As we are talking about leadership over the past few weeks, I thought I should share what I feel are my top 10 leadership qualities that I look for in people as they move up in our organization.

• 1.  You are always learning or teaching, every day!  One of the most important duties of every leader in the building is to always be learning or teaching.  It is a good habit if you journal to write down 1 thing that you either learned or taught someone today. 
• 2.  Building others up.  The goal for you to move up is to build your replacement.  Whenever someone asks me how they move up in our organization, the first thing we tell them is to build their replacement.  Take the time and help someone else achieve their goals at the same time.
• 3.  Not making excuses and blaming everyone else, be accountable.  I like to tell everyone that our company coat of arms should NOT point at each other.  One leadership trait that sets great leaders apart is that they take responsibility for failure to achieve the desired results.  The other part to this is when you point out a problem make sure you offer a solution.     
• 4.  Working up, not down.  This is one of the things that frustrates me the most, when I see our top leaders working down during the day.  It is great to work side by side with the team but we need to make sure that we are not enabling others to work less.  Whenever I consider someone for a promotion I ask myself if I find myself and others working down in their company or if they are working up towards us in their current position.  We have to avoid letting other people set our agenda, we need to be intentional with our time.  We need to teach others how to treat us.  We have set clear expectations at every level.  If you feel like you have to be superman or superwoman every time you are at work you are not delegating well enough. 
• 5.  Be grateful, not hateful.  Say “Get To” not “Have To”.  These are 2 statements that I have talked about in previous blogs but I feel are one of the keys to success.  Every morning when I wake up I write in my journal one thing that I am grateful for in my life.  It helps you get your mind right.  At the end of the night I write down in my journal the people that I praised or thanked throughout the day. 
• 6.  Don’t have a self limiting mindset.  What we feed our mind is what we tend to believe.  What we start to believe leads towards the actions that we take.  Never let others tell you what is possible or not.  Have a vision and develop a path to get there. 
• 7.  Pay attention to the details, have a 360 degree view.  Achieving results are a large part of your success in our organization.  The details and having a 360 degree view is the best way to meet our financial benchmarks.  Paying attention to the little things every day is what turns a good company into a great company. 
• 8.  If you see it, say it.  This is along the same lines as coaching everyday but this goes one step further to include feedback as well.  It is important for us say what we see many times during the day.  This goes for the good as well as the opportunities.  If you want a behavior repeated, the best way is to mention that behavior out loud.  When coaching something that is incorrect, coach it and tell the person how it should be done, not what they did wrong. 
• 9.  Serve others and build relationships.  Being a part of Culver’s means that you will need to be able to connect with others.  Take every chance you get to interact with either a guest or a team member and work on building that relationship and creating loyal, raving fans.  Take any extra time you may have and start a conversation with someone.  
• 10.  OTED.  Choose “One Thing Every Day” to do you move yourself forward both personally and professionally.  The best person to compare yourself to is yourself yesterday.  If you are better today than you were yesterday, you win.  I write down one item every day that I will do no matter what to be better in both of those areas of my life. 
• I feel that following these 10 steps of leadership will help us reach our goal that everyone who chooses Culver’s leaves happy!  I believe that the above 10 items help us walk the thin line between leader and manager to produce leadership.  One last bonus tip, if you can give 100% when it doesn’t matter, you will automatically give 100% when it does. 
• Please share a leadership attribute that you feel is key to success. 

The other day was mother’s day and as I was doing my three minutes of gratitude in the morning I was reminded how lucky I was to have a loving childhood with both a mother and father that were a great role model to me.  As I now have children of my own, I find myself trying to live up to their great examples.  I try to be a real model everyday and live out my life how I want my children to live out their lives as they grow older and have children.   

