The question reminded me of a series of nine posts on leadership over at calvinwarr.com. His final post in the series links to all nine of Calvin's excellent posts on leadership. If you haven't already read his series, you may want to read it now.
While you might not think working at home requires leadership (many of us work by ourselves, after all), I've found that working at home does indeed require some of the same characteristics that are required of leaders.
Here is my list of leadership characteristics needed for working at home (with some inspiration from Calvin Warr):
- Acts on ideas. Many people think about working at home. Few actually go to the trouble to start a business or find a telecommuting position.
- Learns quickly. When you work from home you are your own support group. You learn to fix problems yourself as well as keep up with your area of expertise.
- Takes risks. I think that those who work from home, especially those who start their own businesses, are comfortable taking a certain amount of risk.
- Communicates clearly. Even those whose area of specialty is not in an area of communications must be able to convey ideas to customers and potential customers.
- Follows through. Someone who works at home must be able to independently follow through on customer requests -- there's no boss around to see that things get done.
I'm sure that if we were to closely examine the CEOs of the companies on Fortune Magazine's list, we'd find that they share some of these same qualities.
You can read more about Fortune's List of Leadership Companies on the Know More Media network:
- Fortune's List of Leadership Companies is Global and Diverse
- Good leaders, like brands, know how to attract followers
- Fortune's Top 10 Companies For Leaders
- 10 Best Leadership Companies via Fortune Magazine and Hewitt Associates
- Fortune Top Companies for Leaders
Leave a comment and let us know.
oh... wow! -blush-
Posted by: Calvin Warr | September 30, 2007 8:22 PM | Permalink to Comment