Successful Black Women in Business Besides Oprah

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Do you know who the first black woman millionaire is? She's Madame C. J. Walker. Since her time, Black women have been part of the survival and successes of many businesses in the United States and other countries. The road to success has never been easy for them because more than other races, Black businesswomen had to endure racial discrimination and sexism. But in spite of it all, they've managed to survive and prosper, partly because of their resourcefulness and creativity. You may not know it, but Black women have thousands of ideas and inventions used by many American corporations today to earn billions. When you say successful black women in business, the first person that comes to the mind of most people is Oprah Winfrey, the famous talk-show host, media magnate, and self-made billionaire. However, there are many other Black women who have made it big in the business world.

Ursula Burns, president of Xerox, is a African-American women who have made a big impact in the business arena. Recognized as a Fortune 500 company, Xerox has been known for putting women executives to the top managerial positions. Burns has helped improve the company's product line and sustained R&D of new technologies; and under her management in 2007, Xerox grew by 20%. Included in the list of successful black women in business is Susan Chapman, Global Head of Operations in Citigroup Realty Services. Holding the 2nd spot in the business unit, Chapman manages the company's daily operations in 96 countries. This Black woman supervises mergers and company acquisitions, strategic projects, development of retail branches, administration of real estate, as well as international business relationships.

Who will forget Edith Cooper, the head of North American Hedge Fund Distribution, Fixed Income, Currencies, & Commodities in Goldman Sachs? In 1998, this Black woman promoted as managing director and after two years, she became the company's partner in London, where she co-led Goldman Sachs' commodity business for Asia and Europe. It was in 2004 when she was again promoted as co-head of global clearing and execution in the company's equity division. Amy Ellis-Simon and Mellody Hobson are also among the successful black women in business. Ellis-Simon is the Managing Director of the Multi-product Sales Team in Merrill Lynch, while Hobson is president of Ariel Capital Management L.L.C., the country's largest black-owned money management firm that's based in Chicago.

Melissa James, the managing director of Morgan Stanley's Loan Products Group and Suzanne Shank, the president and CEO of Oakland, California-based Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. L.L.C., can also be considered as successful black women in business. Joining them on the list are Gwendolyn Smith Iloani, the chairwoman, president, and CEO of Smith Whiley & Co.; Tracey Travis, CFO & Senior VP of Finance in Polo Ralph Lauren Corp.; and Lisa Pickrum, the Executive VP & COO, RLJ Cos. L.L.C.

James Taylor Chicago, IL.
James Taylor Marketing
James Taylor Is A Expert In Internet Marketing And Uses Proven And Predictable Online Income Generating Systems To build Leads And Cash Flow!
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The Power of Intuition in Business

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The Power of Intuition

Intuition often is your best weapon in business

When was the last time you had a gut feeling about a particular business issue but didn't listen to your intuition and then soon regretted your decision?

Do you frequently doubt your intuition and rely solely on empirical evidence as the basis for your decisions? If so, you may be underutilizing one of your most powerful business weapons: your intuitive intelligence.

Those of us who work in the areas of organizational development, business management have a tendency to place a substantial amount of credence on IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence) when, in fact, intuitive intelligence (sometimes referred to as intrapersonal intelligence) is a critical success factor for any business person.

"Intuition" is derived from the Latin word "intueri," defined as "looking within." Intuition otherwise is also defined as "the power or facility of attaining direct knowledge without evident rational thought."

That is a tremendously powerful concept, particularly when applied to business and your personal success strategy. Having an intuitive experience is like having a conversation with truth and sourcing one's own higher power.

Many people believe that if they are not creative, they do not possess a propensity for intuitive thinking. They assume that intuition, like creativity, is a right-brained function. However, whereas various intelligence and skills typically are relegated to the "left brain" or "right brain," intuition is a "whole brain" function.

The part of the brain called the corpus collusum is the dense network of nerves that connect your left and right brain (the cerebral cortex); it is within the corpus collusum that higher thinking -- and intuition -- occurs.

According to studies the moment we enter a strange room or situation, our brains immediately begin to assess and integrate the input from all higher thinking, the input from all five senses and our entire lifetime of experience. "Within milliseconds," your brain analyzes the situation, compares it to your lifetime of experience, and gives you a spontaneous 'gut level' feeling about your environment. Either you've judged 'safe' and you feel relaxed and comfortable, or you've judged 'threatened' and you feel nervous, or on edge. All of this occurs on a non rational level as an instant 'ah-ha' feeling."

Whereas employers consistently have rated communication skills as the most-desirable business asset, this appears to be changing. Top executives frequently attribute up to 80 percent of their success to intuition, and that high levels of intuitive intelligence often are found in the top tiers of organizations.

Traits often found in those with high intuitive intelligence include: an awareness of one's personal value system, a healthy awareness of one's own feelings, an ability for self-direction and self-management, a powerful level of self-trust, a desire for innovation, a refined knowledge of one's strengths and weaknesses, and a high degree of self-regard.

Developing your intuitive intelligence requires work -- and patience. First, be aware of the intuitive abilities you already have in your repertoire. Do you experience any of the following?

1. Hunches

2."Gut" feelings

3. An inner voice

4. Dreams

5. Déjà vu

6. Precognition

7. A sense of "butterflies," discomfort, or other sensation when in certain situations or around certain people

8. A sense of insightfulness

Intuitive exercises can be helpful, but put your innate sense of intuition to work for you as often as possible. For example, when faced with a significant business decision, make two lists: one outlining the facts and objective data, and the other listing your feelings and "gut" reactions to the decision. Get comfortable making the decision based on your gut instinct and see what happens -- You'll be pleasantly surprised.

As you become more comfortable with the results of your intuitive decision making, you also will learn to trust and develop your intuitive intelligence. Couple this intelligence with your intellect and EQ and you now possess the ability to quickly soar to the pinnacle of your success.

Organizations across the board must begin to take a humanistic and holistic approach to the complexities of their business issues in order to maintain a competitive advantage and grow to new levels of success.

Intuitive intelligence at its highest form of development enables the savvy business person or entrepreneur to use his or her arsenal of intellect, empirical evidence, skills, competencies and experience to intuit the correct application of these tools for the optimal outcome.

The Power of Intuition

There are different kinds of intuition, and we carry these capacities within us. They are always active to some extent but we don't notice them because we don't pay enough attention to what is going on in us.

Behind the emotions, deep within the being, in a consciousness seated somewhere, there is a sort of prescience, a kind of capacity for foresight, but not in the form of ideas: rather in the form of feelings, almost a perception of sensations.

For instance, when one is going to decide to do something, there is sometimes a kind of uneasiness or inner refusal, and usually, if one listens to this deeper indication, one realises that it was justified.

The power of intuition in decision making

As our life becomes more dynamic and less structured, intuition gains more and more recognition as an essential decision making tool. You have probably heard of experienced decision makers who are able to directly recognize the best option or course of action in many tricky situations.

The solution just comes to them from somewhere in their subconscious mind, instead of being a result a lengthy chain of logical derivations.

Yes, intuition can make you a much more effective decision maker, especially when you deal with non-standard situations or in expedient decision making. Yet, before you put more weight on intuitive choices, there are a few important points you need to keep in mind.

When do you need intuition?

1. Decision making situations where intuitive approach can help most include the following.

2. Expedient decision making and rapid response are required. The circumstances leave you no time to go through complete rational analysis.

3. Fast paced change. The factors on which you base your analysis change rapidly.

4. The problem is poorly structured.

5. The factors and rules that you need to take into account are hard to articulate in an unambiguous way.

6. You have to deal with ambiguous, incomplete, or conflicting information.

7. There is no precedent.

What is intuition?

First, what do we mean by intuition in the context of decision-making? While different definitions emphasize different aspects, there are three key features that characterize the intuitive mode of thinking.

The process is dominated by your subconscious mind, even if you use your conscious mind to formulate or rationalize the final results.

The information is processed in parallel rather than sequentially. Instead of going through a logical sequence of thoughts one by one, you see the situation more as a whole, with different fragments emerging in parallel.

You are more connected with your emotions. For example, it may occur to you that an option you consider does not feel right, even though there is no clear logic to prove that.

