The Light Is Green: NADA 2008 Highlights: What makes a great leader? (Part 1)

Alcatraz island If you missed NADA 2008, read this series of articles that recap the major issues covered at this year's event.

The National Automobile Dealers Association represents 19,700 new car and truck dealers. Every year, NADA organizes the world's largest convention for auto dealers, where thousands gather to see the latest products and services geared to dealerships, attend workshops on best practices, and hear industry leaders.

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 #1: Be slow to hire, quick to fire

Companies need to take ample time in finding and selecting new personnel.

It helps to standardize the entire recruitment process. If we can determine the ideal talent and skill sets for every role to be filled, and then perform tests, interviews and other steps in the process accordingly, we have a much greater chance of hiring the right person for each position.

Ducks walking One of the bigger mistakes managers make when hiring is not taking enough time to interview potential employees. If you think about how along people will be with us, this initial investment is time well spent; we should make the effort to do it right instead of trying to push through it as fast as possible.

Once someone is chosen, we need to have a plan in place to train new hires adequately and consistently not only at the beginning of their careers, but for their entire lifetime within the company. This has multiple positive effects beyond professionalizing our team: it is a great motivator, and creates loyalty to the company because people understand that they are cared for.

As a corollary, we need to be as swift as possible to fire someone when we detect that they do not fit within the company's mission, values and standards. Most companies tend to put this of as long as possible, which is natural given the negativity involved.

But is firing a negative act?

Firing quickly is a positive step for the company, true, but it is also good for the employee. Someone stuck in a job they are not right for cannot be happy: they don't like what they are doing, and they know that they will not be able to advance within the company.

Unhappy people suck the energy from those around them, and lower morale across their department. Letting them go gives them the chance to find a job they can perform with enthusiasm and dedication.

Firing quickly also sends a message that team leaders are on the ball. Not doing so tells people that leaders are either unaware of the problem, or are too wishy-washy to do anything about it.

Other NADA Highlight posts: