FIVE STAR LEADERSHIP
By Al Mozingo
www.firemanager.com

Introduction

The leadership that one provides an organization, group or team is either effective or non-effective. This effectiveness is dependent upon the skills, knowledge, and abilities (SKA’s) of the leader. How are these SKA’s developed? They are learned. A leader learns from books and seminars, but they also learn from experiences is life, their education, work, and a multitude of other experiences. I want to focus on the educational aspect. There are a number of factors that can help one to become an outstanding leader, or a “Five Star Leader.”

The mastery of the SKA’s is what one needs to strive for to become an effective leader. The below items are those that will assist you to become a “Five Star Leader.” Once this below material is internalized you need to put it into action. For leaders actions are more forceful that words at times.
Five Star Leadership
• Change Maker
• Knowledgeable
• Team Building
• Expectations
• Motivating
• Accountability

Change Maker

A leader is one who makes things happen. A leader is not happy with the status quo or mediocrity. Being a change maker means one is not afraid to try something different and is a risk taker. A leader will strive for improvement and will promote change. A “Five Star Leader” welcomes new challenges and innovative, creative ways of doing things.

Knowledgeable

A leader needs to develop a high degree of knowledge to do the job effectively. There are a number of elements, of leadership that needs to be addressed, below are a few:

Job Expertise
Administrative Ability
High Morale Values
Interpersonal Skills
Able to Listen
Communicate Effectively
Open to Change
Self-Confidence
Goal Setting
Self-Determination
High Energy
Intuition
Decisive

Team Building

A leader helps to develop a good working team. A leader gets things done through others. Therefore, a leader needs to pay close attention to team work. Working with people you must also pay close attention to their needs and meet those needs. You must also understand what motivates people. At the same time you are getting them to understand the team’s needs. Giving people responsibility, providing training, providing resources to do the job, and using positive reinforcement will help develop an effective team. As a “Five Star Leader” you need to strive for a collaborative atmosphere.

Expectations

A leader must establish the expectations with the team. Everyone must know what is expected of them, to accomplish their task/job/etc. Many people will strive to meet expectations. If the leader gives a little encouragement your people may even exceed your expectations. If delegating to someone remembers it is not the same as assigning work. In delegation a leader actually passes on some responsibility of the job to another. The leader must communicate the task/job to a person and actually have that person accept the responsibility. Then there should be a discussion about the limits of the responsibility, a time table for completion, and the resources that are available to accomplish the task/job. Remember to strive in matching the appropriate person with the task/job at hand for success.

Motivating

A leader needs to know how to motivate others. Understand to motivate another is to help them meet their needs. Add enthusiasm when interacting with your people will help with motivation. Give out tasks/jobs that you pretty much know are going to be accomplished successfully. If a person is successful it helps build confidence and allows the person to grow (SKA’s). Giving responsibility will help motivate many people. Make sure everyone knows the vision, mission, and purpose, for the team.

Accountability

A leader supervises people when in the leadership role. This means people are being held accountable for the results of what they do. Therefore, as a leader keep in mind on the outcome of the job at hand. To hold people accountable a leader needs to monitor the progress in some way. The usual methods of monitoring progress are: meetings, oral reports, or written reports. As a “Five Star Leader” you need to hold your people accountable for high quality results. By holding people accountable it actually helps morale also.

Final Remarks

A “Five Star Leader” needs to pay close attention to the above six items that have been addressed. These are very important elements of any leader’s skills, knowledge, and abilities. We all need to strive to become the best we can be. There are many methods of obtain knowledge in this subject area. For instance reading leadership books or taking a leadership class is a good start.

Good luck in you endeavors to gain more insight, understanding, and knowledge in an important subject!

About the Author

Al Mozingo is nationally recognized leadership instructor. He has developed two college workshops entitled “Basic Leadership” and “Advanced Leadership.” If you would like to obtain one of these courses of instruction for your organization contact Al Mozingo at: (619) 447-2828 or www.firemanager.com