Intuition versus rational analysis

The main alternative to the intuition-based approach is rational thinking. The rational decision making process relies mostly on logic and quantitative analysis. You consciously analyze all the options. You formulate the main criteria for judging the expected outcomes of your options and you assign certain weights to those criteria to reflect their relative importance. Then, based on the expected outcomes and their weights, you rate your options by their perceived utility.

Finally, you choose the option that has the highest rating. If, for some options, the expected outcomes involve uncertainty, you will also need to incorporate in your ratings the perceived probabilities of different possibilities, or even simulation.

Rational analysis still plays crucial role in many situations, especially when you have clear criteria and have to deal with extensive quantitative data, like quantitative finance. Yet, you will likely face even more business situations where the rational decision making becomes impractical.

How it works

The simplest way to make sense of why and how intuition works is to think of it as an advanced pattern recognition device. Your subconscious mind somehow finds links between your new situation and various patterns of your past experiences.

You may not recall most of the details of those experiences. And even if you did, it may be very hard to express the lessons you learnt in a form acceptable for analytical reasoning. Yet, your subconscious mind still remembers the patterns learnt. It can rapidly project your new circumstances onto those patterns and send you a message of wisdom. That message comes as your inner voice and will most likely be expressed in the language of your feelings.

For example, some of the options or solutions you consider may not feel right to you.

How to use intuition effectively

The first important thing to keep in mind is that even when you rely on intuition it is still very important to do your homework. The intuition will help you navigate faster through much of unstructured data and can work around certain gaps and conflicts in the available information. Yet, even intuition can be misled if too many of your facts are wrong or missing.

Pay attention to your emotional state. If you are stressed or in a bad mood, your true inner voice will be distorted or lost in the background of your strong negative feelings. A similar effect may happen with strong positive feelings. If you want to hear your inner voice, get over the background of your strong feelings. Feel them through or let them go. Take a walk. Do something refreshing. Say your prayers. Forgive and accept. Sigh.

Unclutter your mind.

Finally, you can greatly increase the quality of your intuitive decisions if you include certain elements of the analytical approach. In particular, try to follow the procedure of the rational analysis first. As much as you can, capture on paper the ideas on the main options and the criteria for evaluating your choices. Write down the key facts and factors you need to keep in mind.

Following this procedure is an effective way to feed your subconscious mind with all the relevant data it needs. You will help yourself even more if you put all those notes together on paper as a mind map. By having all the important points written in one place you will also unclutter your mind. At that stage you are much more ready to listen to your inner voice.

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Do You Need Expert Accounting Witnesses In Cases Of Fraud?

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A disproportionately large part of the regulators budget is taken up by fraud. Large and complex fraud cases can involve many thousands of pages of bank statements and other records that need to be presented and argued over in court. The complexity may present a lack of clarity which can be exploited by the criminal defence.

The adversarial system of justice means that any criminal has the right to present a defence to allegations made. He or she is presumed innocent until proven otherwise. The system is possibly the best and fairest possible, but does have its own faults. Having a fair trial is right, and means that every aspect of a case must be carefully examined and cannot be simply skirted over. Of course this means that the criminal defence team can exploit the system to their advantage.

In order to ensure that complicated financial matters are easily understood by the court it is essential that relevant evidence of fraud is examined by a competent fraud expert witness or forensic accountant and presented clearly and succinctly. Ideally, this would happen during the preparation of the case, by the body investigating the criminal matter, such as the police. The trouble is that such persons are usually not employed by the police often because of budgetary constraints. They will investigate a case of fraud and often present every single item of financial evidence they have examined regardless of whether it links together and describes the activity that has taken place.

This means that the defence will have to employ an experienced forensic accountant to trawl through every aspect of the case and potentially act as a fraud expert witness during the trial. The money that the police saved from their budget will have to come out of the criminal prosecution services budget for defence costs! Not only that, but when the defence expert witness presents a report that criticises the way the prosecution have presented their case, the police will then be forced to seek their own experienced expert witness to consider it. Thus the costs that they saved in the first place need to be incurred after all.

