Basic Training for Leaders

So you want to motivate your people but you think you're an ineffective Leader? Do you think real Leaders are only born and leadership can't be taught? Has your boss said you have no style, backbone or leadership skill?

If you believe that crap, then all is lost!! Close this web page and move on, this is not for you!!!


Good, some of you are still here! I’m glad to see years of verbal beatings and put-downs haven’t broken your spirit!

Leadership, or more importantly, Effective Leadership, for most people, is a learned skill.  Just like you weren’t born knowing how to drive a car, or to tie your shoes, you weren’t born knowing how to lead people successfully.

Moses, Jesus, Joan of Arc, and General George Patton are all great example of born leaders. The above list is impressive, but short.  Probably there aren't more than a dozen in any culture.  But their successes (and more importantly, their failures) can teach us many things.  A Born Leader can change the world they lived in and if that is your goal, then more power to you!  Everyone has to start somewhere!

But a more immediate goal may be to successfully point people in a certain common, mutually beneficial direction, that is, to Lead them.  Generally in a business sense, your goal is to increased sales, productivity and profit.

First off, a leader must know were he is leading people.  With out of a defined goal or goals, the group will lose focus.  Without a place to go, it is hard to lead anyone anywhere?

There ar emany great example of successful business leaders, here are two of my favorite:

Bill Gates and Audie Murphy.

Learn from Success

-- Bill Gates will be the first to admit he ain’t the smart person in the room at any given time. But he has led his company to record growth and profit margins that are almost unmatched. Why is he so successful? He saw a good idea, made it great, took risks, made hard choice and hired smart people. He then fostered innovation and encouraged individuals to succeed. He did everything a great leader should do including defining his vision and goals for the company early on.  More importantly, he recognizes and rewards those people that work for him. Microsoft’s employee turnover rate is miniscule.  This is directly related to Bill's ability to lead people, foster leadership in others, and point his team in the right direction!

-- Audie Murphy is the most decorated soldier of World War II, his exploits and adventures should be (and in some case are) required reading for every young military leader. But he did not peak during the war and coast down hill from there.  No after the war he was a movie star, entrepreneur, thoroughbred horse breeder and public speaker.

He was the first person to publicly speak about what was once called “battle fatigue”, but is now called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSS). He spoke candidly and openly about his experiences with nightmares, depression and prescription drug dependency and he was instrumental in getting the government to recognize and treat PTSS. His efforts led to successful treatment for thousands of troops returning from Korea and Vietnam.

Early on, he had a military goal, (defeat the enemy and survive) and he took his goal-orientated lifestyle with him to Hollywood and beyond!

Both of these men set measurable goals for themselves and seized an opportunity when it arose. Both led by example and both were willing to back up their words with action.

These are just the some of the traits of a great leader.

By attending Jim's seminar "Basic Training for Leaders" you can learn from someone who has been there as a lowly grunt and as an effective Leader! You will learn from someone who has seen hundreds of young men and women thrust into to the spotlight and watched as many of them shine brilliantly like the moon on cloudless night, and also seen many more blink out like a dying candle.

Of those that failed, most did so because of a lack of goals, poor training, no mentoring and low of self-confidence. On some level, most of these people could have succeeded if given the right tools for success!

I can give you and your people those tools!

Here is an example of a leadership-challenged mid-level boss in his/her new job at a factory:

If you’re the new guy (or girl) and also the new boss, good luck! That’s two strikes in a lot of people’s minds! Simple group dynamics say that you are the outsider and the group distrusts you. I have learned that when the new boss walks into a room of 30 people they are meeting for the first time, nearly half are just going through the motions with the required platitudes. They are there because they have to be! They don’t care who the new guy is! They do their job "good enough" and they've seen lots of bosses come and go, and they are sure soon enough, this new guy will be gone too.

40-50% of the above group cannot be easily changed.  They are set in their ways, rock- hard stubborn, and if they are doing something wrong consistently, they will passive-aggressively fight you every step of the way. One of my recommendations maybe to just recognize who the 40% are and ignore them in the short term.  Let them see how effective you are as a leader first,  then address their shortcomings directly later.

The rest of the room can be easily divided into two groups:

Group A are the Haters: (20% of the total group.) They secretly hate you and want your job! In their minds, they are better than you and the sooner someone notices that fact the sooner they will replace you!

