8 Rules Every Executive Should Know About Themselves in 2023
02 Mar 2023
8 Rules every executive should know about themselves ...
By Kieran Perry - Top Business Coach and Mentor UK
An understanding, then, of people of why they are what they are, of why they behave the way they do-is one of the most vital attributes to executive success. People are the principal asset of any company, whether it makes things to sell, sells things made by other people, or supplies intangible services. Nothing moves until your people can make it move. A. H. Smith, a former president of one of an American leading railroads, once defined his business this way: "A railroad is 95 per cent men and 5 percent iron."
The same principle holds true for every other kind of business organization, including your own. How well do you get along with people?
If you want me to spell this whole matter out in a little more detail, let me quote. eight rules for executive success as given by Dr. Lydia Giberson, noted medical consultant. You will observe that, with the exception of one of them, they all have to do with improving human relations:
- Acquire the art of kindliness and persuasion. Kindliness is an attribute of the strong.
- Put consideration of human dignity. above pay, promotion, or environment. Get rid of 'double standards of behaviour': one for workers, and another for management.
- Start a request to subordinates with 'please. Proper words and actions inspire confidence.
- Give credit where credit is due. Praise fearlessly. If you must tell somebody off, never do it in front of others. Most people's self-esteem can't take it.
- Don't be afraid to make changes. If something has been done in a particular way for 20 years, that alone is often a sign that it is being done wrong.
- In handling grievances, let the employee tell his full story without interruption. A kind word will help.
- Learn to listen. The occupational disease of a poor executive is inability to listen.
- How do you "stack up" as an executive under these rules?
There are many other traits an executive must have if he is to be highly successful . Some of the most commonly mentioned are character , integrity loyalty , good judgement and industriousness ,no rule for success will ever work if you don’t !
Need for Courage, Creativity
One is the quality of courage the willingness to "stick your neck out," to innovate, to make changes (and occasionally mistakes)-in a word, to be progressive Call it what you will, it marks the mature executive from the immature executive, the man who on top of his job from the man whose job is on top of him.
Too many would-be executives are slaves of routine. They don't seem to realize, as Dr. Giberson points out, that the mere fact that something has been done the same way for 20 years is often a sign it is being done wrong. These people remind me of the old army sergeant who was put in charge of a plot of grass in front of administrative headquarters in a camp in Michigan.
The sergeant promptly delegated the job to a buck private and told him to water the grass every day at 5 o'clock. This the private did conscientiously. One day, however, when there was a terrible thunderstorm, the sergeant walked into the barracks and saw the private doing bunk fatigue.
"What's the matter with you?" the sergeant bellowed. "It's 5 o'clock and you're supposed to be out watering the grass! "But sergeant," the private said, looking confused, "it's raining. Look at that thunderstorm." "So what!" yelled the sergeant. "You’ve got a raincoat, haven't you?" Rain or shine, some people go about their jobs the same way every day of the week, every week of the month, every month of the year, with never a single new idea to contribute to their company that might prove in the least worth while. And then they sometimes wonder why younger, "less-talented" men (or so they seem to think ) go sailing past them into positions higher up the executive ladder that they had been hoping to get themselves.