Serious fraud trials tend to be the most expensive, and there have been many failures in the past costing millions in tax payers' money. One solution would be for the investigating authorities to employ the services of a forensic accountant at some pointy during the preparation of their case. The forensic accountant would test various aspects of the case and advise on areas of weakness and lack of financial audit trail. Employed in a better way, such costs should not be as great as for a full-blown expert accountant's investigation. The great benefit would be that when the defence were faced with the case summary, there would not be the same scope for criticism using their own expert witness.

The defence expert would therefore be restricted to verifying the approach used by the prosecution, and potentially simply auditing aspects of the case rather than doing his own full-scale investigation. In addition, the amount of relevant documentation that needs disclosing might be reduced substantially.

A further benefit is that both the prosecution and defence experts could meet. In a very short space of time they could reach a point where most areas are agreed, leaving just a few points to argue over in court. These remaining points are most likely to be the ones where legal argument is needed, rather than expert financial analysis.

Expert forensic accountants are needed in complex cases of fraud so that the evidence can be understood by the court - these being not accountancy trained. However, their use can be expensive and add to the already massive costs needed to run the criminal justice system. More use early on, spread evenly between the prosecution and the defence, might result in lower costs and better outcomes.

Mark Jenner specialises in accounting expert witness cases. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a Member of the Expert Witness Institute, a Certified Fraud Examiner and has a Masters Degree in Fraud Management. He is an expert fraud investigation professional.

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The Top Five Mistakes Franchisors Make in Implementing CRM Technology

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If you search Google or any other search engine on the internet for the term "CRM" you are likely to see more than 100 vendors offering CRM technology as the end-all and be-all solution to solving all your company's aches and pains, along with a lot of paid advertisements for the latest and greatest vendors to hit the market. While these vendors are readily spending millions on advertising, they have little to say on their company websites as to how to successfully implement CRM solutions to meet the needs of your business. Couple this with the number of companies reporting failures in their CRM initiatives of 60-70% of companies polled, we felt compelled to share our experience from the last 20 years designing and implementing numerous CRM-like solutions across a large number of industries, and bring you the following list of the biggest mistakes that we have seen:

Mistake #1: Not Forming A Steering Committee That Includes Representatives From All Corporate Departments That Have Responsibility For Customer Management: i.e. responding to customers' requests for information, recruiting and signing new customers, processing orders, delivering the requested products and services in a timely manner, billing for products and services delivered, and following up with customers after the sale. As the front line of customer service for your company, the input of these users of the CRM system you are considering are critically important because they will make or break your decision once implemented. Without their buy in and support, your project may be dead on arrival as users find that the old ways of servicing your customers is easier or more comfortable for them in their individual jobs, and they ultimately find ways around keeping your solution up to date with the latest customer service details including purchase history, email communication, website feedback, and customer satisfaction after the sale.

Mistake #2: Not Clearly Identifying Who The Ultimate Decision Maker Is For CRM Technology For The Franchise: In addition to forming the steering committee, it is also important to identify who on the committee is the ultimate decision maker for the business. A committee meeting without this critical officer or manager in attendance is not likely to produce actionable plans. It is important to identify which members have the right to make a decision versus those who only have the right to offer comments or suggestions on how the chosen application may be implemented. It is extremely common for many people to be entitled to delay a decision but one must focus on who is authorized to make one for the committee to function to meet goals and objectives of the company.

Mistake #3: Not Understanding The Details Of How The Company Operates In Serving Its Franchisees and/or Customers: In virtually all established businesses (except startups), customer service procedures and processes have evolved over time, usually with a lack of documentation of who does what, when, and how. Implementing a CRM solution without understanding the details of the current operations will not serve any purpose other than frustrating staff who feel that management doesn't understand the real day-to-day demands of the customer service team and is likely to cause many employees to feel as though new technology puts their job or job function in jeopardy of being eliminated or thrown out with new technology. In order to counter this effect, The safest bet is to hire or contract a qualified Business Analyst or Process Mapping expert to observe daily operations of all customer service activities under all circumstances (good and bad), and document what is actually happening real-time in the organization. The Business Analyst will likely use Process Mapping tools such as Microsoft Vizio, SmartDraw, or iGrafX to build visual, pictorial models of what is actually happening today in real-time. The results of the Business Analyst's work should be verified with each department for buy-in and acceptance that what has been observed matches the documented processes. After the process maps have been completed, management can then focus on the exact improvements that CRM technology is expected to deliver to the company in the coming weeks and months.

