In the first part of this series, I covered a little bit about my own experiences as a club officer and some of the positive things that one can do to improve the overall health of a club. In this part, some of the tips will focus on the challenges that club leaders face.

As much as we do our best to make the club environment a positive, professional and supportive one, challenges do occur. I’ve seen evaluators rip apart speakers because they disagreed with their points on more than one occasion (and I’ve had it happen to me). I’ve also seen people start up conversations, both with the person next to them and via their cell phone, while someone else was giving a speech. I’ve also known of situations where conflicts have caused people to quit a club.

Since today is President’s Day, I figured it would be a good day to talk about leadership at the highest level. Whether you’re the President of the United States or the president of a company, being a successful executive requires some skills in addition to the ones necessary to excel at lower levels of management. Today we’ll look at the following three:

• Public Speaking and presentations.
• Managing egos.
• Charisma.

Each US President from George Washington to George W. Bush had these skills before becoming President (some were better than others) so we’ll use some Presidential examples.

Too many people in leadership roles (business owners, managers, executives, etc…) believe that they deserve people’s respect simply because of their positions. Some go as far as demanding respect, presiding over their subordinates with an iron fist and using fear or threats to coax others to take action. This type of behavior may work in the short term, but people will resent you instead of respect you. So how can you earn respect as a leader? Here are some ways:

1: Treat others with respect.

To be a great leader takes practice. Yes, there are some people that are born gifted leaders but we can all learn to be effective leaders. A challenge that people in non-management positions commonly face is how to get that experience while not in a management role at work or while owning a one person business. The good news is that there are several ways and everyone should be able to take advantage of at least one of these suggestions.