George Rome Borden -
Some Things I've Learned
About Leadership
Ernest Shackleton leaves Elephant Island on the James Caird with five other members of the expedition.
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Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Guiding Principles
Lead through vision not authority
Always tell the truth
Delegate what you know
Never compare the person to someone
else
Keep promises to yourself. Deliver on all
promises
Ask, “Is there anything more I need to
know or should do?” Abraham Lincoln
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Describe why (good for organization), what
(for them), what stays the same and when
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: What is it?
All things change
Guide people to change such
that objectives can be acheived
Communication
Say exactly what you mean
Strength and Warmth
Confidence
Fluidity of motion
Posture, Smile
Influence in the informal
organization
Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Create a Team from a Group
Understand that nearly everyone
wants to be part of a team
Start with one to one meetings with
your staff and ask:
Why do you want to be in a team?
What team activities/things do you
want?
What do you see as the benefits
of a team?
The replies are bound to have
commonalities. These provide
tools to create team activities
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Create a Team from a Group
Get team members to rely on themselves and each other
Avoid using authority
Ask don’t tell
Create connections between team members
Many leaders think their job is to tell people what to do.
The real work is to know what you think is best, avoid
telling people what you think and inspire them to come
up with better ideas than yours
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Create a Team from a Group
Create trust through work by creating situations where trust
can be earned and given
Cross populate projects
Team needs to trust each other to complete their tasks
on the co-project
Knowledge of the project is less concentrated and
therefore less risk
Allow teams to self select tasks. This way they will see that
they can trust each other
When someone is selected to perform a task, explicitly ask
the team whether or not they trust the person for the activity
Ahead of time you should already know what you think. This
becomes a reference frame for active listening to the team
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Reaching Peak Performance
Why do you want peak performance
from your team?
A good team nearly manages
itself, which leaves time for
you to focus on other activities
A self-managing team makes it possible for you to provide
guidance
Once you have a team, can you guide the team such that
the whole adds up to more than the peak performance of
the individual members?
Reward team efforts. Ask of each person, what they can
do to improve the team
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Reaching Peak Performance
Staff meetings led by the manager have three purposes
To reach a consensus goal on some topic
For staff to raise high level issues that require
management AND team attention or consensus
For the manager to provide information to the team
together at one time
Do you need regular staff meetings? Do you have enough
of the above items to fill a weekly agenda? Are there actions
that you wish to accomplish in a meeting?
As manager of a staff meeting, you should always have a
goal in mind. The work (agenda) of the meeting is to get
everyone in the meeting to reach the goal on their own.
Sometimes teams exceed expectations. Have modest
goals.
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden

Leadership: Learning
Get in the game
Find and keep a mentor
Read science on human behavior
Steer yourself toward success
Copyright © 2009 George Rome Borden