• As we work with so many young people in the restaurant we need to remember that all of our team members and fellow managers come from a unique background and childhood.  We talk about creating a relationship with our guests and team members and sometimes we may forget that this may be the most stable relationship that some of them may have.  We spend more waking hours with our coworkers at times than we do with our families.  This is why it is so important that we treat each other as a family and that we are there to help and listen to each other when problems arise.  Here are some simple tactics that can help us become better role models / real models as authority figures for our team members.
• 1.  See the personal side.  We need to treat team members as people and remember that they all have a personal side.  Get to know little things about each other.  One of the best ways to learn something about someone is the ask the 2nd question.  After you ask the initial question and hear the answer, ask a second question that digs a little deeper. 
• 2.  Listen.  It is often said the listening is one of the greatest strengths that leaders need to possess.   Asking that second question is also a great way to let others know that you are listening.  Listening is also a way we can comfort team members if they are having a tough time outside of work.  Sometimes it helps just having someone listen.
• 3.  Constant Feedback.  Feedback both positive and constructive is important so team members know how they are doing and what you are looking for.  Try to remember the 5/1 ratio.  For every 1 time we coach someone or give constructive feedback we need to give that person positive feedback 5 times to maintain a healthy balance. 
• 4.  Brag in front of others.  One of the best ways to build a great relationship with others is to give them positive feedback and brag on them a bit in front of others.  It not only make the team member feel good, it lets others know what excellent performance looks like. 
• 5.  Accept each others differences.  Don’t judge others.  Just because someone may be different doesn’t give any of us the right to judge others or put them down.  At the end of the day people may forget what you do and forget what you say but they always remember how you make them feel.   
• One last thing to remember about managing others is that it really boils down to influence more so than governing.  We can govern when it may come to policies and rules but when it comes to winning the hearts and minds of our team members it comes back to influence.   

Below is a summary of the 5 levels of leadership by John Maxwell along with a leadership challenge at the end of the page.  John Maxwell has written so many great books that are all available on Amazon.  He also has some great videos posted on youtube about leadership.   

• Level 1: Position.  People follow you because they have to. We get to shape and define who we are as a leader.  This is when the team members give you the least effort.  In a level one culture if the end time is 5:00 people are mentally clocked out at 4:30.  All you have is a title.
• Level 2: Permission.  People follow you because they want to.  Easiest way to go from level 1 to level 2 is to be liked by connecting with your people.  Get to know each other.  It is hard to be in the people business if people don’t like you.  Relationships are the foundation to build your leadership style.  Three things level 2 leaders do well: listen, observe (where and what) and learn.  In these 3 areas they have an attitude of servant leadership.  If you are going to grow as a leader you need to grow out of position based leadership.
• Level 3: Production or Results.  This is where you help the bottom line and produce.  These people produce by example.  Greatest motivational principle is that people do what people see.  Too many leaders are travel agents vs. tour guides.  Travel agents send people where they have never been.  Tour guides walk along side their people.  Time to act as a “real model” and lead the way.  You will also start to attract productive people at this point.  We attract who we are as a leader, not who we want to be.  This is where you can get momentum.  Momentum is a great catalyst.  If you can create momentum it can become a problem solver.  A moving train can bust through a five foot concrete wall vs. a non moving train that cannot even get over a five inch block.  Many times the problem is not really the problem.  80% of all problems are gone in Level 3 simply by having the momentum to make the little problems disappear.    
• Level 4: People Development.  The way to grow a company is to grow your people.  1. The key to developing starts with recruiting. 80% of success is who comes in the front door.  What are we looking for?  Paint a clear picture of what the ideal team member looks like.  Hire for attitude.  2. Positioning.  After the right person is in the door you need to get them in the right position to help them find their sweet spot.  Successful leaders see where other people are best.  Team members will never reach their full potential if they are out of position.  3.  Develop and train.  Step 1, I do it.  Step 2, I do it and you are with me. Step 3, you do it and I am with you.  Step 4, you do it and you do it well.  Step 5, You do it and someone is with you.  Others need to reproduce themselves.  We should focus our leadership training on people that commit to train others.  The real key to this stage is constant communication and feedback along the way.  Try to have at least 1 five minute conversation per day with one of your leaders or potential leaders.  Remember that people don’t care about what you know until they know that you care.  Do you want others to succeed?
• Level 5: Pinnacle, Respect.  You have done it so well and so long that people have so much respect for you that they simply follow you because it is you and your process.  Very few leaders ever get here. 
• Time for the leadership challenge.  Take the people that you lead and write their names down and then write down what level you are on with each on of them and why.  Most of the time our leadership level changes person by person.  Once written down focus on trying to reach a new leadership level with someone on your list over the next 30 days. 

I was listening to an interview with Rob Lowe the host of “The Giving Back Podcast” the other day and he threw a quote out there that almost made me drive off the road.  I don’t know why I found it so profound but it really inspired me to share it with others.   

