Trellis Usher (www.TRE-Group.com) offers her thoughts on what makes a great leader

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders not more followers."  Ralph Nader

Great leaders beget other great leaders.  One of the core competencies that you will find in most leadership competency models has something to do with developing other leaders as well as creating high performing teams.  All too often, when things aren't going in that direction, it becomes easier to look for subordinates to throw under the proverbial "bus" rather than step up ones' leadership game.  I can't tell you how many organizations I've been apart of that reward this very behavior.  Now I'm all for employee's taking accountability for their own performance or lack of performance but as a person who has worked most of my career helping to uncover barriers to peak performance, I know that it's rarely just one thing.

The question begging to be addressed is how can an employee who was once a star performer (under one leader) now be fledgling under another leader?  I hear your defenses going up! The first thing most of us want to say, especially if we feel slightly convicted because we know that our own leadership may be questionable, is that "my expectations are higher.  That other person didn't really know what they were doing."  That could be partly true.  But I'd suggest that being a great leader is less about technical competence in a particular discipline and more about how you motivate, inspire, coach and develop others to be their best.  Even if a former leader was not as smart as you are but he or she was able to inspire commitment and hard work from members of the team then you could stand to learn a few things.

As hard as we try, we can't separate the effectiveness of a leader from the performance of those he leads.  They are interwoven.  The measuring stick for what defines a good leader has to include his or her ability to successfully develop the next group of leaders.  Throwing people under the bus or off the boat is rarely the answer.  Not only might it be a missed opportunity for you as a leader but those that remain will find it difficult to be loyal to a leader who holds this philosophy.  Those that we find most difficult to lead probably are offering us the greatest gift in our leadership journey.  Don't miss the gift!

As a leader what lessons have you learned from employees that you found difficult to lead or manage?

Innovate without people? Impossible!!!

There's not a company out there that doesn't have growth or innovation as part of its corporate strategy. Despite the global economic challenges we face, most corporate executives remain hopeful that they can develop and implement strategies that will enable them (at some point) to dig themselves and their companies out of this self-made hole in our financial markets. Some of these same executives are under tremendous pressure to cut expenses and some have opted for the "across the board layoffs" that we've seen reported in the news in the past couple of months. As I sat in my banker's office last week, we discussed the pending 53,000 employee layoff announced at Citigroup. In comparison, she mentioned that would be more than the equivalent of my banks entire Southeast region...gone. Erased. Deleted.

So what's my point? People still drive the bus...make the donuts..and are the only real source of competitive advantage a company has. After my more than a decade of experience working with some of this countries top corporations, I know this to be true. Now before you jaded realists delete my blog never to return again, let me assure you that I certainly know that there are times when companies have to make difficult decisions to eliminate jobs and that some of those roles may in fact be critical ones. However, I also know that these decisions are usually made and executed in less time than most companies spend picking out executive office decor. There is no growth without people. There is no innovation without the individual and collective wisdom of talented and skilled people working to execute on forward-moving strategies.

So while it's certain that jobs will be lost, companies need to take care to ensure they aren't losing talented people. Companies must implement and continuously improve processes to assess and develop their talent pools. It's less about an employee's role or title and more about the critical skills, knowledge, abilities and attributes they bring to an organization. It's a matter of value. A critical question that every manager must ask and answer about each member of their team is "would I want Joe The Employee working for our top competitor?" If the answer is "No", then it's obvious that "the company" can't afford to lose him. There's an adage in the Human Resources arena that must be kept in mind -- "tough times don't last but talented people do".

Just think about it...every million dollar idea for a new product or innovative way to capitalize on a market need started as just that...an idea. And last time I checked, people still hold the exclusive patent on those!