Joe Sharp has always impressed me as a true leader and I was curious how he got that way.
He told me that he cut his leadership teeth on a dozen billion dollar nuclear energy projects led by crusty but accomplished and successful leaders from a bygone era whose continuous verbal "butt kickings" were merely a series of mentoring sessions designed to hone his leadership skills.
Having been blessed with the opportunity to work with these leaders, he took from them bits and pieces of their respective leadership principles and made them his own. When he started his own companies, those principles drove the businesses. In his consulting career he has continuously applied these principles with success and shared them with many.
Here are Joe's Principles of Leadership and Management. This one page document (it's important that it is one page) is the culmination of thirty plus years of leadership. These principles represent a simple, and easy to establish foundation for success and more importantly, moving forward.
As an IT leader I hope you find some measure of value to this simple series of principles.
Joe Sharp's Principles of Management and Organizational Leadership
All organizations are charged with finding and keeping quality people. Once these people are on board in your organization, they are aching to make a difference- hungry to make a contribution- yearning to be recognized. You will be successful, you will have people follow you, only when people think they are making a difference, feel they are contributing, and know that their efforts are recognized and their needs (“what’s in it for me?”) are being met.
To make this happen, you must follow five simple steps, or principles. Once you have done this, your people will know how to act and where they can make a difference. They will also know how they will benefit from their commitment to making a difference.
Leadership is like love. It’s something you do, not just think about. It must be talked about, not just thought about. Leaders talk about and vocalize the following principles.
Principle 1: What’s important around here.
Principle 2: Where are we headed.
Principle 3: What do we stand for.
Principle 4: Why we love risk.
Principle 5: Continuously motivate and learn to better motivate people.
These five principles are the essence of what is necessary to lead a team. They all involve speaking- telling and selling your values, your dreams, and why it’s so vital that everyone understand how he or she can benefit from working to attain your vision.
Here are some values that I will instill in our group. These will be the “what’s important around here to all of us” that all members of the team will know.
Integrity – Do what you say you’ll do.
Growth- We want to be bigger! Growth is king.
Profit- At all costs, the bottom line will be good.
Professionalism- Be the best you can be at your job.
Great service- Deliver legendary service (so good, it’s legendary).
Positive attitudes- Grumps don’t fit in here.
Common enemy- We’ll do anything to beat the XYZ Company (our major competitor).
Take risks- We must try new ideas, even if that means failing many times.
Give 110 percent- Always. This will not be a sleepy place.
Self-management- Do what needs to be done without always asking ‘Is this OK?’ before acting.
Quality is king- Nothing gets done, nor goes out of our place that’s second-rate.
When Joe is asked to lead an organization each team member is provided with this one page set of Prinicples which guide the team going forward. The result is a qucik turnaround in both morale and productivity as the organization moves in sync towards acheiving it's mission. To contact Joe email him at jsharp@sharporg.com.