The First Two Rules of Leadership

Don't Be StupidDeal with the Sleeping Stars

“I am sick and tired of redoing and covering up what he messed up. Why doesn't she see that he is killing us?”

—A sometimes star complaining to a superstar

I hope no one told you that leadership would be easy. It is not.

Many leaders think that they can turn the poor performance of every one of their sleeping stars around by providing them with superb guidance. That is your first objective—to coach and guide them to a better performance level. There are some sleeping stars that you can help wake up and guide to become sometimes stars and even eventually superstars.

But, many times a person is in the wrong job for them and they can't help it. If that is the case, you have to make a decision about how much time, energy, and effort you are going to invest in the turnaround. I don't want to discourage you from giving every effort to turn the employee around, but if you have done everything you can do and there is no improvement, there may be a greater reason for their lack of performance: They are not the right person for your particular job. At that point, even Vince Lombardi could not turn them around. It is time for you to deal with the bigger issue.

Leadership Lesson from the Links

I love to play golf and I think there are hundreds of leadership lessons that can be learned from the great game of golf. One of the lessons is to make sure you have the right equipment to be successful.

Not too long ago, I bought a new golf club—a driver—that ...