Qualities of a leader

There are so many lessons I could share here on leadership in this column; I could literally write for years. Since I only have a short amount of space to teach each month in this great publication, I’m going to focus on two things – humility and experience.

Humility. When I started Grunder Landscaping, I had no idea what I was doing. I had no money, no sense and no customers. That’s not a good recipe for success. But, I did have a desire to get better and I was raised by two humble parents who pushed me to finish school and get better. Watching mom and dad, I realized you don’t “know everything” and if you are willing to listen, a lot can be learned. What I’ve just described is humility. How humble are you? In terms of humility, as it relates to the leadership of a landscaping company, here are three suggestions:

Never say anyone works for you. Tell them instead that they work with you. I try to be a member of a team when I’m at work, not an owner, who “owns” people. We’re in this together and that’s what you and your people should feel.

Never bad mouth the competition. Sure it’s hard to do, but I try very hard to never say anything bad. In fact, in my marketplace there are several good contractors and I often tell prospects that. Sure, I truly believe I run the best landscaping company in Dayton, Ohio, but there are other good contractors. I focus on what I can do, not what others can’t do.

Share the credit. If you think you have created your company all by yourself, you’re not seeing things correctly. Now wait, don’t think for one minute I am saying that you didn’t build it. I’m not going there. But your team helped you, your parents may have helped you, and other important people probably helped you. If something goes sideways, stand up and take the blame for it. It’s your company or your department and the buck needs to stop someplace. Share the credit and take the blame.

Okay, one caveat. I do believe that you do have to talk about your company if you want to sell it. You have to “brag” about your accomplishments, show photos of your work and testimonials from happy clients, but you must do this in the framework of what your “team” has achieved.

Experience. As a leader we need to be cautious of sharing advice and listening to advice. What we need to hand out and what we need to listen to is experience. Experience is what we have done and have found will or will not work. Good leaders resist the urge to tell people to do things they have not done themselves.

I often tell entrepreneurs that the external customer service will never exceed the internal customer service. What I mean by this is you can’t expect your team to treat your clients like kings and queens, if you don’t treat them like kings and queens. You need to study and “experience” how great companies operate and take those lessons and make your business better.