Guiding Principles Of Leadership Part Two

Leadership principles are rarely complicated. The difficulty is remembering to practise them consistently when targets are missed, markets become unstable, staff disappoint us and the pressure keeps building.

In Part One, we examined the first seven guiding principles of leadership. Here are principles eight to sixteen: practical reminders about respect, recognition, accountability, goal-setting, focus, resilience, work-life balance, worry and enthusiasm. They may sound familiar, but familiarity is not the same as application.

How does showing respect improve employee motivation?

Genuine respect is the foundation of sustainable employee motivation because people are more willing to contribute when they feel valued as human beings. This applies not only to star performers but also to the large middle of the workforce whose performance may be average or inconsistent.

Many bosses naturally respect their top 20% because those people deliver results. The real leadership test is how they treat everyone else. Frustration can leak into the boss’s voice, facial expression and daily interactions. Staff quickly recognise when they are being tolerated rather than respected.

Leaders do not have to accept poor performance. They do, however, need to separate the individual’s worth from the current quality of the work. Clear coaching, fair expectations and honest feedback can coexist with dignity.

Do now: Check whether every team member receives the same basic level of courtesy, attention and respect, regardless of performance.

Why are recognition and praise sometimes more powerful than money?

People work for money, but they often go the extra mile because they receive recognition, praise and meaningful rewards. Fair pay matters, but salary alone rarely creates emotional engagement, loyalty or discretionary effort.

Frederick Herzberg described salary as a “hygiene factor”. When pay is unfair, it causes dissatisfaction. When it is fair, employees generally treat it as an expected part of the employment relationship. The stronger motivational effect often comes from achievement, responsibility, progress and recognition.

Our Dale Carnegie research has repeatedly identified feeling valued by one’s immediate manager as an important emotional driver of engagement. Employees cannot read the boss’s mind. They know they are valued because the leader communicates it through specific praise, appreciation and acknowledgement.

A vague “good job” is better than silence, but precise recognition is stronger: explain what the person did, why it mattered and who benefited.

Do now: Recognise one specific contribution today and connect it directly to its positive impact.

Should leaders admit their mistakes?

Strong leaders admit mistakes quickly because accountability builds credibility rather than diminishing authority.A boss who pretends to be infallible creates defensiveness, fear and political behaviour throughout the organisation.

Ego, face, pride and professional image can make an admission difficult, particularly in hierarchical business cultures. Some managers worry that saying “I was wrong” will weaken their position. Usually, the opposite happens. Employees already know the mistake occurred. The only unresolved question is whether the leader has enough confidence and integrity to acknowledge it.

Admitting an error does not mean accepting chronic incompetence. Leaders and employees must still meet professional standards. The principle is to be quick to acknowledge genuine mistakes, slow to criticise others and constructive when correcting performance.

A leader who accepts personal imperfection is also more capable of responding calmly when a team member makes an occasional error.

Do now: Admit the mistake, explain the correction and focus the team on preventing a recurrence.

How should leaders set challenging but realistic goals?

Effective goals should stretch performance without becoming so unrealistic that employees stop believing effort will make any difference. Clear, challenging and attainable targets generate more commitment than numbers based on guesswork, hope or executive wishful thinking.

Throughout my career, I have encountered targets that appeared to have no scientific, commercial or logical foundation. A wet finger held up to the breeze seemed to be the methodology. These goals did not motivate anyone. They encouraged cynicism, sandbagging and creative explanations for failure.

Today, I use a spreadsheet to track each salesperson’s results from the date they joined the company. This allows comparisons based on experience, historical performance, conversion patterns and realistic productivity expectations.

Large corporations, SMEs and startups may use different metrics, but the principle remains the same: base targets on evidence, explain the rationale and confirm that employees can influence the outcome.

Do now: Review whether your team’s goals are evidence-based, clearly explained and difficult but genuinely obtainable.

How can leaders maintain focus on the big picture?

Leaders maintain strategic focus by protecting time for important long-term work, even while urgent problems compete for attention. Markets, currency movements, wars, technological disruption and economic downturns can easily pull leaders into permanent crisis management.

Employees are often understandably focused on today’s workload, career, compensation and immediate problems. Senior leaders must operate across a longer horizon. They need to keep reminding the organisation where it is going, why that destination matters and what must be protected during periods of disruption.

The familiar advice is to work on the business, not only in the business. Stephen Covey’s Quadrant Two—important but not urgent—is where strategic planning, relationship building, capability development and risk prevention normally sit. Unfortunately, these activities are easily postponed because they are not yet emergencies.