Mistake #4: Relying on Out-of-the-Box Technology to Meet the Custom Requirements of the Franchised Business: Once you have the process maps from the Business Analyst above, ask the vendors that are trying to earn your business to map out how their solution will serve to enhance or automate the most difficult customer service processes in your organization. If the vendor is unwilling or unable to provide a resource to do this, eliminate them from your short list of potential partners. Too often, slick sales people with a lot of technology tools at their disposal will try to convince you to trust them with the very keys to your company's livelihood (aka customers and the processes to service and retain them) with little attention to your company's long-term health, financially or otherwise. Avoid vendors who continuously use the term "Best Practices" or "Industry Solutions" in their sales pitches. Your business is unique in the market which it serves, and your technology solution should be equally unique and customized for your business.

Mistake #5: Trying to Fit New Technology Into Your Existing Organizational Structure: As you begin the process to implement CRM technology, continuous organization change is a basic requirement. Existing job descriptions will have to be re-written for the new processes and technology. Those employees who have the ability to quickly integrate new technology willingly in their jobs to the benefit of the company will need to promoted to more leadership positions, and those that resist the change will have to be reassigned to another job function or re-trained for another position. This process will be repeated many times in the coming months and years as new technology comes online in the business community.

Once you have laid out your CRM project plans for your franchise, avoiding the mistakes mentioned above, you will be better equipped than most to tackle a technology project such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in virtually any business sector.

If you have questions about organizing for your project or specific questions regarding your readiness for CRM, please contact: Michael Auten, President, XpandCRM, Inc. at michael.auten@XpandCRM.net or by phone at +001 (770) 403-4322.

Michael T. Auten
President
XpandCRM.net
michael.auten@xpandcrm.net
(770) 403-4322

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Three Reasons To Set Up A Unique Business Email Address

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So you bought a domain name, you've hired someone to build you a site and you've got a website for your business online and ready to go.

Your online business is now all set for the digital world right?

Wrong.

If you haven't set your company up with at least one dedicated email address with the same details as your domain then you can expect most of the credibility you have for creating a website goes out the window.

The good news though is that setting up a business email doesn't cost anything, only demands tools that you already have at your fingertips and is incredibly easy to do.

So why should you set up a business email to match your domain?

Here are three reasons why setting up a business email is not only important but it should be something that you do immediately now that your website is operational.

Reason One: it enhances your company reputation online

As I hinted at in the introduction having an email address from a free provider as your business email address can really hurt your reputation.

The reason, is phishing.

This is the practice of using an email address very similar to a reputable business' to obtain people's passwords, personal information and login details to bank accounts.

Phishers loved to use free accounts with variations on trusted user names (NZpaypal, westpacservice etc) a few years ago to get their hands on people's personal details.

They haven't done that for a while now, largely because it stopped working, which makes some pretty strong cases against you using the same type of email address for your business.

Reason Two: you can be more flexible with your internet service providers

Internet Service Providers are wonderful companies that reward long business relationships with better rates and service. Right?

Wrong, when it comes to screwing the average business/personal customer the average Internet Service Provider is only too happy to screw the long-standing sucker out of more of the services that they have already paid for and more of the money that the customer has gone a long way to try and earn.

But if your business email uses their email hosting service (like @aol @orange etc) then you will either have to contact all of your customers and hope that they don't invariably use your old business email address or grin and bear the higher cost of doing business with your current ISP.

Reason Three: get different email addresses for different purposes

Each business have different parts.

You might sell products, consult people on how to use your products and train people in a particular line of work.

By getting an email network that matches your domain you can have a shop [at] yourbusiness consulting [at] yourbusiness and seminars [at] your business address in as little time as it takes to read this paragraph.

As you can see business emails are highly useful for any business.

And the best part of it all is that if you have already set up your site then setting up an email is free quick and easy.

Make the switch over to business emails today, you won't regret it.

Read the step by step guide on setting up a business email address in the blog Setting Up Business Email written by Gareth Gillatt, Owner of online marketing company ODDJOB PR

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Selecting A Commercial Laundry Equipment Supplier

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When it comes to running a commercial laundry then you will know that the choice of equipment is vital to providing a good service to your clients.

