Smart Rules for Leaders Who Drink

Having recently attended a number of work-related social events I have realised the extent to which leaders and aspiring professionals can inadvertently undermine themselves and their effectiveness. I offer the following 'rules' for smart leaders...

1. Don't be the drunkest person in the room: EVER! 

Appoint a trusted minder to help you with this. 

2. Don't engage in harassment or vilification: EVER! 

Don't arm potential litigants with evidence of sexual, racial, religious or other prejudices, discrimination or harassment

3. Don't tell stories about past bosses or employees that show them in a bad light and you in a good light - it brings your ethics and loyalty into question as people wonder what you'll say about them in the future. 

4. Don't boast about YOU - Boost the team, give others centre stage and be a great audience - shhhh, applaud, cheer! 

5. Don't push alcohol onto people.

6. Don't encourage drunken revelations.

7. Don't dial drunk - take a different mobile with you when you drink. 

One that has only emergency and family numbers in it.

8. DO take the opportunity to prove yourself trustworthy - relax, yes, be friendly, yes, and remain professional, yes, yes, yes. 

9. When you want to let your hair down, DO so with friends with whom your primary relationship is family or social, rather than work or business.

10. At least once in your professional life, DO have a trusted advisor videotape you drunk in a professional setting.  I think you'll find it a whole heap easier to follow these rules after you watch the video!

Lessons on Power and How to Wield It

Never underestimate the power of one...

Mandela and Gandhi were once 'nobodys' in the world's eye... yet both overthrew powerful oppressors.

So there might be just one or two things we can pick up from the lessons on leadership Nelson Mandela offers us on his 90th birthday.

Pyramid Model: Managing & Developing A Sustainable Business

If people in leadership positions fail to manage and develop our business, chances are it will become uncompetitive and/or unsustainable even if we attend to the other four areas of the leadership pyramid.

This area is placed at the peak of the pyramid because it's from here that we need to look 

• over the big picture and the balance between the four points below; 
• ahead to the future and 
• out at the dynamic 21st century environment in which we are conducting our business 
• to ensure alignment rather than fragmentation or stagnation

When supervisors and managers ignore their responsibility for managing AND developing the business, the leadership team fragments and leaders start to focus on their personal agendas; silos and 'empires' develop; succession gaps emerge; communication gaps develop; ambitious staff become frustrated; competitive threats build; decision making becomes increasingly reactive and crisis management becomes the norm - the business starts to run the managers; to find, foster and develop future leaders;!

So the challenge here is to make time

• for strategic activities such as environmental scans, scenario planning, business reviews and long term/strategic planning; 
• build and maintain full and open communication and cooperative relationships with, and between, the members of the senior management team;  
• to find and develop new business; 
• to build and sustain effective working relationships with key external stakeholders (including the communities that give the business a 'social license' to operate); 
• to hold managers and leaders accountable to the business and their people;
• to keep the leadership pipeline flowing by identifying, fostering and developing future leaders and by creating opportunities for them to grow and lead;
• to attract, recruit, leverage and retain talent;
• to ensure that the intellectual capital of the business is retained, leveraged and developed;
• to secure supply sources...and more.