The shockwave that’s been hitting the world economy demands that entrepreneurs react, and react differently than they have in the past. Unfortunately, the pathways toward effective action aren’t always clear. There’s no one set of rules to follow during turbulent times that say “This is the best way to go.”

Naturally, most executives worry more about sinking the boat than missing the boat, which is why so many organizations, even in flush times, are so cautious and conservative. You don’t have to be as bold as Kellogg or as daring as Steve Jobs. But don’t use the long shadow of the economic crisis as an excuse to downsize your dreams or stop taking chances.

The challenge for leaders in every field is weather to let fear dictate your attitude and actions. Are their opportunities during a recession? There are always opportunities. The question is where are they? What sort of changes will I have to make to take advantage of these opportunities? Just remember, someone is always makes money during a recession so grasp a clear-sighted confidence about the future, develop a plan and commitment how you’ll address the challenges that come.

We have to look at a recession as an opportunity to regroup, rethink, repair, rework, renew and recommit to being at your best for your company. It starts with attitude and it is translated in action in relationships and in future development plans.

Successful leaders possess:

An ability to see things as they can be and not as they are.

Leaders understand the importance of seeing the big picture and what can be accomplished with a little bit of hard work and smart work. By focusing on things as they can be and not as they are leaders make decisions that move their business forward and can be examples for their business partners.

The ability to stay upbeat even when those around them are not. Have you ever been around somebody who is always positive? These are the types of people that are fun to be around!

Leaders stay upbeat and put out positive thoughts which attract people to them. They take the glass is half full approach to everything they do.

A few Top Leadership Traits:

• Continuous Development – Smart people have always sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. Most these days tend to be rather disappointing, but one brilliant idea that has recently captured my attention is “Developing the leader within you by John Maxwell (in fact read all his books on leadership and team work, you can never go wrong with John Maxwell). A perfect complement to this is “The Ultimate Leadership Guide” which contains all the core teachings of 30 top leadership books, which is simply an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your career and even find happiness in other areas of your life!

• Fairness/Equity – Fairness is one of the key criteria by which employees measure their superiors. Fairness is one of Herzberg’s ‘hygiene’ factors from his popular leadership theory. This means that if you are fair, employees will not be inherently motivated, but merely content. Very little upside if you possess this trait but large potential negative effects on motivation if you lack it.

• Adaptability and Flexibility – A clear fact in life is that many things you enjoy will change, and many things you despise will quickly improve. As a leader, you must be able to cope with negative change, and also be able to quickly grab opportunities as soon as they appear. Less hesitation and more asking the question “Ok, so how can I make the best of this situation”.

• Human Understanding – A leader that can understand their employees and really be able to emphasis with the workforce or team as a whole will ultimately be a far more effective leader. Only by being able to put yourself in the shoes of your employees will you be able to make decisions that will enthuse and motivate your staff.

• Charisma – The skill of oratory has been perfectly demonstrated recently by Barrack Obama’s surge in popularity en route to the white house and his continued popularity now that he has gained office. The ability to speak confidently and with meaning is a rare one, and carries much merit for those few who possess it. Increased influence and persuasion is just one of the positive benefits of being a leader with charisma.

• Ability to Listen – The fantastic leaders thorough history were also good listeners. Drawing upon the expertise and ideas of all those around you will improve your decision making. It follows that leaders who listen well simply make better decisions.

• Confidence – Confidence flows through a team just like cheerfulness or a hardworking attitude. If the leader shows hesitation, self-doubt, or a lack of ambition, it will infect the rest of the team. Enthusiastically following an unconfident will really test employee’s attitude, and this is something you don’t want to be doing. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to enthusiastically follow your lead.

• Consistency – This is a similar point to fairness. If you fail to be consistent with your attitude, decisions or behaviour, you will be causing unrest in your team.

• Passion and Motivation – It goes without saying that a leadership trait that will be admired is your passion for what you do. Whatever your role, people will respect the fact that you take pride in your work, you enjoy it, and that you will therefore try your hardest to succeed. Passion and motivation will always trump formal leadership training or leadership coaching.

• Trustworthiness - Ethics and trust has to come right at the top of the most important leadership traits for one simple reason. Nobody will obey, follow, or be inspired by someone they distrust. A good reputation, likeability and respect will be absolutely impossible if you’re labelled as a liar. Regardless of their own mal-practises, people will never be able to associate with an untrustworthy character.

A simple definition of leadership is that leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

• Leadership is so important to business and indeed life as a whole that we are dedicating one whole day to learning High Performance leadership from leadership guru Brian Tracy at ILSG2010 (Innovation, Leadership, Sales and Growth in 2010), the recession is the best time for great leaders to emerge.

The economy will continue to grow as a problem and opportunity and there are risks that both innovation and the economy will suffer as companies engage in belt-tightening and concentrate on survival.

The current recession has had a severe impact on businesses in all sectors. You might think that this means that new ideas and inventions are falling by the wayside as everyone focuses on their core activities.

