As you may have noticed, your role as an entrepreneur casts you immediately into a leadership role as soon as you bring in anyone to your business.

Honing your leadership skills will help you grow your business.  As you increase your leadership skills it will also enhance your networking efforts.  As you are seen more and more out in the market place as a leader, people will follow.

Now with that said, you don’t just want to people to follow you.  You will want to inspire and motivate people into becoming leaders in their own right.

In researching this topic I ran across a statement by Andy Christiansen, President of High Capacity Leadership Training in Georgia –

“One of the biggest mistakes many entrepreneurs make is confusing management with leadership.  Management is more about overseeing the accomplishment of tasks – it doesn’t go much beyond that day to day.  Leadership is much bigger than that.  It’s about taking people somewhere by inspiring and motivating them.  If all you’re doing is managing, you’re not really leading.”

After reading that statement it really made me stop and think about what I was doing in my business.

Was I leading or managing?

Well I am going to be very honest here…  I was doing both but; I have to admit I was spending a lot more time managing than leading.  What an eye opener for me!  So I immediately planned on changing that aspect of my business and my team.

How was I going to do that?

One word – Vision

I had been managing my business really just as a task-oriented manger.  I needed to change this with a “vision” of where we were all headed.  Not just how to get there!

So my partners and I got together to discuss what that future would look like and what our team’ s real contribution would be to the marketplace and our new partners and clients.

We finally had a direction that got us all very excited!  We as leaders all have different strengths and would build our vision based on those strengths.

We identified a strong need in the home based business industry of people needing one-one-one help and training with how to start their home business and then how to market it.  That’s where we shine!

With all the different strengths our core leadership team has we could provide years of expertise in many different areas to our clients.  How exciting!

Now there is a vision we needed some with guidelines.

#1 – Integrity

As leaders we “must” do exactly what we say we will do.  Every time.  People are looking for leaders with integrity.  This is our core value in our leadership team and we walk the talk.

#2 – Accountability

Our leadership team set goals and hold each other accountable to those goals.  This really has helped the business continue to move forward.  We also pair up people in our group so they have an accountability partner.  This accountability partner program is also for encouragement and problem solving for both their businesses.

#3 – Mentoring

An important part of being a leader is also finding mentors of your own.  You can spend time with leaders that you know or you can hire a leadership coach.  It is important while looking for the mentors for you or your team to not just decide a mentor by age because of experience.  Wisdom travels both ways!

#4 – Feedback

Be open to receiving leadership feedback from others.  This will only make you a better leader and grow your business.

I have to say that researching this topic really helped me put my leadership and management skills into perspective.  I feel more confident about the direction my business and my team are headed.

How are your Leadership skills?  Are you managing or leading?

Click here for more information on the Integrity Networker Team

As most network marketers know, one of the hardest parts of running your own home business is trying to get everything done every day.  I struggle to wear all my different hats every day; financial wizard, sales superstar, marketing guru, website developer, trainer of new partners, etc.

Anyone working online knows that we multitask all the time.  I used to think this was great but…

I found that multitasking is a myth!  I did some research and found that in 2009 researchers at Stanford University set out to investigate what makes multitaskers special.  Well there were surprising results!  People that are talented multitaskers thought that they were outperforming the people who were focused and did one task at a time.  Not so!  The people that did not multitask consistently outperformed their less confident counterparts.

Studies showed that you might feel more efficient as they juggled tasks, but studies suggested that multitasking actually slows you down!  That knocked my socks off.  I am a multitasker extraordinaire with years of multitasking behind me.  What do you mean I am not as productive?

Well researchers at the University of California at Irvine found that office worker took an average of 25 minutes to recover from a simple distraction like a phone call.

So what can you do?  The best thing we can all do is called selective multitasking.  This is limiting multitasking to straightforward activates that won’t compete for your mental resources.  A great example of this is organizing your paperwork while browsing the Web.  But when you are trying to learn something new or talking with a prospect or new business partner, give them your full attention!  When you really need your brain power, don’t multitask.

So you ask “How can I break my multitasking habit so I can boost my productivity?”

It takes time for your brain to switch gears as you move from one task to another so you can save time by grouping the same type of activities together.  Some examples of this are; make all your phone calls at one time, go through all your emails once or twice a day, not as they come in.  You can reduce all the mental clutter by using tools such as calendars, to-do lists, personal digital assistants and organizers.

You can maintain focus by using reminders to finish one to three tasks per day.  I like to use “notepad” on my computer.  This helps me stay very focused during the day and feel good about my accomplishments as I get to check them off or delete them from my list as they are completed.  What a great feeling!

Another method that I have been taught over the years from working at home is to keep track, in order, for one week of all the tasks that you do that are related to your business.  I was amazed at how I jumped around!  Check email, answer chat on Skype, start to write an article, answer email, make phone call, etc. No wonder I was having trouble getting things done!  After keeping track for a week I found that I was bouncing all over the place.  I took my list and started grouping tasks that were alike together and then putting them in blocks of time on my calendar.  Phone calls for 1 hour in the am (turn off computer), reply to email requests for ½ hour in the am and ½ hour in the afternoon.  I found this to be extremely productive.

I hope some this these examples will help you stay focused and be very productive in your own home business!