you will be 80 percent as smart as the marketing people who want to get paid for advice to help you. The same applies to other areas of knowledge that are vital to your business success. Read in those areas, especially the ones you feel least confident about. After you finish a book, give it to your management team with the sections you have highlighted and pages you have dog-eared. Attend seminars focused on making your business grow. You should go to at least six per year in the early years. Your team leaders should go with you. Some seminars will be suited for owners or top financial managers, such as how to mini- mize taxes. Other seminars, such as how to lead teams, will be a good fit for many of your managers and team leaders. There are one-day seminars on a host of valuable, business-building topics: man- aging difficult personalities, motivating salespersons, how to hire and fire, etc.