A Leader's Greatest Asset

Exceptional leaders identify the need to lead by talking to everybody. They create the best resource possible by using everyone and anyone as a source of information.

Improve your resources and knowledge bank by first analyzing the groups you talk with now. You probably have regularly scheduled meetings and informal discussions with others about concerns and issues. Think about who you systematically favor for information and who you may systematically ignore. Schedule time on your calendar to ask anybody and everybody about the issues and concerns they face at work.

Sam Walton, founder of WalMart, the number-one retail company in the world, traveled around the country continually visiting his stores. His goal was to gather information from every and any source. Walton talked to store managers, cashiers, stock clerks, and customers. He queried them about the issues, concerns, and problems that they felt affected store success and customer satisfaction.

Ask people again and again for information so that you are clear about what needs to be done. Typically when people focus on how to resolve a problem, they generate eight answers for every question they ask. Answers do not give you information. Asking does. Accept that you do not have to know everything to lead and that people will tell you what you do need to know.

Take Vera Katz, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, since 1993. Katz sends surveys to 10,000 citizens. She asks for ratings of the police department, water bureau, environmental services, public transportation, and other city bureaus. The surveys also rate the psyche of Katz's constituents. Katz wants to know if people feel safe walking at night in their neighborhood, in city parks, and in the downtown area. The surveys seek responses about whether the streets are clean enough and if the city speed limits are appropriate. Katz's surveys assess the quality of parks and recreation services and the "livability" of Portland.

The Katz example illustrates the importance of letting others help you identify a need to lead by asking them for information. Sam Walton had no difficulty asking for input. He claimed he got 99 percent of his ideas from cashiers, customers, and stock clerks. Use every and any source as an additional radar screen to help you identify where and when there is a need for you to lead. Find out what others feel needs attention now. Learn from the people closest to your key customers, suppliers, and operating systems personnel. Talk to the newest people in the company. They could have the freshest ideas because they are less likely to be assimilated into the organization's "way of doing things."

Adopt the Katz or Walton style and utilize the knowledge, skills, and experience of your employees. You may be wasting money if you do not do so. Encourage them to make constructive suggestions about how products, services, savings, or safety can be improved, or waste reduced or eliminated. This is what leadership is all about!

Remember to acknowledge, and possibly reward, any input from employees that leeds to an improvement.