Below are 40 fundamental traits of a good leader. These are traits that everyone should seek to emulate regardless of their position on the totem pole.

There are 3 ways you can use them:

1. Evaluate yourself. How’d you do?

2. Evaluate the person above you. Your supervisor, department head, team leader, dealer, GM, person in charge, etc. (You don’t have to tell them, just tell me.)

3. Have someone you work closely with or someone you supervise evaluate you.

If you do all three you’ll become a better leader.

My Top 40 Leadership Traits:

1. Leaders have pep in their step
2. Leaders are disciplined
3. Leaders arrive early, stay late
4. Leaders have a sense of humor
5. Leaders are consistent
6. Leaders follow the golden rule
7. Leaders don’t put themselves above others
8. Leaders don’t show favoritism by hanging out with subordinates
9. Leaders can be counted on
10. Leaders answer their own phone
11. Leaders return phone and email messages promptly
12. Leaders dress the part
13. Leaders show respect for others regardless of position or social status
14. Leaders say thank you…a lot
15. Leaders cut to the chase and get to the point
16. Leaders listen because they know others have great ideas too
17. Leaders use the word “We” vs. the word “I”
18. Leaders pull others up not put them down
19. Leaders don’t work in fear of their job; they coach people “up” to take their job
20. Leaders do what they say they are going to do when they say they are going to do it
21. Leaders pick up after themselves…and others
22. Leaders know what they know and they know what they don’t know
23. Leaders take the blame when something fails and they give others credit when it works
24. Leaders communicate then communicate some more
25. Leaders help establish vision and direction
26. Leaders remove obstacles to production, not create them
27. Leaders attack a problem now, rather than letting grow it into a cancer
28. Leaders seek ways to simplify not complicate
29. Leaders seek knowledge; they learn, then they coach others
30. Leaders make the tough decisions now, not later
31. Leaders don’t tolerate a fearful workplace
32. Leaders are enthusiastic
33. Leaders set the accountability standard
34. Leaders have controllable passion
35. Leader detest the statement “We’ve always done it that way”
36. Leaders accept mistakes as a part of progress
37. Leaders see a problem as an opportunity to “fix it”
38. Leaders guard the processes but recognize when they are not working
39. Leaders are optimistic realists
40. Leaders lead from the front and they push from the rear

The review is over, that’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

There’s a big difference between complaints and whining. I can’t stand whining. But, I love complaints. Complaints are an opportunity to fix something. I love fixing stuff.

When dealing with customer complaints I like to ask the customers, “What is it you want us to do to make you happy?” I try not to tell them what I’m going to do unless I already know exactly what they want.

Regardless of what they say they want, a good leadership technique is either to give them all of what they want or nothing at all.

Let’s say you have a dispute about a service bill. If they say they don’t think they should be charged anything and you offer up 50/50 you have just wasted your 50%.

They may very well take it but they are still mad, they hate you and they are going to say ugly things about you and your dealership to their friends and relatives.

I have another leadership tip I want to share with you along these same lines and it goes like this: If you get a complaint, you own the complaint. Seems easy enough, doesn’t it?

What I mean by that is, you will often get a complaint but it’s not necessarily your responsibility to handle it, so you hand it off to the person or department whose responsibility it might be.

A good leadership technique for you, and for you to teach your staff, is that whoever first got the complaint “owns it.” Meaning they should take the responsibility to follow up on it to ensure that the person you or they handed it off to has handled it.

These are two very simple leadership disciplines:

1. When it’s your responsibility to fix it, give the
customer everything they want or nothing at all.

2. You own the complaint. Follow up and make sure it is taken care of.

That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

When I’m working with a client, one of the first things I want to know is the history of the store.

How did we get to where we are today? Who started this? Who put the original sweat in this deal? Who grinded it out during all those really tough years? Who took the risk? Who took the challenge? Who’s been carrying the mantle up to this point?

As a leader, you are responsible for the history of your business. Maybe you didn’t create all the history but you’re now part of it and you’re responsible for sharing the history.

Some of it may be rich history. Some of it may be even a bit bleak. It doesn’t matter. You’re a leader, you’re responsible for knowing the history and even more important, you’re responsible for sharing the history.

If you want your organization to grow, share the history.

If you want your organization’s culture to expand,
share the history.

If you want to build a powerful team, share the history.

Share the history. Be part of the history. Make some history. History starts with you. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

Absolutes are a powerful tool toward creating a disciplined organization. As an example, an absolute would be saying “no cars over 60 days old” and meaning it.

The down side of absolutes is it chokes off the potential to have an acceptable exception.

Exceptions break the rule of discipline. Exceptions soon become the norm.

When exceptions become the norm chaos breaks out. The type of chaos I’m referencing isn’t actually like a bomb going off. This chaos is slow and gradual, often not recognized, and then – whamo – there it is, its ugly face screaming at you, “What the heck happened?”

Now here’s the real deal for those of you looking to become better leaders. You can have absolutes and exceptions in the same house. They can actually
hang out with each other once in a blue moon.

True leaders can use them both and chaos will never show its ugly face. Granting an exception and going back to absolutes is very doable. The problem with

leadership is that very few leaders have the skill to make effective use of them both.

Most people in leadership positions are stuck with one or the other.

At any given moment one is just as bad as the other. That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs

Resistance is everywhere. It’s all those people yelling at you that it can’t be done. It’s you thinking, “I could never.”

It’s those around you throwing out the caution flag saying, “Are you sure, do you really think you can do that?”

It’s those friends, relatives and co-workers saying, “Hey, don’t leave us here, we like you being a part of our woes, please don’t run off and leave us.”

You have faith in yourself. You know you can do it. But, resistance keeps yelling at you from the far left hand lower corner of your brain, “Have you lost your damn mind? You can’t take such a chance.”

Momentarily you overcome the yelling, but then the yelling starts again, even louder, “You’re too old, you’re too young, you don’t have the experience, you don’t have the education, you haven’t been there and done that yet.”

Resistance is fear. It’s you being scared. It’s you being afraid to take a chance.

Resistance is as natural as the sun coming up each day.

Resistance is you being afraid to swing from your heels and go for the fences.

If you’re going to ever have your break out moment.

If you’re going to make it happen.

If you’re going to climb the mountain.

If you’re going to control your destiny.

If you’re gonna kick ass and take names.

All these ifs…

At some point you need to tell resistance where to go and get on with it. You’re smarter than resistance. I believe in you. A lot of people believe in you. You believe in you. Let’s go.

That’s all I’m gonna say, Tommy Gibbs