If you make the wrong choice of commercial laundry equipment then it can prove very costly on several fronts for your business, and worst case it can lose you clients very fast.

The first thing you need to look at when purchasing equipment, is not the machines but the company selling them to you. You need to look at how long they have been in business, what they offer in terms of aftercare support, what financing deals they offer and then finally what equipment they sell.

The reason for this is that it is no use them selling great equipment if they do not provide the services that you need to go with it, it is a bit like buying a car from a dealer and then being told they cannot offer you finance, and nor do they service the car. You would not buy a car from them would you? So when it comes to commercial laundry equipment then you need to think along the same lines.

A good dealer will offer you a range of financing options from leasing through to rental, and often it is this financing that may dictate where you buy your equipment from. Low cost financing makes a difference to your bottom line so getting the right leasing deal is important.

They should also offer you a good aftercare package, as once you have bought your machinery you will need your staff to be trained to use it efficiently and safely. Using laundry machinery without proper training can be dangerous to both staff and the garments they are laundering.

When it comes to equipment then it pays dividends to choose a supplier that offers a comprehensive range of equipment e.g. a one stop shop. This makes good sense as in the event of a problem it is far easier to just have one number to call rather than having to think "Who did we buy that from?"

Finally we come to servicing - this is probably the most important thing to look at when choosing a commercial laundry equipment supplier, as it is no use having the best equipment in the World if your supplier does not offer a good maintenance plan, leaving you stuck with a broken down washing machine. This can cost you time and money, so make sure they have guaranteed call out and fix times, and carry a wide range of spares.

Laundry 365 are experts in the Commercial Laundry Equipment industry and a leading manufacturer with over 40 years experience. Laundry 365 are also experts in the field of commercial laundry repairs.

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Make Yourself More Valuable, Develop Other Leaders to Succeed You

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Because we live in such a now generation, with instant popcorn, microwaves and fast food, we have become impatient and expect everything in our lives to be instant. We expect instant success, instant personal growth and the case of our health we want instant results there too. Leaders are no different, they too want to move fast and see their vision fulfilled as quickly as possible. They believe that if they develop a crystal clear picture of where they want their team or organisation to go, they have a strong clear idea how to get it done and they have sufficient drive and passion. It should all just fall into place and happen according to their agenda. As you know things seldom proceed according to our agendas, especially when other people are involved.

The major challenge, which leader's encounter that retards the delivery of their vision, is that the people in their teams or organisation often lag behind them, in terms of understanding, drive, passion and commitment. It is for this reason that there always appears to be an underlying tension between where a leader needs his or her people to be and where they actually are. This tension results in a gap between what the team is actually able to deliver and the expectations of the leader. Even strong leaders with great leadership ability, who have a clear vision, passion and drive to succeed, never seem to close this gap.

Although I have struggled with this concept my entire life as a leader, I now think I have discovered the best way to accelerate the success within any team. The answers that I have come up with are the result of a combination of personal experience and research, which I have conducted into discovering how to accelerate the results, which I could enjoy with my own teams.

The answers I have come up with can be broken down as follows:

Committing to a lifetime of personal growth and development equips you to grow and will accelerate your personal growth. As you grow personally, where you wake up each day a little better than you were the previous day, you will gradually compound your success and over time you will realise all your dreams. The longer you stay committed to this process, the more you will grow and improve and the greater will be the acceleration of your personal success. The longer you stay committed to this process the more the momentum will gather and the faster your success will arrive. This is a concept I wrote about in one of my previous articles, when I spoke about, people becoming ten year overnight successes.
As a leader, when you invest resources into consistently growing the individuals within your teams, you will experience gradual and consistent improvement in the results your team or organisation is able to enjoy. Based on my experience with what I have observed in my own teams over the years, even though the people in my teams remained committed to their personal growth, I never managed to achieve similar explosive success in my teams, which I have observed in the case of individuals as described above. Yes I have seen gradual and consistent improvements in the results my teams were able to enjoy, but I never experienced that explosive growth, I so often see in individuals, who stay committed to their personal growth. This confused me for a number of years, until I grew as a leader and realised that the way to introduce this same level of explosive growth into teams, was only possible, if I concentrated resources on growing leaders, within my teams.
This change of strategy required a major shift to the way I approached leadership. It required me to mature and become really secure as a leader. I was unable to encourage the growth of the leaders within my teams, until I no longer felt threatened by the possibility of being replaced. Soon after I started to focus on growing the leaders in my teams, I began to see the type of explosive growth, I needed and expected within my organisation. You can experience the same results in your teams and organisation if you commit to do the same.

