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Truly great leaders all have two things in common. First they have great empathy and regularly ‘walk the floor’, communicate and connect with their employees. The second character trait is that they the boldness and tenacity to make the tough decisions needed to lead the company.

One of Canada’s most effective business leaders is Annette Verschuren, President of Home Depot Canada and Asia. Verschuren possesses that rare balance between great empathy and incredible tenacity for getting the job done.

I can recall a comment made by one of her office staff,  “28,000 associates in Canada don’t work for Home Depot, they work for Annette”. Now that’s quite a statement if I ever heard one. After you meet Annette for the first time, you can easily see why they think that way. She really does care about her staff (all of them), and she leads the company to great performance with resolve each and every day. (more…)

Confidence & Enthusiasm are Contagious and It Starts With a Leader

Is your team confident and enthusiastic about your company’s future? If not, maybe the problem isn’t them, maybe it’s you!

As the leader of a company, it is imperative that you conduct yourself in such a way that demonstrates confidence and enthusiasm toward your company’s future direction. Especially in today’s economic environment when many small businesses are struggling, it is vitally important that you instill confidence and enthusiasm in your team.

To help you, here are a four tricks for you to consider.

1. Always have a clear vision & plan. Communicate the plan with your team, and stick to it your strategy. Whether it’s navigating through a difficult period, growing sales, expanding into a new product line or growing your client list, make sure you have a clear plan and include your team in on it. (more…)

The way you portray leadership qualities and instil confidence directly affects your employee’s performance

During good times and especially in bad, do you portray leadership qualities in your daily interactions with your staff? As leaders, we always have to conduct ourselves in a manner that instils confidence in the eyes of our team. Employees look to management for leadership during turbulent times. And in today’s economy this is more important than ever.

Okay, so you believe that you do instil confidence in the way you conduct yourself. Well, what about those little personality quarks or habits that come out when things aren’t going so well? Do you have a “tell”? That’s the poker term that used for habits of physical ticks that gives away someone’s hand when they’re trying to bluff. You may be wondering, what are some of these tells? (more…)