Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage you'll ever have that will endure against all others. Are you then an effective, 21st Century leader? What would your people say about your leadership? Would they say that your leadership is the one key element that insures their long term success? And how much of your energy is being spent helping your subordinates become effective leaders?

Would your employees say that you are giving it everything you've got - making a 100% contribution to your organization? Do you think you have what it takes to lead your organization in these very interesting times?

From my observations excellent business leaders always turn out to be regular folks like you and me who are internally motivated to stretch themselves far beyond what even their in-laws expected of them. Is that you, does your mother-in-law think you are "playing over your head" always going the extra mile for your people?

I think of my grandmother every day, not just because she was my inspiration, but because I am still striving to be the same sort of person she was - the one who is still revered by everyone she came in contact with. I still think about the kind of person she thought I could be when I grew up. What about you, did you think you would become a 21st. Century leader who is always plowing ahead - always happy to take responsibility for the results your organization achieves, while giving the credit for that achievement to the people who actually made it possible?

No matter where you are in your personal career or the development of your organization - as long as you are breathing you can still be that person, that 21st. Century leader of uncommon followers.

Start right now, right where you are and consider the characteristics of a successful business leader and take the actions required to address the changes you need to make to be that person.

Develop a sense of mission that goes beyond the week to week. Recognize that you are here for a reason, you are running your organization in order to accomplish something special. What is it? It has to do with stewardship doesn't it? Don't you feel that you are here to make things better, for your family, your employees, and your organization? If so, act like it - someone has trusted you with the position you now hold.

What should you be doing right now to make a difference to your people and your customers? I think that when you truly believe that you are here to make a difference that you are well on your way to being a true 21st. Century leader.

Effective business leaders are results oriented. Don't let the turkeys get you down my grandmother always said. Don't be activity focused Wayne she'd say, stop majoring in minors. If you are an effective business leader you are not pushing papers from one side of your desk to the other. You are focused on doing only those things that represent bankable payoffs to the organization. You are 100% focused on the key result activities - those things that represent all that is important to your company's long term success.

Do you have a burning desire to serve your customers? Effective leaders know that the customer, including their subordinates, is still king. Leaders know that it is the customer for whom they really work, that their customers are the only reason that they are on the payroll at all.

A 21st Century leader, awaken from a dead sleep in the middle of a cold winter's night by their smallest most insignificant customer, is wide awake and focused on doing whatever they can to serve them, to make it right. Whether that customer is a new hire on the loading dock or one whose orders are so small they have to batch them to meet your shipping requirements - where are you? Are you in the car on the way to the office, heading to the freeway off ramp where their car broke down, or are you still in bed with the voicemail picking up? Your answer will tell a great deal about you as an effective leader.

Do you require that every decision gets passed to you, or feeling self-satisfied, by you - before being made? Or do you grow your people, always looking for ways to release their power by delegating every decision that it is possible for someone else to make? Effective 21st Century leaders know that every decision is an opportunity to stretch their employees, enhance their judgement and willingness to takes the risks and assume the responsibilities of leadership.

Building their employee's self-confidence at every opportunity, the effective leader never misses a chance to help their people grow today so they will be ready to make the decisions required tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Your employees are your greatest asset and effective leaders always look for ways to help those assets appreciate in value. Effective leaders always give their people the opportunities to achieve and then they recognize them and reward them.

Effective leaders insist on excellence - from themselves first by example, and from the rest of the organization. They know that in these competitive times those who execute with excellence my be demonstrating the single competitive advantage they have, and the one that gets or loses the business every time.

Effective leaders act like they own the place, especially if they don't. They spend the organization's money like it was coming right out of their pocket even when it isn't. And the decisions they make represent the kind of decisions that would make the organization's founders proud.

I have met business owners striving daily to make their dad proud even though he had been dead for over twenty years. That's a good thing, it keeps us focused on what's important. Are you making decisions that would make them proud?

These challenging times call upon each of us to be more effective leaders. We are called upon to make the tough decisions, have the courage of our convictions, and the character to see it through no matter what.

Are you a 21st Century leader? Are you on your way toward becoming one?