LEADERSHIP AND THE ART OF DELEGATION

LEADERSHIP AND THE ART OF DELEGATION

AUTHOR: ANDREJ MLINŠEK

PUBLISHED IN: 2022

by ADRIATIKUS

ZALOŽBA d.o.o. KIDRIČEVA 24, 3000

CELJE

I dedicate the book to anyone who is already successfully leading 5 or 50 employees in their organizaons, or who are new to the word leader and want to improve themselves as a leader.

Andrej Mlinšek

INTRODUCTION

I have always studied successful people who have marked human history. How they led other people and how they built their successful lives. I wonder what they did good and what their ending was like. I am only describing well-known leaders who have stuck in my memory in my 30 years of studying successful people. I know there have been many other celebries in human history. I am wring the book in 2020 during the second wave of the covid pandemic. Today, a friend of mine, who is a successful entrepreneur and whom I respect very much, asked me, WHAT DO I THINK, HOW WILL THINGS DEVELOP IN THE FUTURE? I replied that if you want to predict the FUTURE, you have to understand and STUDY the past. Things and events repeat themselves in life and that is why I have always been interested in history to know what awaits me in the future. The best answer to the queson of what our FUTURE will be, was given by Jim Rohn, an American entrepreneur, philosopher and movaonal speaker. He said he is 100% the right address to answer the queson of the future. His response was that the next 20 years will be about the same as it has been for the last 20 years. Ups and downs, lots of DRAMA and lots of posive moments. This has been the case for the last 6,500 years, and if humanity does not change, it will connue to be so. The main difference between people is that some individuals understand this, get beer and know what the future holds and know how to prepare for it. Many leaders

in history have studied human cycles and have therefore been able to ancipate and prepare for ups and downs.

In the book I will describe what a LEADER needs to know, how to treat people properly and how to steer his boat (family, company, ...) in good mes and - more importantly - in bad mes that always come, just like winter always follows summer. I will speak of true, credible LEADERS who built empires out of nothing, which served humanity for a long me when their creators were no more in this world. I hope readers will find some thoughts for themselves in the book, even if they don’t consider themselves as leaders. But I know that we all need to be leaders in our field if we want to successfully navigate this boat of ours called LIFE.

I wish you many pleasant thoughts while reading the book.

Andrej MLINŠEK

1) FAMOUS LEADERS IN HISTORY

Among the first known leaders was Alexander the Great, who was born and ruled 350 years before Christ. Many history books tell of Marcus Aurelius, a Roman general, emperor and philosopher who was born and lived about 1900 years ago. I travel a lot in the East and I have been to Istanbul many mes and I study its historical personalies over and over again. Among the most famous Turkish personalies was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of the modern Republic of Turkey. Whenever I am in Istanbul, I can see how great an impression Ataturk has le on Turkish history. For the past 100 years, I have been inspired by the stories and lives of business moguls who have built their empires with their own hands. Among the most famous is John D. Rockefeller, an American industrialist and philanthropist who was born in 1839 and built the largest business empire known to date, called STANDARD OIL. Andrew Carnegie was the next American entrepreneur and philanthropist to be a Rockefeller contemporary. Both marked the beginning of the 20th century as the richest individuals in America. Andrew Carnegie is well known for wanng to pass on the knowledge that enabled him to gain enormous material wealth to new generaons. In the early 20th century, he called an unknown journalist at the me and asked him if he would pass on the knowledge of gaining wealth to future generaons. Aer 30 seconds of thinking, the young journalist decided in the affirmave, even if it would take him 20 years of his life. It turned out that this work became his LIFE MISSION. This young journalist was called NAPOLEON HILL and his most famous work, a book that has sold millions of copies is “THINK AND GROW RICH”. Today, the book "THINK AND GROW RICH" is the basic literature for every entrepreneur to read.

The next successful entrepreneur to impress me was W. Clement Stone. In 1919, he turned out of nothing one of the largest insurance agencies in America at the me. He was best known for his posive atude and personal growth, which he also demanded from his thousands of agents which he had employed at the agency. Later in life he became a billionaire, a philanthropist and lived for 100 years. In the past 20 years, the most

famous billionaire is Jeff Bezos, who built Amazon from a small garage, a mulnaonal company present around the world and becoming the richest man in the world.

