How to become a better and more successful leader

©GunnarSchröder2016
Hope You got
Some Inspiration
Need More ?
information, consultancy, seminars
please contact me at
Gunnar Schröder
+41 76 748 34 93
Gunnar.Schroeder@bluewin.ch
Accelerate your
Team Performance
40+ Tips
making you a better and
more successful leader…
by Gunnar Schröder

40+ Tips
making you a better and
more successful leader
If you do want to get more out of your team,
have more fun to work with your team and
develop your leadership skills to the next
level, I’m sure the following content is a
good source of inspiration.
With more than 40 practical tips sorted
under 7 topics I have summarized key issues
from my own practical experience I gained in
15+ years as a leader.
Gunnar Schröder , April 2016
Accelerate Your
Team Performance

Care for a Good Mood
The key to outstanding performance.
Earn Trust
You can’t earn trust if you don’t give trust.
Gain Respect
The reason why people would follow you.
Strive for Excellence
Never stop making things better.
Have Customer & Corporate Wins
in Mind
The key to sustainable growth.
Foster Team Work
A team can achieve more than a number of individuals.
Take Personnel Responsibility
Serious
Every individual desires attention and deserves feedback.
40+ Tips making you a better
and more successful leader
Content
Accelerate Your
Team Performance

Care for a
Good Mood
The key to
outstanding performance.

A good mood/spirit is the
fundamental output you have
to achieve to make your team
successful.
It is not one thing that makes a good
mood and every single of the
following 40+ tips will contribute.
However on the next page please find
the most obvious things relating
to your behavior which directly
impacting the mood of your team.
CareforagoodMood

Obvious things how you as a
leader can directly impact the
mood of your team:
o Be friendly, smile.
o Don’t take everything dead serious.
o Make sure your team is enjoying to
work.
o Care for what your people do.
o Compliment good work and
commitment.
o Celebrate success.
o Communicate bad information
clearly and fast allowing your team
to quickly work again on something
positive.
CareforaGoodMood

Earn Trust
You can’t earn trust
if you don’t give trust.

If people don’t trust you, you will
never be in the position to know what
moves them, what issues they are
struggling with, what help they might
need and what great ideas they
have.
Without trust you can not grow
your own personality either, as no
one will give you any honest feedback
about your behavior and your ideas.
EarnTrust

Listening. For listening it is not
enough to have your ears open, you
need to create actively
opportunities to encourage your
team to speak up. You need to be
physically available to get most out of
it.
You need to be easy accessible
to allow a natural communication. If
your diary is always fully booked and
you door always closed, your team will
even avoid to talk to you as they
assume you do not have any interest
in your team. EarnTrust

Take wishes and issues
seriously. Taking wishes and
issues seriously does not mean that
you have to react to everything. But
even by making people understand
why you would set different priorities
than the actual reported issue will
support trust building and
encourage people to come to
you again with their whishes and
issues. And maybe the next idea is a
real booster for your team.
EarnTrust

Be honest. Would you trust
someone who is telling you lies?
Honesty includes to say it openly if you
don’t know something. Don’t tell
fairytales to escape from a difficult
situation. If you think this undermines
your authority I can assure you the
opposite will happen.
Ask for advice. To ask people
for their advice /opinion is an
expression of esteem. But this only
works as source of trust building in
case you seriously take other
peoples opinions and advice into
account. EarnTrust

Be fair. Treat people equally
independent from their status, look,
gender, your likes and dislikes. If you
are not fair to others, other
people will not be fair to you.
Have your emotions
under control. You have to
give other people security
whenever they talk to you with
whatever issue. If people are afraid to
talk to you as they can not predict
your reaction, you have lost control. To
keep emotions in critical situations
under control focus on the what
and why and not on the how and
when.
EarnTrust

Gain Respect
The reason why
people would follow you.
.

Communicate clear future
perspectives. Everybody has a
desire to know what is tomorrow. Your
team will have confidence in you if you
express and communicate your
confidents about the future.
Be optimistic. A strong “can do”
attitude with the right portion of
realism is especially in difficult times a
great power source for your team.
Set clear priorities. There are
usually more things you could do than
you can practically do. To set clear
priorities is not only underlining your
authority but supports your team to
feel confident about their work.
GainRespect

Be consequent. Stay to your
sayings or don’t say it.
Live what you expect and
work hard. If you want to be
respected you need to always do
more than you would ever
expect from your team and never ask
for something you would not do by
yourself.
Admit your failures. If you
make mistakes, admit them.
GainRespect

Be modest. Modesty is a key
element to earn real respect. If you
always strive to have on company
expenses the latest smart phone or
enjoy luxury hotels while your team is
asked to turn every pence twice, don’t
expect people will face you with
respect.
Don’t run away from
troubles. Face them. Surely it is
often easier to run away from troubles
than to face them. However your team
and company will thank you if you
take the efforts to solve them.
As a leader there are almost no issues
that you could say “this is not my
issue”. If it helps the company it is
your issue.
GainRespect

Say your opinion. Be brave
enough to say your opinion not only to
your team but also to your superiors.
If you think something is
wrong or will not work - say it !
If the culture in your company does
not appreciate this -change the
company !
Delegate properly. Successful
and respectful delegation only works if
the task and priorities are fully
understood, the expectations are
aligned and the workload manageable
by the person you delegate to.
Therefore delegation by e-mail
often causes frustration at both
sides and does not lead to the results
expected.
GainRespect

Strive for
Excellence
Never stop making
things better.
.

