You should!

The leader is the essential element to a business's success or failure. And it is critical for a leader to create a vision and communicate the steps clearly so that team members know exactly how they will accomplish it. HG Management Consulting conducted a worldwide study of 15,000 businesses that failed from 1995-1999. The study indicated that ineffective leadership was one of the top reasons for failure 70% of the time!

Warren Bennis, author of Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge, warns: "A business low on capital can borrow money. And one with a poor location can move. But a business short on leadership has little chance of survival."

Leaders of today's businesses must cope with a unique set of challenges. Technological, social, and economic forces compel leaders to address these issues in order to stay ahead of the competition. Some of these challenges include:

• Globalisation of business leading to cultural competency requirements
• Growth of strategic alliances
• Acceleration of information and access to it
• Daily innovations in technology
• Changing demographics and workforce
• Flattening of organisation, increased workloads and expanding skill requirements

Noel M. Tichy, author of The Leadership Engine finds: "In the future, the real core competence of companies will be the ability to continuously and creatively destroy and remake themselves to meet customer demands. Everyone in the organisation must take responsibility for taking responsive actions. This means that a company needs leadership everywhere in the organisation. From the corner office, in the customer rep's cubicle, and on the shop floor. Leadership is the ability to see reality as it really is and to mobilise the appropriate response."

Leadership is the art of motivating people to act and includes the following key aspects:

• Managing with high energy and boundless enthusiasm
• Giving people a sense of purpose and direction
• Planning for success — nothing succeeds in motivating people more than being successful and nobody wants to be associated with failure
• Dishing out plenty of praise and encouragement
• Creating opportunities for people to get attention
• Demonstrating confidence and faith in people's abilities
• Encouraging achievable tasks
• Giving people a sense of history and hope
• Developing a collective vision for the future

Warren Bennis in his book Why Leaders Can't Lead says that leadership is not:

• A position: Almost anyone can be elected, selected, anointed, self-appointed, promoted, or succeeded.
• Building a personality cult: Giving too much power to one individual is detrimental to the leader, to the followers, and to the cause. Build collective leadership, not personality cults.
• Being indispensable: Effective leadership is being dispensable. The mark of a true leader is demonstrated by the fact that the show must and can go on without him or her.
• Blaming others: Leadership is first and foremost being responsible for the decisions you make or fail to make.

According to Federal Express, its best leaders share nine personal attributes. The company defines them with remarkable specificity. Federal Express also has a system for rating aspiring leaders. How do you rate?

• Charisma: Instils faith, respect, and trust. Has a special gift of seeing what others need to consider. Conveys a strong sense of mission.
• Individual consideration: Coaches, advises, and teaches people who need it. Actively listens and gives indications of listening. Gives newcomers a lot of help.
• Intellectual stimulation: Gets others to use reasoning and evidence instead of unsupported opinion. Enables others to think about old problems in new ways. Communicates in a way that forces others to rethink ideas that they had never questioned before.
• Courage: Willing to stand up for ideas even if they are unpopular. Does not give into pressure or others' opinions to avoid confrontation. Will do what's right for the company and for employees even if it causes personal hardship.
• Dependability: Follows through and keeps commitments. Takes responsibility for actions and accepts responsibility for mistakes. Works well independently of the boss.
• Flexibility: Functions effectively in changing environments. When a lot of issues hit at once, handles more than one problem at a time. Changes course when the situation warrants it.
• Integrity: Does what is morally and ethically right. Does not abuse management privileges. Is a consistent role model.
• Judgement: Reaches sound and objective evaluations of alternative courses of action through logic, analysis, and comparison. Puts facts together rationally and realistically. Uses past experience and information to bring perspective to present decisions.
• Respect for others: Honours and does not belittle the opinions or work of other people, regardless of their status or position.

There are some business planning errors that will leave you saying "I can't believe I did that." Listed below are the top 10 that all leaders should aim to avoid.

1. Failing to plan in the first place. Planning isn't easy. But the planning process is bound to leave your company better prepared to face an uncertain future. Although a business development plan may not solve all your problems, it can help. Planning makes you a better manager and makes your company, no matter how large or small it is, more competitive and more likely to succeed over the long haul.
2. Shrugging off values and vision. You're itching to line up your products and services, seize the opportunities that are right in front of you, and face down your competitors one by one. This situation is the business version of a roller-coaster ride, and you can't deny that it's exciting — ups, downs, hairpin corners. But roller coasters end up right back where they start. And so will your company, if you don't stand back and spend some time on the values and vision that set you off in the right direction. Your company's values and vision statements are there to remind you where you want to go and what you want to become. Together, these statements are your business compass, so you don't want to start your journey without them.
3. Second-guessing the customer. Whether you're trying to satisfy an individual customer face to face or attempting to figure out what an entire segment of the market needs and wants, you ignore what customers tell you at your own peril. This idea seems so obvious that it's hardly worth repeating. But you may be surprised how many companies approach the marketplace with a we-know-just-what-you're-looking-for attitude. Just remember that if you're not listening to your customers, one of your competitors is.
4. Underestimating your competition. Watching your competitors is just as important as listening to your customers. After all, if you want to stay ahead of the pack, you have to know what the rest of the pack is up to. The more you know about your competitors, the more you can use what you know to beat them at their own game.
5. Ignoring your own strengths. Why does the grass always seem a little bit greener in the other company's yard? It usually isn't all that green when you get up close and look carefully. But there's a real temptation in business to think that other companies have all the right answers, the better way of doing things, the correct approach. Oh, you can always learn things from your competition — no doubt about it. But what's right for one competitor isn't necessarily going to be the best way for you to do things. So don't forget to catalogue your company's own unique strengths and use them to your own advantage in the marketplace.
6. Mistaking a budget for a plan. Putting together your company's budget is one of the most critical steps in the business development planning process. But don't ever mistake this budget for your business development plan. The bulk of your plan is all the work that you do upfront, before you begin to put your budget together in the first place. All that analysis of your industry, customers, competitors and yourself makes your financial decisions the right ones — the ones that move your company closer to your larger business goals.
7. Shying away from reasonable risk. Some people jump out of airplanes; others won't ride a ferris wheel. Some of us are willing to bet the farm; others have trouble buying a lottery ticket. But no matter how you feel about risk, nothing's risk-free, especially in today's competitive markets. Doing business means taking risks, and creating a business development plan is one good way to manage those risks. Don't shy away from making a bold business move after you've done your homework, assessed the risk and know that it's a reasonable step to take.
8. Allowing one person to dominate the plan. Nobody has all the right answers. So no matter how big or small your company is, don't create a business development plan all by yourself. Even if you're the only one running the show, get other people you trust involved in your planning process — at the very least, to review what you've done and provide an outside perspective. If your company is bigger, involve as many people with different points of view as you can in your planning process. The more viewpoints you get, the stronger the business plan will be.
9. Being afraid to change. It's not easy to change the way that you do business or the kind of business that you do. Change is particularly hard if you're really successful. But a good business plan alerts you to changes that your company should make before you're forced to make them — changes that allow you to be more responsive to customers, more competitive, more efficient and more successful.
10. Forgetting to motivate and reward. You have to link your strategy to your vision; link your vision to the company mission; link your mission to the goals and objectives that you set. Then you have to link all these pieces of the plan to the way in which you motivate and reward the people around you.