This change of focus required me to make some major, fundamental shifts to the way I saw myself and my role as a leader. Whilst I was developing my team and helping them to grow I felt needed and got my personal worth from this feeling of being needed and valued. It was only when I felt really secure as a leader that I began to invest into developing other people to effectively "REPLACE" me. This was one of the wisest things I ever did. It helped me to experience explosive growth in my businesses and freed me to follow my passion, which is to travel, teach and research.

As you help leaders grow around you, they extend your reach by assisting you to guide, grow and influence more members of your teams, than would be possible for you to achieve alone. The accelerated growth, which you will observe, comes about due to the synergy, which flows from having a whole lot of leaders, who are, in effect, an extension of your personal reach.

The major reason for this amazing, explosive growth, which comes from developing leaders, is quite simple, when viewed more closely. If you add ten team members to your teams and you invest resources into growing them. You have added the power of ten new hands to your team or organisation. If on the other hand you add ten leaders to your organisation and you invest resources into growing them, you now have the power of ten leaders multiplied by all the followers and leaders they are able to influence. This investment into the leaders in your teams or organisation means you are growing your teams and not just a whole lot of individuals, within your teams.

Unless you commit to develop as many leaders around you as possible, you limit your reach to only the group of people you are able to touch personally. As you grow great leaders, your reach becomes unlimited and the growth within your teams and organisation becomes exponential. The more you invest into developing great leaders, the greater the quantity and quality of followers you are able reach and influence. If developing leaders is the most effective way of extending your reach as a leader and the only way to experience explosive growth within your teams or organisation. Why do so few people invest resources into this practice?

The first challenge any leader faces when looking for the right people to train as leaders, is the incredible shortage of people with the will to lead. Most people are comfortable being followers and they do not want to stand out and become real leaders. The type of leader I am talking about here is people who are both willing and able to influence other people and rally them to perform at their best. Most people want the increased salary and prestige that goes with filing a leadership position, but they are unwilling to shoulder the responsibility that comes along with the position.

Even after you have found the right people, with the will and ability to lead, you will face the next challenge, which is drawing them into your team or organisation and allowing them the room they need to lead and develop. Leaders of the calibre you want in your teams, want excitement and have a deep rooted need to drive the organisation on their own. You will need to clearly communicate your vision to these leaders and allow them a fair degree of autonomy to deliver on the vision in their own way. If you truly want to develop leaders within your teams or organisation you have to accept that they need space and a level of autonomy, to freely drive things in their teams, the way they feel is best.

The next challenge you may encounter as you grow and develop great leaders within your teams or organisation, is the difficulty of keeping them. The only way to keep great leaders in your teams is to always strive to become an even better leader yourself. No one will follow any leader that is weaker than them. You must stay committed and keep growing, always striving to stay ahead of the people, you lead. This commitment to your on-going growth and development will allow you to constantly add value to everyone in your teams. As long as you are able to keep adding value to the leaders in your teams, they will stay with you and help you to accelerate your growth.

http://www.andrewhorton.co.za

Hi my name is Andrew Horton; I am an inspirational Speaker, Master Teacher, Radio and TV Host, Global Traveler and Author. My area of focus is in the field of human behavior, expanded awareness and enlightenment. I travel the planet constantly researching, learning and seeking ways to unlock the mysteries of the human mind. I delve into the inner workings of the universe, always looking for ways to understand my role in making things better and contributing to the improvement of the human experience. Please visit my website to sign up for a daily inspirational message, by following this link Daily Inspirational Message. This is your daily call to action, a reminder to do things better each day. Visit my website at http://www.andrewhorton.co.za/

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