Appreciate failures. If
someone is making a mistake,
appreciate it. Any failure is a
chance to improve something
and no one is doing failures on
purpose. If someone is doing the same
failure again and again then you have
either not improved anything or the
person doing the failures is really on
the wrong job. Both is your mistake as
a leader.
Don’t rest on your
achievements.
If you think everything is just perfect I
can assure you there is always
room for improvement. If you do
not constantly work on doing things
better you will be soon outpaced by
the competition.
StriveforExcellence

Work on details. A single detail
might not make a difference but the
accumulation of many little details do.
Therefore if you think “why should I
bother” better think it twice.
Be persistent. Don’t give up
easily if you are convinced the track is
right. Speed is often not the issue.
Sustainability is the key.
Don’t retain the status
quo. Constantly ask “why ?” to
ensure that anything you are doing
and how you are doing it still fits the
purpose. Especially in the very
dynamic world of today nothing is valid
for very long time.
StriveforExcellence

Win Win
Have
Customer & Corporate
Wins in Mind
The key to sustainable growth
.

Win Win
Do what needs to be
done. Don’t run away from tasks
that are outside your core
responsibility. Do things that you think
are right to do, also without having an
official assignment.
Take responsibility. Care
that jobs are really done to the
advantage of your customers and
company. Do not just do things for the
purpose of satisfying the internal
requirements without adding any
value.
Look beyond your own
nose. Don’t look only for the
success and advantage of your own
department. Look for corporate
success.
HaveCustomer&CorporateWinsinMind

Win Win
Keep your eyes and ears
open. Record issues and do
something against it.
No politics. If things are just
good for you but not for the business I
bet sooner or later the time for
revenge will come.
Don’t be just obedient. If
your instinct or even worse your
rational evaluation says what you are
asked to do will harm the company or
customer, better talk again with your
boss.

Win Win
Think long term. To have
short term success might be nice for
your bonus tomorrow. However
without having the view on long term
success and sustainable growth, any
business will die sooner or later.
Don’t compromise when
selecting personnel.
Selecting appropriate personnel is key
for any company. I strongly
recommend turning down your short
term desires for finding someone as
quickly as possible. What are 3
months more or less if someone
contributes for 5 years or more?

Foster
Team Work
A team can achieve more
than a number of individuals.

Make responsibilities
transparent. In an environment
where responsibilities and authorities
are not clearly named it is very difficult
to foster cooperation and teamwork.
Make employees targets
transparent. Cooperation and
teamwork can only grow in an
environment where everybody
understands how he himself and
others contribute to the overall target.
FosterTeamWork

Organize at least once a
year an off-site. This is not
only an excellent opportunity to collect
new ideas e.g. for the coming business
year but especially useful to get
people closer together outside
the usual working environment.
If you don’t feel confident to run such
an event on your own, hire a facilitator
for the event. This is not cheap but
worth the money.
FosterTeamWork

Take Personnel
Responsibility
Serious
Every individual
desires attention and deserves feedback.

Give and take feedback. To
develop each individual in your team,
honest feedback is one of the most
important tools to make your team
successful.
Feedback only works in trustful
relationships (see “Rule 2”). Also
actively ask for feedback to get
important insights and hints about how
to become a better leader.
TakePersonnelResponsibilitySerious

Work on the strength of
your staff. Support everyone in
your team to utilize his strength to the
max. This starts with understanding
the strength and desires of each
individual.
Help with coaching and distribute
the tasks in your team in a way that
supports growth of each
individual who is willing to grow and
utilizes the strength as best as
possible.

Utilize the target
evaluation and agreement
as real management tool.
Talk about the job description, let
your staff explain what they really
do and what is the core of their work,
what they like on their job and what
frustrates them.
I strongly believe that only if you have
relevant discussions with your
employees about their personal target
and achievement you can align
expectations, create spirit and
motivation.
I would recommend to have this
discussion every 6 month.

Hope You got
some Inspiration
Want to
know More ?
Information, Consultancy, Seminars
Please contact me at:
Gunnar Schröder
+41 76 748 34 93
Gunnar.Schroeder@bluewin.ch

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