The next big entrepreneur is Elon Musk, who immigrated from South Africa to Canada and later to the United States as an 18-year-old young man. Today, he is a billionaire, the founder of Tesla, Space X and several other super successful companies.

I have always been interested in the beginnings of all leaders in human history. A detailed study showed that everyone, without excepon, had to contend with a wide variety of challenges and problems along the way. Everyone, from Marcus Aurelius to Elon Musk, has overcome the most difficult circumstances on their paths and risen to the level at which history remembers them.

In the book, I will describe the strategies, plans, visions, and perseverance needed for everyone to make the best of their lives. I have also been building our Adriakus Group in Central and Eastern Europe for a long me. In the early 30 years of my life, in my first aempt, I already had 150 people in my organizaon, but it collapsed because it was built on sand and not on ROCK, as the late Jim Rohn would say. This is how I have been studying for a long me how successful people behaved when various "catastrophes" happened to them in their lives. I found that AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN they were persistently building their businesses, organizaons, armies, and so on. unl they succeeded.

The main feature of all LEADERS who have finally succeeded is the INCREDIBLE PERSISTENCE that set them apart from other people. One such story that parcularly inspired me is the story of Australian producer Rhonda Byrne. Many people know the book and the film made aer it, "THE SECRET". The film "SECRET" was made in 2007 aer a book wrien by Rhonda Byrne. The film was a great success, the books sold tens of millions of copies. Rhonda Byrne’s personal story, however, took place before the book was published and before the film was made. Her story is the classic story of many LEADERS, successful people who have spent their enre lives

searching for and building their vision and because they HAVE IMPOSSIBLY persevered, they have succeeded in the end. Rhonda Byrne was 60 years old, had a financial debt of $ 2 million, a 3-fold mortgage on her house in Australia and was without a future. This is what she looked like on the outside, but on the inside she had a PASSIONATE DESIRE to help people and leave a “mark” on this world forever. She wrote the book "SECRET" and the rest is history. I have always been fascinated by people in human HISTORY who NEVER, NEVER, NEVER surrendered and PERSISTED to their ulmate victory. Leaders understand that they cannot succeed on their own, so they always find a way to make their SUCCESS help a lot of people.

LEADERSHIP MEANS TO TRANSFORM A VISION INTO REALITY.

2) EMPHASIZE OTHER PEOPLE`S VALUES

In the past, I had to learn how to emphasize the qualies and values of other people if I wanted people to stay with me in the long run. I learned the most from Dale Carnegie, who lived and wrote books in the first half of the 20th century. His book, “HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND WIN WITH PEOPLE,” has many helpful ps on how to work with people to listen and respect you. The first story is about a master and his son trying to push their DONKEY into a stable. They were very stubborn, but the donkey was even more stubborn, so no one moved anywhere. The girl who was a maid had a mind for both of them together and offered the donkey some carrots and the donkey gladly followed her to his stable.

Another story says that the DOG is the only animal that doesn’t have to work for a living. His only job is to happily wave his tail and make his master happy.

Dale Carnegie was one of the greatest masters in the field of working with people and in his book he writes why one should learn from the greatest teachers, animals. Personally, I was always impaent at the beginning of my career and I wanted people to do things faster and listen to me. This of course does not work and like many entrepreneurs I have learned these LESSONS the hard way, with the loss of health and money.

Jim Rohn said at the beginning of his career "I will make my people successful, and for that I will do whatever it takes." He soon realized that people are not interested in his WISHES unless they have some profit themselves. I also had to learn for myself, as the master's maid knew 100 years ago, that people and DONKEYS only do something if they decide to do so. So how do you know what people want? ASK them and they will tell you. Here we return to the beginning of the chapter that if we know how to praise other people, they will do anything to come up with new praise again.

People want 3 things in life:

1. FOOD AND WATER

2. A PLACE TO LIVE

3. TO FEEL APPRECIATED AND RESPECTED

The first two wishes come true for most people, and the third wish or need oen remains unfulfilled. An individual who knows how to PRAISE a person and show him respect can come very high in society, because other people will really always "eat" from his hands.

