What makes a leader a leader?
“Focus”
“a high level of activity inhibition (self control)”
“anyone who influences a group toward obtaining a particular result”
“a commitment to persist”
“ a person who does things right and more importantly does the right things”
Just because an organization has no single leader…does not mean it has weak leadership….group leadership can be effective.
“a leader must have drive, achievement, motivation, ambition, energy, tenacity and initiative, honesty, integrity, self-confidence”
“a leader has power”
Power = Concentration (Focus)
Concentration= Elimination of Distraction
Distraction= Mismanaged Commitments

Are these traits or characteristics that leaders are born with or can they be learned?
What is a “born” salesman?
Things to Try:
1. Capture everything on your mind—business and personal. Sort it into three categories
a. Is there some action I can take on it and if so what is the desired outcome?
b. Is it a useful reference that I can both retrieve and use in the future?
c. If neither a nor b then it is trash and should be discarded.
2. Keep track of the actionable items by reviewing periodically and do the actions identified.
3. If two or more people meet then actionable items, people responsible and delivery dates should be assigned. There always needs to be an agreed upon next step.

Mark Airhart, Director of Support Services

20 April 2009 – Abu Dhabi, UAE: Sorouh Real Estate PJSC, the leading Abu Dhabi-based master-planner and developer, today announced the launch of Khidmah, a comprehensive services management company. The joint venture company, established in conjunction with Capital Investment LLC, will offer property consultancy, facilities, maintenance, leasing and re-sales, cleaning, property management, landscaping, health and fitness, and a customer call centre all under one roof.

Khidmah will provide these management services to Sorouh, Capital Investment and their customers, as well as to home-owners and property investors on other developments.

The company is led by Managing Director Abdulla Saeed Al Qamzi and Chief Executive Officer Sutton Turner and expects to reach more than 150 staff by the end of 2009.

Mounir D Haidar, Chief Executive Officer of Sorouh, said:
“The launch of Khidmah follows a long and detailed planning process and is yet another example of how we are planning to meet the needs of our customers, from purchase all the way through to moving in and living in our properties.

“Khidmah offers all the services you will require, whether you are a homeowner requiring maintenance of your home, or an investor wanting help in leasing and managing a set of properties.”

Ali Al Mansoori, Managing Director of Capital Investment LLC, added:
“As Abu Dhabi’s first Emirati-owned services company, Khidmah will bring a unique understanding of the market. It has been able to combine this local expertise with the talents of world-class individuals in the senior management team.

“There is a real gap in the market for this type of company and we are confident Khidmah will attain a market leadership position.”

Khidmah’s property leasing services have also started operation, through dedicated website UAE2Let.com, which contains a searchable database of properties throughout the UAE.

-Ends-

About Sorouh Real Estate PJSC
Abu Dhabi-based Sorouh Real Estate PJSC is one of the UAE’s leading property companies, with more than AED 70 billion worth of projects under development in the UAE and internationally. Established in June 2005 with a capital of AED 2.5 billion, Sorouh is now one of the largest real estate developers on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange.

Working in master-planning, master-development and property related fields, Sorouh has some of the region’s most important developments underway, including Abu Dhabi’s Lulu Island, SHAMS Abu Dhabi on Reem Island including The Gate District, and alghadeer Sorouh on the border of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, all developed in close cooperation with the Abu Dhabi government and its Plan Abu Dhabi 2030.

For more information, please contact:
Olivia White
Four Communications Group Abu Dhabi
Tel: +971 55 980 1124
sorouh@fourcommunications.com

Khidmah LLC, an emirati-owned and operated services management company located in Abu Dhabi, has hired Mark Airhart to lead the company’s Support Services Division. As Director, Mr. Airhart will oversee the company’s Finance, Administrative, Team Services, IT and Marketing departments.

Abu Dhabi, UAE – April 30, 2009
Khidmah, LLC, an integrated services management company based in Abu Dhabi, today announces the hiring of Mark Airhart as Director of Support Services. Mr. Airhart joins Khidmah as Director of Support Services, where he will bring extensive organizational experience and customer knowledge to the company’s management team.

Mr. Airhart will lead the Support Services Division for Khidmah, where he will oversee the company’s Finance, Administrative, Team Services (Human Resources), IT and Marketing departments. He brings over 30 years experience in building delivery organizations that satisfy customer requirements and provide shareholder value, as well as leadership in developing electronic payment and check processing, document management and information systems capable of managing thousands of transactions and customer interactions across a broad range of services.

Prior to joining Khidmah, Mr. Airhart served as Vice President of Computing and Network Services at Symcor Corporation, one of North America’s largest business outsourcing companies, where he managed a staff of 125 with annual budget of $40 million. Previous leadership roles also include Senior Vice President positions at two major corporations, overseeing 300 employees with a $20 million annual budget and 400 employees with an annual budget of $50 million. Mr. Airhart holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees from Ball State University (USA).
Khidmah provides comprehensive services management to the finest properties in the world. Employing innovative processes and proven practices across a range of services, Khidmah is able to manage and maintain every aspect of successful, profitable development. Khidmah’s Services Management approach includes consulting, facilities and maintenance, leasing, security, cleaning, landscaping, health and fitness, customer call centers and an ever expanding list of specialized capabilities, all provided under a single point of contact.

For more information on Khidmah, LLC, please visit www.Khidmah.com.

