What Do Tractors Have to do With Leadership?
A lot if you're Joe Scarlett.
Photo Courtesy of www.joescarlett.com
Mr. Scarlett is the retired CEO of Tractor Supply Company and founder of th Scarlett Leadership Institute. Recently Mr. Scarlett was interviewed by Chris LoCurto for Dave Ramsey's EntreLeaderhip podcast. I would strongly recommend listening to the whole interview. You can find it, along with a bonus interview with Mr. Scarlett here.
I could write 5 blog posts on the information in the interview, and I just may. But for today I want to share the 5 things Mr. Scarlett advised aspiring leaders to do to prepare for leadership.
Prepare for Leadership
1. Set Clear direction
"Do the people that work for me, do they clearly know where we are going?"Know where you're going, know where your organization is going. Be able to convey that direction to your team members.
2. Delegate
"If you're micromanaging, forget about it, I'm not gonna promote you."Mr. Scarlett spent a lot of time on delegation. He said the ability to delegate is one of the most essential skills of a leader. If you can't delegate your success is limited to only what you can personally do.
3. Humility
"Do you have a big ego? If you really think you're great, you can stay where you are!"Being humble is an critical to being a great leader.
4. Communication
"The further up the ladder you get, the more important communication becomes."Always be honing your communication skills, verbal, written etc. know how I give a speech, write a report, pitch an idea to the Board of Directors, etc.
5. Be a cheerleader
"Be the first one to recognize performance."Be a positive uplifting influence. Be the first to praise and encourage. Celebrate success. Smile
This was just one small portion of a fantastic interview. Again, click here to listen in its entirety.
Question: What are you doing today to prepare for greater leadership opportunities?
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Twitter: @Skropp2
Great synopsis of a fantastic podcast. Good reminders for the elements of leadership - the one I am struggling with most at work is the communication piece. Working on improving that.
ReplyDeleteCarol~ I think communication is a tough one!! I remember in the podcast Joe saying that you need to CONTINUALLY hone your communication skills. I also remember him saying that he had just recently sat in on a training they had about having "tough conversations" and how much he learned! Thats a man committed to honing his communication skills!!
DeleteSo I dont think we need to feel too awfully bad if we arent where we want to be yet!! haha.
Thanks for taking the time to read the post!! I appreciate it!