I myself have been perfecng the art for 30 years, which is called "PRAISE OF OTHERS" and I can say that it really works wonders. Because we never learn every new or old SKILL, but we ALWAYS PERFECT it, I study people who know how to be kind and put others first. Dale Carnegie tells the story of a mother who sent her twin sons to school in a remote town. Aer a few inial contacts, they stopped responding and despite threats and pleading, there was no response in the leers. She asked the great teacher Dale Carnegie for help. He wrote a short leer with the usual quesons from his mother, adding that he was enclosing two $ 100 bills. Of course, he “forgot” to aach the banknotes, and when the sons received the leer, they soon called to thank them for the leer, but could not find the banknotes aached.

Today, in the age of social media and the digital world, the ART of dealing with people is especially important because people need VERBAL or WRITTEN praise for a job well done. A long me ago, I learned that we need to be “LIKE AN OLD SHOE” when working with people. This means that you get along with people even if you only meet them for a short me. Many people today are "cut-off", quick to get in touch with people and "don't like" dealing with other people. A person who learns the old rules of dealing with people that every pet knows is always ahead of his compeon.

In recent years, in my work and life and communicaon with people, I have adhered to the following rule "UNDERPROMISE AND OVERDELIVER". What does that mean? Always promise LESS than you mean and deliver MORE

than you meant. In many companies in the past, they promised much more than they could ulmately fulfill. The key to today’s successful business and good relaonship with people is to always keep your promises or even exceed them. I speak from my own experience when I thought in the past that people would be more efficient if I promised them a lot for their work. The result was just the opposite, I had to work very hard to keep my promises, and people in my organizaon found it normal to earn well or go on a trip. I am acng differently today and I am known as a tough negoator at the beginning of our agreement, whatever we are agreeing on. I make sure I promise the minimum, and when people do what we agreed on, I make sure I exceed their expectaons in reward or pay and everyone is always posively surprised and my relaonship with the people around me improves and strengthens in this way. It is very good to know that the formula "EXCEEDS OF PEOPLE'S EXPECTATIONS" has nothing to do with the high goals that need to be set in the company and in life. It is simply a maer of fulfilling the minimum COMMITMENTS and PROMISES that we give to another at the beginning and we can easily fulfill them and reward the individual.

5 WAYS OF MOTIVATING YOUR EMPLOYEES:

1) THE ART OF INTERVIEWING KEY PERSONNEL 1/1

The forgoen art of 1/1 conversaons with people is crucial to understanding and movang people in an organizaon. Managers try to spend more me with their main employees and understand their suggesons, ideas, problems in their work. But you need to learn how to run such meengs in order for them to work to your advantage.

2) WHAT MOTIVATES PEOPLE?

How do managers know what movates their employees? They are interested in their lives and try to get to know their passions, goals and interests so that they can movate them in the right way. In other words, a leader knows his people and prepares a career path and opportunity for them in advance..

3) RECOGNITIONS AND AWARDS ARE AWARDED ON A REGULAR BASIS

No one has ever said “I don’t want a reward”. Leaders and managers must develop a weekly, monthly and annual plan for awarding rewards and recognions to their employees. The most successful companies use recognions and awards to strongly movate their employees. It has been proven that people in an organizaon where they receive regular recognion for their work achieve much higher producvity, are more loyal and more sasfied. There is a much greater chance that they will stay in the organizaon longer than others.

4) CREATING A CULTURE AND PURPOSE IN THE organizATION

People want meaning and purpose in their work. When they find a GOAL, their producvity and sasfacon increase 3x. The best leaders create an environment where people can progress and find long-term sasfacon. The new skills and techniques that people acquire in the process of advancement are invaluable for further growth and educaon. The goal is for managers to find a way for their key employees to stay in the organizaon through their personal growth, development, and educaon.

5) THE BEST LEADERS BELIEVE IN THEIR EMPLOYEES

They delegate responsibilies and demanding work to others they believe in on a daily basis. Many leaders, as has been wrien several mes in the book, underesmate their people or do not trust them. The best do the exact opposite and are constantly looking for new tasks that they can entrust to their people because they know this is the only way they will grow in their field..

THE ONLY WAY TO MOTIVATE PEOPLE IS TO LIVE A MOTIVATED LIFE YOURSELF.