There have been many books written on the subject of leadership in business. I think it is kind of funny that many of the books have been written by people that have never been in an at-risk leadership role.

My definition of at-risk leadership is if your job is based on the profitability of the company. I am not talking about a professor at a college that has a PhD in business. I have a friend of mine that was one of the greatest leaders I have ever known, and he told me once that people’s opinion of what is important changes when they have to meet a payroll. He is right because it is one thing to have lofty ideas, principles, and theories, but it is an entirely different thing when it is your company or job and your neck on the line.

While I am far from the example of a leader, I have found that the following ideas need to be in the leadership process somewhere.

• Always be humble
• Never be arrogant
• Be willing to learn
• Be willing to listen
• Be honest and transparent in all dealings and leave your door open
• Discover why you do what you do
• Find the vision for the company
• Be willing to delegate
• Never gossip about anyone else inside the company or outside the company
• Praise – construct – praise
• Be willing to do what others are unwilling to do

I encourage you to think about good leaders you have known and respected in the past and see how many of the above items the person practiced. It is my guess that the person you are thinking about was a lot like this outline.

You want to know something else funny? These same qualities above are also the qualities your bosses look for in people that they promote to higher positions. They are universal for anyone that is a leader or anyone that will become a leader. KT

Self-esteem in life is a cornerstone building block for a healthy, well-balanced life. Self-esteem in business is also important and is only achieved through being real and being honest.

You have seen people just like I have that when you meet them, their eyes don’t match their words and their face. There is something that is wrong, and you can see it when they speak. A child can read deceit in a person and back away as well as a dog can tell if you are trustworthy.  If we really listen to our hearts, we can also read deceit.

Allow me to give you a mental example of self-esteem. I believe your self-esteem in business is like a fragile egg; when you are honest and do what you are supposed to do, it adds a layer of hardening lacquer to the egg. After years of doing what is right, your self-esteem, in our example the egg, will not break and will not be fragile if dropped. When you lie and are deceitful, it strips a layer of the lacquer off and one day, maybe not today, but one day your self-esteem will suffer a break.

It is not always true, but many times the people that operate day in and day out with deceit usually end up losing what they so desperately tried to hang on to.

There is no place in business for a “slick” factor. People who are slick really believe others cannot tell and cannot see it. They are incorrect. It can be hidden for a short while, but just like the egg example above, the layers eventually come off and are exposed for what it really is.

I had a friend in my line of business that started at the same time as I did in the early ’90s. We actually ran parallel paths for many years as we both grew in the business. When the last financial crash happened, our businesses were struggling. This friend had a huge financial overhead and had made the choice to operate dishonestly to survive the downturn. Without telling too much of what happened, he basically lost his business and his credibility.

See, what you compromise to keep you usually will lose; in the case of this friend, that is what happened. He compromised his ethics and lost what he was trying to save. When you conduct business honestly, it is always easy to remember the facts because they are the truth. It is when we lie and use deceit that the remembering part becomes a problem.

Self-esteem is one of the greatest gifts you will ever have in business, but many people don’t even know it is a gift until they lose it. So my friends, choose what you want the next five years of your life to be like and choose to do it right because self-esteem is something of great value to obtain. KT

Meaning what you say and saying what you mean is really a simple business philosophy. We have built Hotel AG on several main principles of which this is one.

Basically, we tell the client what we can achieve and then simply go do it. There are deals that we lose because of this practice; a client will hear a bigger number from one of our competitors and decide to believe them instead of us. That’s ok and that is to be expected.

One of the biggest and most valuable lessons I ever learned was also one of the most expensive. Some years ago, a large global public company hired me to sell a portfolio of hotels. I knew the level the deals would sell at, but I let myself price it higher than achievable to get the engagement. Within three months the client was very unhappy because the offers were coming in at the range I had previously valued the deal. I didn’t sell the portfolio, and I lost the client due to this mistake and most importantly I lost the client’s trust. The money was not as important as the trust.

After that day, I have told our clients what we could and could not do; I also told them I was ok if they chose someone else. I have had some situations where the client called me later and told me the deal sold for exactly where we said it would. The clients hired the other firm, and when the pricing got down to the level we told him it would sell for, they decided to sell. We didn’t make any money on those deals, but I had the client’s trust for the next deal.

Today, we have three pricing segments: conservative, likely and aggressive. The likely is the real value we believe we can transact at, and we do not have any issues with advertising the deal at the aggressive pricing as long as the client really knows what to expect.

Also, we are not cheapest broker. I have had many calls where the client says that so and so can list the deal for a lower fee. I usually tell them to hire the other broker. I also tell them that if you are having heart surgery, you don’t look for the cheapest surgeon. That usually gets a laugh, but it also usually gets us the engagement.

I believe people at all economic levels want and respect honesty. I have also found that when you do what you say you will do, you also usually have the client as a friend. It doesn’t matter what business you are in, meaning what you say and saying what you mean is a good business approach. KT

Elton John wrote a song with the lyrics “I was everything and nothing all in one.”

While I don’t know Elton John’s meaning behind the words, I do have some thoughts on the subject. Basically, you cannot go from mountain top to mountain top without going through a valley every now and then. Even though the song was a long way from being a spiritual, there is meaning to the phrase.

I think when you are on the mountain top, how you act somehow determines the length of the valley ahead of you. If you act arrogant, elitist, and like you are better than your fellow man, I think the valley may be a little longer walk than if you had acted with humility. I saw a guy at a conference one time who was probably 75-80 years old, and he had on the finest of suits and shoes and had dyed his hair jet black. He was walking around like a strutting peacock thinking he was looking good, when in reality he was just embarrassing himself. He was probably a successful person at some point in his life, but he refused to treat each life cycle with grace and acceptance. I saw this other guy one time driving a big 1985 Cadillac Brougham series with the gold package. His personal license plate said “Slick.” This man was also probably in his late 70s and probably bought the car new and had paid the fee each year to keep his license plate current because he thinks it describes himself.

You can go from everything to nothing pretty quick, and the last recession proved that point very well. The ones who survived were the conservative ones who didn’t over leverage their business and stayed within their means. The ones who lost everything were the highly leveraged ones who never thought a downturn could ever happen.

Humility is a very real and very present choice in all our lives. You will not always be on top, and the deciding factor is usually how you handle yourself when you are.

Mac Collins was a congressman from Georgia in the early ’90s, and he was also a friend of mine. I called Mac one day, and I told him I wanted to fly up to Washington and just hang out with him in the congressional building to understand what he did. He said “come on.” When you walk in the building, immediately you can understand how power can be addictive to men and women and how they will do whatever it takes to stay in the position of power. Not Mac. He owned a concrete business in Jackson, Georgia, and the Mac Collins I saw in Washington was the same Mac Collins I saw at church. He did not change even though his surroundings changed. In Georgia, we have had some doozy congressmen and congresswomen who simply could not walk away from the heady power of Washington; a few of them walked away to a jail cell.

The one thing I remember the most about Mac Collins’ office was the sign hanging over his desk chair. The sign simply read “Be Real.” It was a great lesson for me that day and one that Mac Collins lived every day.

We all need great examples to follow of men and women who are honest, bold, forthright, transparent, and real leaders. It is so great when we meet one that did keep it real. KT