Group B are the Appeasers: (20% of the total group) They are the kiss-ups who will work hard to keep you happy, but they probably will not take any personal risks for you or the company. They do just enough to make themselves look good, but can really out shine the rest of the team occasionally, especially near evaluation time!

What you are left with are maybe three people (10%) who do 80% of the great work for your team. They are the self-starters, well-motivated workers who should be groomed for future leadership roles.  The biggest mistake a new boss can make is not to correctly identify the top 10% group and make them your Star Players. There is a good chance you could confuse an Appeaser as a Star and get off on the wrong foot, right from the word go!  At crunch time, the Appeasers cannot be counted on consistently!

What do you do? What works? What historically doesn’t work? Can you really change people attitudes and mind sets?

YES!!

Fact: Cut the fat. Not everyone can be motivated!

This web site and my seminars are about motivating the people that can be motivated, identifying those that can’t be, and convicting the rest to at least do their jobs to a minimum, enforceable and easily identifiable standard. 

But the key here is to change the standard!  Slowly, but surely, raise the bar for everyone.  This will give you easily identifiable and measurable points to compare your success against last year’s numbers.

What I teach people is what I have learned in 30 years in the work force, 22 years of that in the military working with the widest possible gamut of Americans, Europeans and Third World countries.

A simple fact is no matter where people are from, when faced with a new challenge,(an idea, a boss or obstacle), few people will ask more than “Why do I have to do that?” and “What’s in it for me?”

Average Joe believes:  Change is bad, but rewards are good!  Learn how to use this fact to motivate!!

As a Leader you are placed in a position of automatic authority.  But authority does not mean power!  It means responsibility!  No matter if you are in charge of the French Fry Line at a burger joint, supervising a telephone call center at 2 a.m. or leading a dozen guys up a hill in Iraq, the people on your team expect more from you and they need you to deliver on that expectation. If you fail, you have to work all that much harder to regain their trust and confidence. But failure is a great way to identify the weaknesses in yourself and your team. Those people that you have nurtured, assisted and helped will learn as much from how you deal with failure, as you do yourself.

The bare minimum everyone needs:
Everyone on your team and in your company (and in their private life too, but we won’t go there right now!) should follow a basic set of ground rules. Most companies have in addition to a set of predefined company goals, also have a standard of employee conduct posted where everyone can see it. These standards should not be negotiable for anyone and should be adhered to by everyone. Here is the “meat” of it for most companies:

Be honest:  Honesty is the bedrock of any endeavor. Do this one thing and nothing else, and your boss, your peers and your team will respect you for it!

Have integrity: Your word is your bond. Everything you say and do should be accurate, fair and above reproach, if it’s not, and you mislead or intentionally misinform your people, they will eventfully find out and will loose their respect for you and in many cases, your will or should lose your job.

Loyalty: Your family, your friends, your team and your company should all know that you would only work toward their best interests. Loyalty is the very foundation on which our country is based. Our founding fathers were loyal to each other and to their cause, it is the glue that holds our country together, and when fostered at the team level it will make your people want to succeed! 

These are just a few of the concepts and ideas that "Basic Training for Leaders" teaches. We can show you what has proven to be effective for leaders worldwide by condensing a thousand of years of effective leadership experience into a few intensive hours.

Strategies that work:

Many large corporations have begun to realize the importance of military experience. This is why former and retired military leaders are so heavily courted and recruited when they leave the service. The Military Trains Effective Leaders but few people today have served their country, and even fewer have tested their metal to see where it breaks or where it bends.

These valuable life lessons can be taught by example, learned in real life and adjusted to fit your needs, for business and more importantly, for your life.

Jim Bianchi will also use his insightful, self-deprecating humor to entertain and inform you or your people about current events and pop culture, keeping the tone relevant and engaging, while still getting the message across.

Jim Bianchi is available as a motivational instructor, keynote speaker, for breakout sessions and as a guest lecturer.

Your people need real world, proven leadership skills that are both relevant to today’s business environment and invaluable in setting the right path for the future.  If you can’t do a hitch in a military combat unit, then you need Basic Training for Leaders.

Basic Training for Leaders: This seminar/lecture is the first level of a multi-tiered leadership-training environment that will give each of the attendees and graduates insights into conflict resolution, personal growth and show them how to Lead By Example. High impact presentations coupled with first person accounts of great success and great failures. And as everyone knows, you always learn more from failure than success! (Customized for your environment: two to six hours is typical)

Call 702-219-5838 for more information.