The big picture does not maintain itself. Leaders have to schedule time to think.

Do now: Block regular Quadrant Two time for strategy, people development and prevention before urgent work consumes the calendar.

Does work-life balance improve leadership performance?

Consistently high performance requires recovery because health, reflection and leisure support better judgement, creativity and endurance. Leadership is a marathon, even though ambitious executives sometimes behave as if every month is the final sprint.

“I will outwork, out-sacrifice and out-commit everyone” can sound admirable. It becomes dangerous when exhaustion damages decision quality, relationships or physical health. Many of our strongest ideas appear while walking, running, swimming, exercising or gardening—not while staring at another spreadsheet late at night.

My father established his own company at the age of 49 and achieved rapid financial success. He died from lung cancer at 51 and was not there to enjoy the rewards. That experience permanently shaped my view of success.

Winning in business is meaningless if leaders destroy their health, family life and capacity to enjoy what they have built.

Do now: Treat sleep, exercise, relationships and recovery as performance disciplines rather than optional rewards.

How can leaders remain positive during severe setbacks?

Resilient leaders take strength from what remains possible instead of allowing past failures and present negativity to consume their energy. Positivity is not pretending that serious problems do not exist. It is maintaining the ability to act despite them.

The movie reel inside our minds repeatedly shows mistakes, humiliations, losses and disasters. News media amplify the effect because negative stories attract attention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the training industry suffered extraordinary disruption. Remaining optimistic while facing losses, uncertainty and upheaval was not easy.

My mantra was TINA: There Is No Alternative. Quitting mentally would not improve the situation, so the only productive option was to keep adapting and fighting.

Japan’s well-known saying, “Fall down seven times, get up eight,” captures the required mindset. Resilience does not remove the wound. It gets us moving again.

Do now: Identify what remains within your control and take one constructive action before reviewing the problem again.

What practical method helps leaders control worry?

Leaders can reduce worry by converting vague fear into a clearly defined problem followed by practical solution choices. Worry thrives when the mind circles endlessly around uncertainty without moving toward a decision.

Questions such as “Can we make payroll?”, “Will we run out of cash?” and “How much longer can we survive?” became genuine concerns for many business owners during the pandemic, supply-chain disruption, market instability and geopolitical conflict.

A simple four-part process can interrupt paralysis:

1. What is the problem?
2. Why is it a problem?
3. What could I do to alleviate the problem?
4. Which solution is best?

This structure moves the mind away from emotional repetition and into analysis, options and action. The selected solution may not be perfect, but purposeful movement is generally healthier than passive anxiety.

Do now: Write down the worry, answer the four questions and choose the next specific action.

Why is enthusiasm essential for leadership?

Enthusiasm gives leaders the emotional energy to influence others, sustain momentum and keep hope alive when circumstances are grim. It can move people, but it must also be protected from persistent negativity.

Negative colleagues, commentators and acquaintances can act like kryptonite. Their pessimism gradually drains confidence and makes every idea appear impossible. Leaders cannot always avoid difficult people, particularly when the negative person is a colleague, client or family member. They can, however, control how much authority that person’s outlook is allowed to have.

Enthusiasm is not constant excitement. It is a renewable commitment to possibility. Leaders should identify the activities, people, purposes and achievements that reignite their energy. A small spark can become the blue flame that helps a team believe there is a worthwhile future ahead.

Your emotional state is contagious, whether you intend it to be or not.

Do now: Protect your enthusiasm, reduce unnecessary exposure to habitual negativity and reconnect with what gives the work meaning.

Conclusion: How can leaders turn familiar principles into daily habits?

The sixteen principles covered across Parts One and Two are not new, glamorous or technologically advanced. Most leaders have heard similar advice before. The problem is not a lack of knowledge. The problem is inconsistent execution.

Respect, recognition, humility, constructive feedback, realistic goals, strategic focus, personal health, resilience, practical problem-solving and enthusiasm only create value when they become visible behaviours.

Choose one principle each day and deliberately practise it. Treat the principles like daily business health supplements. One small leadership behaviour repeated consistently can improve trust, engagement, judgement and organisational performance.

The obvious principles are often the ones we neglect. Leadership improves when we stop admiring the ideas and start living them.

Author Bio

Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie “One Carnegie Award” in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results.

He has written several books, including the bestsellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His books have also been published in Japanese, including Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban “Hito o Ugokasu” Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）.

Greg publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan’s Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.