For leaders, helping team members cope with change is almost a full-time job these days. People who specialise in change management have learned something about the problem. There are three big concerns in any time of change, says Peter Thies, senior director with Delta Management Consulting Group.

1. What the future will bring. People are asking themselves things like, "Will I be better off than I was before? Will I be able to be successful? Who's in charge of my career, my future?"
2. What to do right now. Employers wonder what to tell family, peers and team members about what is going on. They wonder how they themselves should react to the change.
3. Whether the change is manageable. Team members may be worrying "Is the company able to handle this? Am I able to handle this?"

Successfully leading change means communicating with team members. This doesn't mean just distributing informational memos and doing PowerPoint presentations. Those methods convey information — they tell employees what is in the works — but they rarely allay anxieties or help people get fired up about the future. For that to happen, a different approach entirely is needed. Jon Katzenbach, in his book Peak Performance: Aligning the Hearts and Minds of Your Employees (Harvard Business School Press), describes three strategies for building emotional commitment:

1. Tap into positive emotions. Any high-performing company creates a strong emotional bond with its team members. In a time of change, positive emotions are often the best antidote to feelings of anxiety and powerlessness. The leader's task is to connect the change with objectives that employees care about. Identify the emotional hot buttons in the group — what your people are going to respond to and develop some feeling about.
2. Manage one-to-one. It is no different if you have five direct reports or 50 — each person wants to know what is being planned and what it means. And most will want to put in their two cents. You have to be open, you have to engage people, and you have to empower them to be part of the solution. One-to-one management in this context can use a variety of tools. For example, many companies conduct Team Advisory Boards, where team members discuss underlying concerns and how to respond to issues.
3. Lead, do not force. Most change initiatives are forced into organisations. But force rarely works. Even if people act as they are supposed to, they will lack enthusiasm. It's better to invite people to join in creating the change. Leadership must involve challenging the organisation to live up to its stated objectives, and create the environment that fosters the kind of behaviours you want.

Andy Grove, CEO of Intel Corporation: "I focus on teaching Intel managers how to lead in an industry in which the product (semiconductors) doubles in capacity every 18 months. I discuss the role of leaders in detecting and navigating turbulent industry shifts — shifts that many companies fail to survive. I do this because I believe that having leaders at all levels of Intel who can spot trends and who have the courage to act will enable Intel to prosper whilst other companies falter. We are dedicated to imploring and encouraging people across Intel — middle managers, salespeople, engineers and others — to lead in their individual businesses."

Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric: "Customer Delight, Team Member Delight, and Company Cash Flow are our top priorities…in that order."

Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence: "Every project can and should be a 'WOW' project. You must look ahead and work on projects that will make a difference. You can bat 1000 by doing things that don't matter, but If your current projects don't have 'raving fans' or encourage a 'revolution' on some level, they probably aren't WOW."

Roger Enrico, Chairman of PepsiCo: "Every year I run a five-day leadership program for PepsiCo's highest-potential executives. I ask participants to come up with ideas for their business development and facilitate their discussions to help shape their ideas. The results of those sessions have been 100% better-prepared leaders and some of the biggest business ideas that PepsiCo has ever had."

Dr. Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager: "I strive to be the kind of leader my dogs think I am."

"If you are planning for a year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow people."

Whilst every effort has been made to provide valuable, useful information in this publication, this firm and any related suppliers or associated companies accept no responsibility or any form of liability from reliance upon or use of its contents. Any suggestions should be considered carefully within your own particular circumstances, as they are intended as general information only.

The team at GNS Group has systems, programs, turnkey solutions and one-on-one business development programs tailored to get results for you, address many of the ideas outlined here and, ultimately, build the business you've always wanted. Call Cameron Lamb on 1800 996 322 before 5:00pm on Friday December 15th and receive 2 complimentary tickets, valued at $125.00 each to our next Business Development Workshop absolutely free. That's $250.00 value free.