• “There is a space between stimulus and response and in that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Victor Frankle
• This quote should remind all of us the we all have the power and choice to choose how we respond in any situation.  We all need to take ownership of our choice and hopefully with practice and self reflection we can start to choose better responses.  I am always amazed when I hear stories about people like Oprah who have overcome so much hardship and turmoil to end up becoming such an amazing person.  It really shows how some people can use that response time to really grow and find their freedom.  It seems like the people that simply complain all the time about the situation they are in, will remain in that situation simply by their own choice of response.  If someone continues to blame others and make excuses, they will not grow and eventually find their freedom.  The power of response is the way that anyone can grow beyond the limitations of their own background.  The largest amount of growth usually happens when we step outside of our comfort zone. 
• We all have the power and ability to do great things if we give ourselves the chance to respond to situations in a certain way.  This goes back to being grateful vs. hateful.  If you are grateful, you can look at almost any situation as an opportunity to improve.  When you are hateful, you start to assign blame and make excuses.  If you focus on helping others vs. helping only yourself in that response you can also find more meaningful results. 
• At the end of the day you are the person that is ultimately responsible for yourself and your actions.  Your actions come from the space between the stimulus and the response.  In difficult situations I always remind people that we all carry around 2 buckets.  One bucket has water and one bucket contains gasoline.  We have the power in our response to choose which bucket we put on the fire. 
• As leaders it is our responsibility to choose the right response to various situations throughout the day.  In our response, we allow others the opportunity to then be able to choose their own response to the situation that we have created.  People have an opportunity to choose a much better response if we are thoughtful and intentional about setting the right stage from the start.  If we choose a poor response it is much more difficult for others to make a choice that can overcome your initial poor response.   

Have you ever been around someone that just has the “it” factor?  It seems like others flock towards these types of leaders.  The real question is what is the “it” factor and how can we all get better at developing our own unique “it” factor?

• I feel that people can have the “it” factor in many different forms but at the end of the day, I believe that the “it” factor is simply making others feel great about themselves and helping others succeed.  Usually the people full of personality make others feel better about themselves when they are in their company because they are usually up beat and happy.  We have talked before about how important it is to build relationships with the people you are trying to lead.  Management turns into true leadership when a relationship is formed.  This is when people want to follow you instead of when people feel they have to follow you.  It is the soft skills of leadership that will either take you down or raise you up to the next level of leadership.
• Here are a few adjectives that I feel describe people that have the “it” factor: leader, trust, self confident, firm, clear, safe, understanding, inspirational, encouraging, self esteem, loyal and one that inspires action.  Here a few words that I think kill the “it” factor: ego, pride, not being humble, being a know it all, judging, demeaning, always having an excuse and always having to be right. 
• The good news is that your brain can get rewired if you are willing to feed it differently.  What you focus on is typically what will improve.  Here a few ways I feel that we can all work on developing our own unique “it” factor.
• 1. Get to know little things about others.  Once a week ask everyone on the shift a question that is not work related to get to know more about them and start to build the relationship.  People’s favorite subject is usually themselves, their least favorite is usually you. 
• 2. When someone shares a story, don’t try to one up them.  Truly listen and then ask them 1 follow up question to dig a little deeper, this will make someone feel that you really are listening and that you truly do care about what they are saying.
• 3. Write down one thing that you are grateful for everyday.  After a few months, this one step can help rewire your ideas and thought process.
• 4.  Say a sincere, specific thank you to someone every day.  If possible thank the person in front of others as well.  People tend to remember how you make them feel more than what you actually say.  I have learned this the hard way with my daughters. 
• 5. Be consistent and communicate often.  The two worst things you can do to kill your “it” factor is to be all over the place to where people are afraid to approach you and to make others try to read your mind.  The more clear and consistent you can be, the more likely other people will reach the goals you set out which leads to a better relationship.
• 6. No complaining rule.  Don’t complain about things around others that you are trying to lead.  I remember Zig Ziglar saying that the problem with a pity party is that too many people show up and no one brings a gift. 
• 7. Don’t speak poorly of others.  Always try to build others up, don’t tear them down in front of others.  Other people listening will start to wonder what you say about them behind their back. 
• The only way to really stir up someone’s soul is through a human connection and building a real relationship where you care about the other person’s success as much as or more than your own.