Leaders Lead

It’s been said that “Leadership is not what you do, but who you are.” This, however, is only partially true. Leadership is very much who you are, but it cannot be divorced from what you do. Who you are represents the inner person, and what you do represents the outer person. Each is dependent on the other for maximum effectiveness.

The starting point of motivational leadership is to begin seeing yourself as a role model, seeing yourself as an example to others. See yourself as a person who sets the standards that others follow. A key characteristic of leaders is that they set high standards of accountability for themselves and for their behaviors. They assume that others are watching them and then setting their own standards by what they do. They, in fact, lead by example, just exactly as though someone were following them around, surreptitiously taking notes and photographs of their daily actions for others to see and act on.

I would like to focus on those leaders that have the innate ability to help people accomplish feats they would otherwise never have given a thought to simply by understanding what their people want.

Zig Ziglar claims that to be a true leader, you must know exactly what it truly is your people want out of life. He believes that we can have anything we want in life, if we just help enough other people get what they want.

When leaders know what their counter parts and coworkers want and take an active role to help them reach their goals, the productivity levels within their department have the capability to soar higher than ever imagined. Exponential growth occurs when management is as interested in their team’s personal success as well as their exemplary job performance.  I have been very fortunate over these last twenty plus years to be a witness of this at our dealership.

McCluskey Chevrolet is clearly only as good as it’s people.  We are 160 strong, spread over 6 departments in 3 locations.  There are 23 managers/team leaders with an average of 19.34 yrs of service, a very rare phenomenon in today’s 21st century retail automobile industry.  Success is no surprise at McCluskey Chevrolet.  Our secret is simple.  Great leaders, leading great people, expecting to accomplish extraordinary results!   Leaders lead at Team McCluskey.  McCluskey Chevrolet is our name and TEAMWORK is our game.