Business Character Matters

The Ten Habits of Highly Successful Managers Character is a product. It is not a natural donation bequeathed equally upon every manager—like twenty-four hours each day, or sunshine and rain. It is not some gift of Wisdom, distributed among a select business group. Character, the moral make-up of a manager, which dominates his feelings and actions, is produced by the underpinnings of his habits. Your habits are who you are, and you are what you have willed to be. The failure to use will power to bring habits under control is chargeable to you, just as the positive use of will is also to your credit. I once read that Abraham Lincoln developed the strong powers of his will at the age of twenty-one. Before that, he was a wandering, cheerful overgrown boy. If his will developed with use, then there had to be a beginning, a moment of decision. Before any achievement occurred, Lincoln decided to act. First, it takes a decision; second, action must be applied. Decision and action are both included in will power, for no evidence of will exists apart from the action. Like Lincoln, you must decide to change and form new habits, character-building habits. Forming new, more productive habits may feel uncomfortable or unsettling at first, but persevere. Every time an emotion is felt, it leaves its trace or mark on you. No matter how insignificant this trace seems, you must continue each repetition until the emotion finally becomes habitual and is one of the well-defined elements in your character. Repeated actions are performed more easily and with less thought or attention on your part. Habit and its repetition are vital actions in the development of The Ten Habits of Highly Successful Managers. The motto of highly successful managers is: Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny. Just as it is possible to direct your habits of thinking, you can also direct your habits of feeling and action. As a manager, willpower is required to bring you to a decision and its accompanying action. After that, it is a matter of repetition, with each repetition requiring less will and effort. The top-ten habits highly successful managers possess to propel them forward in business and win for them places of greater responsibility and leadership as executives are as follows: 1. Be Ambitious 2. Lead with Confidence 3. Display Loyalty 4. Know What You’re Passionate About 5. Think Optimistically 6. Be Consistent 7. Get-Up-and-Go! 8. Act with Invincible Determination 9. Show Initiative 10. Master Self-Control The fundamentals of business character are the total of these ten strong and active habits. It is not enough, for example, to be ambitious. The ambitious manager who lacks confidence, initiative, and invincible determination is a stranded visionary, forever spinning castles in the air. The loyal manager who lacks consistency and get-up-and-go is a mere thinker who never puts his loyalty into practice. Therefore, master self-control and make these habits personal. Bear them in mind as you read and seek to apply them. You know your present character status; it is within your power to profit from this knowledge by eliminating every current weakness. You can gain complete mastery of yourself, by yourself and for yourself, so that you, too, can enjoy being a successful manager. Habit 1 Be Ambitious After serving twenty years in the United States Navy, I cannot imagine a ship going out to sea without a chart and with no certain destination. I cringe at the thought of her sailing upon the great blue ocean with a full crew and a fair wind but with a captain who doesn’t know where he is going. He knows hundreds of decent ports that would welcome his crew and give him honors; however, in hundreds of others, his crew may not be accepted. Without choosing a safe and certain destination, he follows the ever-changing breeze. He turns his ship into the wind and travels east. When the wind shifts north, he veers to the north; and when it blows west, he steers to the west. Such a captain would be called insane. It is almost impossible for a reasoning mind to imagine such a situation. Yet, thousands of managers—captains of their destiny—are drifting on the business sea, aimlessly zigzagging before shifting winds, content if they stay afloat, merely surviving. They have never studied a chart of the business ocean; they have no destination in mind; they are drifters because they lack ambition. What is ambition? It’s not a simple wish for something, not the mere desire to rise higher in the world or to reach a goal. The young manager burning time and cigarettes on the company’s gazebo bench while wishing for an executive job is not ambitious. Ambition is more than a desire, more than a sentimental longing. Ambition is a dynamic force, a committed drive to achieve. Ambition comes from Latin, and its root meaning is “a going around after.” In ancient days, a Roman seeking political office went around asking the citizens to vote for him, and because of his persistent action, he was called ambitious. A difference was apparent between an ambitious candidate and a passive one who desired office but made no positive efforts to attain it. Over the years, the word has broadened in meaning. Today, we call someone ambitious who sets a goal, deliberately plans and focuses, stretches every energy, and utilizes every legitimate means to reach it.