The Light Is Green: NADA 2008 Highlights: What makes a great leader? (Part 2)

April 11, 2008

NADA 2008 Highlights: What makes a great leader? (Part 2)

San Francisco sky view If you missed NADA 2008, read this series of articles that recap the major issues covered at this year's event.

This year's event was in beautiful San Francisco and spanned 80,000 m2 (700,000 square feet), included 700 exhibitors and 36 workshops, and received 24,000 attendees from all over the world.

Focus on Leadership

A major focal point of the NADA 2008 workshops was leadership, more to the point: what it means to be a leader, and how we can foster a suitable environment within our company so that leaders can flourish.

Along this vein, among the standout courses were Paul Cummings’s “The Halo Effect of Powerful Leadership” and Dave Anderson’s “Identify and Develop the Eight Must-Have Qualities of Effective Leaders”.

Several straightforwardly applicable lessons stand out:

Leadership Lesson #2: Our people can and will drive growth

Successful companies are the ones that fulfill these six basic needs that people in general all have:

Certainty. We all want to experience a sense of safety, of security, at the company we choose to work in. Possible pitfalls: certainty can sometimes breed complacency, as well as boredom.

leadership Excitement. We also like to be surprised, which helps energize us to rally around common goals and projects.

Significance. We want to be recognized for what we do, and to feel that what we do truly matters. No one likes to feel starved for recognition.

Connection. We all want to feel cared for by, and connected to, the company where we've chosen to work. This also holds especially true, and especially so, regarding the people we work with everyday.

Growth. People need to grow, as do companies. Do we, as a company, have a growth program for our people? If we do, does everyone know about it? Is the plan incrementally defined?

Contribute past ourselves. The best people (and if eve taken the time to choose correctly we will have the best people) have a natural tendency to go above and beyond the line of duty. But that will happen only in an environment where everyone feels that the previous five conditions are being met.

Other NADA Highlight posts: