Back to basics: Leadership Rules 101

I enjoy those leadership books that revisit the basics. While some books on leadership are better than others, I always find it helpful to be reminded of the fundamentals. Whenever I’ve managed to get myself in trouble it’s because I’ve forgotten or ignored a basic rule. Here’s a non-exhaustive list of Leadership Rules 101 that are worth remembering.

• Do the right thing. Remember that the most expedient thing is not always the right thing.
• Your best people are your organization’s best asset. Invest in them.
• You are primarily responsible for your stewardship of the organization, not for the needs or happiness of everyone in it.
• Foster responsibility, do not cater to the weakest in the system. If you tolerate poor workers and poor performers you will lose your best people first.
• Leadership is 100% effort done 100% of the time. It comes with the job. The day you decide you’re too tired to be the leader, someone else becomes the leader.
• The leader sets the tone for the organization. Leaders who want integrity, transparency, loyalty, and honesty in their organization need to practice them first.
• Leaders are not defined by their business card nor their paycheck, but by their character and their actions.
• Don’t get in a business that’s not your business.
• When you leave, leave. The future, decisions and welfare of the organization are no longer your responsibility—or, your business.
• Leave the organization in better shape than how you found it.

What are some of your basic rules of leadership? Share them.

From, Perspectives on Congregational Leadership: Applying Systems Theory for Effective Leadership, by Israel Galindo.