Authentic Leadership Principles

By Dr. Tom DePaoli

Here are the principles of authentic leadership that I have developed over the years. They are discussed in-depth in my new book Leadership by Storytelling on Amazon. Each principle has a story demonstrating it.

Authentic Leadership Principles

1.     Never lie to your followers or your superiors. Keep your word always.

2.     Listen to your followers’ problems and help them.

3.     Don’t believe what you hear from the media or so-called experts. Be skeptical.

4.     Stand up for what you believe in. Do not be silent to idiots or insanity.

5.     Never neglect details. Walk the process. Do it yourself to learn how to do it.

6.     On many things do not ask permission ask for forgiveness. Always try to make things better. Show initiative.

7.     This is not a perfect world, so there are many opportunities to improve. So, improve.

8.     Hire the best people, get people who are better and smarter than you.

9.     Encourage people to always improve their skills. Lead by example here.

10. Don’t chase the latest management fads. The situation usually dictates which approach best accomplishes the team’s mission.

11. Be positive always, but do not sugar coat a crisis.

12. Look for people with integrity and intelligences and who care about and help others.

13. Offer solutions, not problems and try to keep the solutions simple.

14. Go with your gut if you do not have enough data. Avoid data paralysis.

15. Always trust the people in the field, closer to the work or on the shop floor more. 

16. Have fun, work hard and play hard. Do these with your team.

17. Leadership is lonely but accept the blame as it arrives on your desk.

18. Leadership is the art of accomplishing the impossible, so what if no one has ever done it before. Do it.

19. Share your hard lessons learned with others. Do not embellish them.

20. Be humble but be confident.

21. Praise people who do a good job often.

22. Treat people like you would like to be treated.

23. Work hard and volunteer for the tough assignments.

24. Be pleasant, positive and polite.

25. Always do your best even for the tasks that you hate to do.

26. Take an interest in people, not toys, technology or hardware.

I hope that these principles help you become a great leader.

Enjoy the book.

Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources, supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in 1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers, he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects, re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer, equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books all available on Amazon.  He has instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children.

https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli    = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page

http://www.apollosolutions.us  = website of Apollo Solutions his business

drtombooks.com  = more information on Dr. Tom’s books

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dr-thomas-depaoli/0/736/6b3/  = LinkedIn home page

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