When I first started my business I made a list of the qualities I wanted to see in my employees, and just as importantly, the qualities I wanted to have. Now I’m not talking about the stereotypical qualities of a CEO—I’m talking about the characteristics that make a person a leader.
When I went into business I did a lot of research and reflection on leadership traits because I wanted to be the best leader I could be for my employees, my business, my family and myself. I’m going to share a few of those qualities here today, along with why each of them is important.
The following excerpt is from my new book, “Uncomplicate Business: All It Takes Is People, Time, and Money.” The book comes out in October 2015 and is available for pre-order at HowardFarran.com.
Excerpt: Your business is your business. You are the one who is going to benefit the most from running it. Whether you make it successful will depend on much more than the education and training you got in school…
As an avid reader, I’ve read hundreds of books on business—books that suggest to me that, as a CEO, I must be a magician, motivator, leader, charismatic, tall, dark, handsome, and capable of riding a unicycle while juggling bowling pins, just to get everyone to follow me.
I disagree. Leadership is much simpler. To be a leader, you’ve simply got to be a winner.
George Steinbrenner once said: “Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next.” Steinbrenner was always the first to admit he didn’t make all the right decisions (after all, he did hire and fire manager Billy Martin five times), but he was the most successful owner of the winningest professional sports club in North America. He is an excellent example of what leadership is all about.
Steinbrenner knew that he needed to lead five categories of people to build a winning team: fans, players, managers, other team owners, and himself. From studying hundreds of CEOs, I discovered the winning characteristics necessary for me to be a good leader in my business.
A leader is humble. A lot of people have trouble with this one and I get that. A dentist comes out of eight years of dental school ready to champion the oral health of an entire town, and such an achievement comes with a little bluster. But the credentials that go with any highly trained professional don’t give that person the right to be a highfalutin jerk. You can’t look down your nose at anyone—certainly not your employees or your customers. You have to be a leader.
I’ve had mothers of young patients come in and say, “If I don’t give my baby Mountain Dew, she’ll cry.”
A leader embraces and drives innovation. You have to adopt all technology that helps you do your job faster, easier, at higher quality and lower cost. Macroeconomics is made up of three things: people, technology, and capital. Embrace all new technology. If you study Wall Street from 1792 to 2000, technology is what has driven the market, from steam engines to ship building, railroads to canal building, the telegraph, telephone, automobile, assembly line, radio, television, and the biggest technology boom in my lifetime—the Internet. I always tell young people in high school and college that, by the time they’re my age, there’s a good chance they’ll be working in an industry that hasn’t even been invented yet. The biggest millionaires and billionaires of all time are the ones who jumped on a brand new technology. Today it’s apps on the Internet, natural gas fracking . . . There’s always something new. Learn everything about the new technology in your industry, because likely that will give you a huge competitive advantage.
A leader follows the golden rule: “Treat others just as you would want to be treated.” The Golden Rule is first found in Hinduism and then in every major religion thereafter. I love its simplicity. As a business owner and professional in the dental field, I want the trust of my employees. And if I want them to trust me, I had better be willing to trust them, or my business will suffer. The same holds true for any business. If you can’t learn how to delegate duties to the right people, you will never be successful. When someone calls up your business and your employees don’t have your permission and trust to answer the person’s questions, there’s something wrong. Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, knew he couldn’t make McDonald’s a massive franchise if he insisted on doing everything himself. Consequently, today more than 33,000 McDonald’s franchises serve up burgers and fries every single day all over the world.
I’ve never met a millionaire who hasn’t mastered delegation. You have to learn to let go. You can’t be a control freak.”
To me the very definition of a leader is that someone wants to follow you. So, as a dentist, if you don’t have the confidence to lead a team, even though some people work for you, they still might not see you as a leader. If you want to lead, you have to give a team a reason to believe that you know something that they don’t know, or be willing to learn it.