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Hi Team,

It’s good to be back after a couple of weeks leave, during which Josh pitched in, doing an admirable job creating the last two weekly emails. Thanks Heaps Josh: I thoroughly enjoyed reading your emails.

This week I will continue with part three of my commentary on leadership. To quickly recap the previous two emails on leadership; I firstly outlined that an effective leader must have a real purpose and passion for what they do, must really know themselves and must know and understand what motivates them? Secondly, I discussed that the leader of a business is really the brand ambassador who's main job is to constantly reinforce the core values and the culture of the business.

A business owner can only do so much of the work themselves, and to allow the business to grow and evolve they must be able to delegate work to other people within the business. Therefore, an essential part of being a good business leader is the ability to understand people and their unique characters and abilities. The leader must be able to recognise what needs to be done in an organisation and who is the best person to do it? 

"The key to growing a successful business is hiring smart people then letting them get on with it”,  Bill Campbell.

However, there is a distinct difference between delegation and abdication.  Successful delegation of a work task requires setting clear guidelines for the task, regular follow ups and setting specific outcomes and expectations for completing the task. Whilst abdication is simply assigning a task to someone else (to get it off your own to do list) then walking away. Effective leadership is about knowing your individual team members unique abilities, equipping them to make their own decisions and making them responsible for their actions.

"Your title makes you a manager. Your people make you a leader",  Eric Schmidt.

There are very few natural born leaders. Leadership is a skill that most of us must learn throughout life and must continuously work on to improve. A few ways you can improve your leadership skills are,

• Manage your time (if you delegate one extra task each day you can potentially free up 30 minutes per day).
• Get out of your own head (write stuff down, keep lists then share them).
• Always be yourself (leaders must be authentic and admit their shortcomings).
• Have a clear and open work process and share it with your team.
• Always seek advice and feedback from your peers.

Ultimately it is the leaders that are responsible for what happens in a business and it is vital for them to act as the
"gate keepers" as well as the motivators.  

The next DDB Team Meeting + lunch will be held Friday 15th November at 12.00 noon.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely Cup Day.
David.