However, even when times are tough, creativity doesn’t stop – in fact, probably the opposite. Look at some of the great companies that were founded during a time of recession – IBM, Apple and Microsoft are a few examples – and you quickly realise that hard times can stimulate innovation.

Frequently, difficult times force people to make choices. For example, someone may lose their job and decide that they’re finally going to develop the business idea they’ve always thought about, but never had time to get off the ground.

I believe that good inventions will always win through, regardless of the economic climate. Open Innovation offers inventors an effective route to market in these difficult times and, when handled correctly, provides a win-win solution for both the innovator and the organisation sourcing ideas.

Here are the 3 worst mistakes you can make in a recession that will hurt innovation:

Fire talent. Cutting back on people, especially really smart, high-priced people, is a quick Way to cut costs but talent is the single most important variable in innovation.

Reduce Risk. Innovation requires taking chances and dealing with failure. Recessions push managers to be more conservative. They need to fight this instinct.

Retreat into Walled Castles. Cutting back on outside consultancies is seen as a quick way to save money. Yet one of the key ways of introducing change into business culture is to bring in outside innovation and design consultants.

• Winners always emerge out of recessions and they almost always beat their competition on the basis of something new. Apple worked on iTunes, iPod and its retail stores during the last recession and came out swinging once growth returned to destroy its competition. Apple didn’t make any of the top innovation mistakes.

I had to put this video up, it shows that more than anything innovation requires being daring, confident and fearless.

Boosting and focusing investment in innovation in areas where the UK has strength and potential future competitive advantage must be a key element of Government action during the downturn to ensure a successful recovery.

We want to make sure that Britain is the best place in the world to run an innovative business or service – this is critical to the UK’s future prosperity, our quality of life and future job prospects.

Innovation is hard to grasp, companies take different approaches to creating innovation and developing it into profitable products but Innovation will help determine how quickly companies can recover once the upturn gets under way.

While the results of innovation are often highly celebrated as in the case of Apple, Microsoft, IBM, very little is done to teach the innovative mindset in a practical manner, ILSG2010 (Innovation, Leadership, Sales and Growth in 2010) is the best opportunity to learn exactly how to be innovative,

• If you own a business and most of your income relies on selling products or services, you are no doubt in panic mode right now since very few sectors are truly “recession proof”, as the popular sales term of today implies.
• Some marketing experts say that financial hard times are one of the best periods to take your business to the next level. While one’s initial response to a deep recession may be to cut spending on advertising, in fact it may be better to increase spending and get more creative. It is also crucial to keep developing and innovating, since it will be harder to make that sale than it was during times of economic prosperity.
• The world does not stop because there is a recession, it keeps on moving, and you want to be in the best possible position increase revenue when the clouds finally do dissipate. The most successful business people know this, and they are the ones to emerge even stronger after the smoke clears and things are back to “normal” again.
• True, it may take us a lot longer than we’d like to get back to that place of prosperity but when we do there will be some sweet rewards for those who not only hung on, but also kept innovating, developing, advertising and selling through it all.
• One of the best ways to drum up more business, whether you are in a service business or good business, is to aggressively advertise specials or discounts. If you don’t have the funds to go for the more expensive advertising avenues, then get creative and think of ways to advertise and get the word out for free or for an exchange of services.
• At ILSG2010 (Innovation, Leadership, SALES and Growth in 2010) you will see a whole day dedicated to High performance selling tough markets. It will give practical and proven techniques to improve sales in the recession. Our Keynote speaker is world renowned Sales guru Brian Tracy.

• The recession is call to regroup and go back to the basics of business, one of which is sales and mastering sales in a recession will mean greater profits in the boom, which will inevitably return as the economy is cyclical in nature.

Name
Brian Tracy, born in Canada, 1944.

His Role

Brian Tracy owns a human resource company “Brian Tracy International” based in Solana Beach, California. He is the chairmen and CEO of Brian Tracy International.
He is the founder, investor and Chief learning officer of iLearning Global (the pre-eminent online business training portal in the world.)

He is also a President of Brian Tracy University, which is an online university for sales and entrepreneurship.

He is also a member of the board of trustees for the heritage foundation, in America. This foundation is an influential Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute.
Facts about Brian Tracy

An inspirational male figure within our entrepreneurial world. As he is a self help Christian author recording works of his own as an audio book in order to help others business wise. Also via the usages of his presentations and seminars planned and organised by him.

His has a rocky background consisting of the ups and down. He was a drop out from University and from there decided to become an ordinary labourer. Life got tough, and he decided to emulate people within higher profession business wise. From the age of 25, he was a vice president over 95 people within his own business. As well he held the title of a Top Salesman. To nourish his skills, he returned to university, (University of Alberta), to gain a master degree in Business.

He is a successful man in all ways. He has a happy home – a wife and kids, and most of all his business is booming due to the course of him helping others.

Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday- Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy talks about how failure is to be expected before you reach success, Not that you should want to fail, but be prepared for it, so it doesn’t come as shock.
Enjoy the Video. Let me know what you think..