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Our definition of success today is changing and it will continue to change. Corporations and individuals are facing a new reality. Success demands activating and optimizing human potential, and achieving success means tapping into the purpose that drives human beings.
After a 20+ year career that encompassed being the first woman CEO of a steel company in Canada and working in the USA, France, England and with clients across the globe, I developed a model for individual success in challenging times that I call the 3Q Leadership Model correlated with guts, gusto and integrity.
The model reflects my learning after some incredibly challenging career and life events that took me from the mountain of success to starting again from ground zero. The challenge became: how do you optimize strengths while also learning to use changes, challenges, stressors (even failures) to build critical strengths to help you grow at the speed of change today?
Here are three quality you need to succeed as a leader.
Stay focused, positive and in a state of mind that drives ideation, innovation, communication, collaboration (the sticky stuff of 21st century business development success) by developing or evolving your own mantra. Use these three words in your self-talk, with your team and colleagues. Imprint them in your mind so that when you face a new challenge and want to look at it in the same old way you do an automatic reset.
It takes guts to look at a situation with new eyes, but if you do not, you will be sucked into old ways of thinking, communicating and doing that may not take you forward. It takes guts to decide to be relentlessly solution focused and to look at every problem as the conduit to a brilliant solution. It takes guts to wait for the automatic fight or flight stress reaction to pass, so that you can focus on using the problem in a way that takes you forward. The caveat remains, that each gutsy move, each time you circumvent fight or flight and think in a new way, you are developing improved focus, strategic thought, ideation, and upping your ability to learn and re-learn.
Do you have what it takes to develop business in a disruptive economy? Business development is all about relationship building. The heart of the client relationship, the heart of all the relationships that will help you succeed is made up of the gusto, the desire to build, repair and grow human relationships of trust and understanding. Relationships start with you; you are the MVP (most valuable player) in the sandbox. Business development 101 tells us that the client relationship is the most important linchpin for success, and while this remains true, building the client relationship means developing a communication style that evokes reach and resonance with your team members and your clients. It means learning to hone your words, your body language your presentation skills to fit each person you are communicating with.
Start building a new set of soft skills by searching for what other people really want (rather than what you think they need to hear). Come to the center of the table by finding the common denominator (values, objectives) that you share and can build upon. Gusto is healthy. Positive communication is contagious and will help you build a community of purpose (like-minded people with shared values), objectives, your success team of constituents, colleagues, clients, social and digital networks. Learning to communicate with gusto across social, digital, cross-generational or cross-culture boundaries is a skill you must and can grow and develop.
Do you want to build new and better strategies that will help you play in a sandbox of quicksand that can just as easily pull you down and put you out? The secret to success is timeless; create value for others. Creating value for others means offering a service or product that does exactly that. It does not mean over selling, up selling, trying to manipulate. It does mean understanding what your client/prospect needs, how he/she needs the information to be presented for it to resonate, and having a focus on building a relationship that will continue to grow and evolve and be a model of service, integrity, and value that will help you gain and keep traction in the sandbox.
Business development means having a mind-set, skill-set, and follow-up processes that fill your suspect and prospect pipeline while nurturing and growing relationships with existing clients).
Get bold. Go ahead, move forward with
About the author
Irene Becker helps smart people communicate, lead & succeed forward smarter, faster happier by building 3Q skills that GROW at the speed of change/challenges. Executive Coach, Consultant, Trainer, Speaker and Writer, Irene is a trailblazer whose unique R-E-A-C-H™ methodology and 3Q Edge™ focus have helped forward-thinking people and organizations in Canada, USA and Europe develop communication, leadership and career skills that grow at the speed of change and challenges. First female CEO of a steel company in Canada, Irene Becker has a track record of accomplishments in business and in the community at large. Passionate about the integrity of her work, Irene goes the distance for her clients face to face, by telephone, Skype or video conference.
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