Since Khidmah is posed for massive growth and we are currently hiring a large number of team members, YOU need to ask yourself – “Who are you surrounding yourself with?  Are they ‘Improving’ Team Members?”

We need to ask the following questions concerning adding people to our Khidmah Team:  Does the candidate do all of the following?

1. Improves the Team.
   We must know our team’s weaknesses and needs in the future.  Each new member needs to add something to the team, wheather it is skills, knowledge, experience, etc. that currently is needed or will be needed for team success in the future.
2. Improves you as the Leader.
   Ouch!  This is a tough one for most leaders – YOU MUST KNOW YOUR WEAKNESSES AS A LEADER AND SURROUND YOURSELF WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE BETTER THAN YOU AT YOUR WEAKNESS!
   Yes, as a leader you have a weakness.  You might not admit is, which is another weakness.  What are your weaknesses?  Do you know?  When you know your weakness, add someone to your team that is really good at what you are not.  Here is a good tip:  Whatever you hate to do – find someone that it is there passion.  That team member should be your right hand person.
   During our meeting, I discussed how our Director of Services is really good at technical and operations of buildings.  One of my weaknesses is the techinical and engineering components of a building.  My weakness is his love and passion.  So he complements me as the leader and improves our team.  I am personally and professionally learning from him each and every day.  He is giving me a great education in my area of weakness.  Neil improves me.
3. You can Improve them.
   When you look at the new candidate, can someone on your current team improve the candidates weaknesses?  Again, as stated above, we all have weaknesses.  So can someone improve the candidate and make them better because they joined Khidmah.  The answer must be Yes.  If people are progressing and moving to new levels in areas of their weaknesses, they will more enjoy their position and more enjoy contributing to the vision and mission because they are personally benefiting from the relationship.
   One of the things we do at Khidmah is give every new employee the Birkman Test that shows people’s natural strengths, likes, and interests.   It also shows how they handle stressful situations.  These tests are then given to their Leader and to the new employee for learning by each.

LEADERSHIP PIT FALL: If I hire good poeple that are better than me at my weakness or even in general, then they will make me look bad and I will be replaced by them.  THIS IS FALSE!  Absolutately and completely!

Let’s discuss what is the downward spiral of NOT hiring Improving people that are better than the leader.  This is what happens when  the three objectives above are not met:

• Leader decides that he cannot hire people that are better than him.  He wants to keep control of the company/department and make sure he  is the smarted person in the room.  (THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM STARTS)
• At first, the leader can do everything, but as the company/department grows, it puts more and more things on the desk of the leader.  The leader begins to work weekends and late nights.  Before long, even with working the weekends, things are not getting done.
• The pressure/stress builds on the leader – the leader is doing things they are not good at which takes the leader extra time and energy.
  From my example of me and Neil:  Looking at the technical part of buildings is easy for Neil and comes second nature to him.  However, if Neil were not a Leader of the Khidmah team, then I would be spending time looking at the technical aspects of the buildings that we manage.  This would be very stressful to me and take additional time and energy vs. what it would take Neil to perform the same task.
• The Leader becomes the controller, and not the leader.  He begins to manage and not lead.  If the leader does not have people surrounding himself to delegate tasks to, they become the bottleneck and begin controlling everything.
• Because the leader has no one surrounding him, he does not empower anyone to make decisions.
• High achieving people looking to join the company see noone empowered and thus decide not to join.
• High achieving people within the company, see noone empowered and see the bottleneck and leave the organization.
• With high achieving people not joining the organizaiton and high achieving people within the organization leaving – there is a depletion of good talent to grow the company – again adding to the focus/pressure/stress on the leader.
• With a depletion of talent, there comes a depletion of quality of work or service from the company.  The company begins to not meet its objectives and which increases the pressure on the leader.
• More work and responsibility for the leader which means leader is unable to think or make decisions strategically.

Basically, all of the above, lead to one of two things (or both) – the leader leaves the company or the company/department fails.

So now that we have discussed what we want to avoid and how not surrounding yourself with “improving” team members , let’s talk about the right way of doing it.

• Leader correctly assesses the team and himself.  Again, this is an Ouch.  It hurts, but if you don’t look at yourself and the organization to assess what it correctly needs, you are wasting your time.  The leader determine what is needed and recruits based on weaknesses of the team – Improves the Team; Improves the Leader; and You Improve the new team member.
• Leader makes a decision to hire people that are “better than he  is.”
• As these new team members are trained and begin to understand the Vision and Team Culture, the leader is able to give away or empower them to ”take things off his plate or responsibility.”
• As the leader is able to give things to the team members, he is able to focus on leadership of the team and the strategy on where the team is heading.
• As the team members are given more responsiblity, they are encouraged to take “ownership” in the process and begin to work in their area of strength.
• High Achievers from outside the organization are drawn to the organization because of the success, and they see people being empowered – increasing talent coming into the team.
• High Achievers within the organization are encouraged that they will have the opportunities within this organization to rise to their next level - increasing retention of good talent.
• Momentum begins to build from inside the organization with empowerment and recognition.  With momentum, people are able to do more because of the positive sysnergies that exist.
• The leader with more time to focus on leading begins to see new opportunites for the developing and growing team, and more ways to use the team for the companies benefit.  These new opportunities allow new team members the chance to lead, thus building more momentum.
• The company no longer depends on the leader to do anything more than lead (which is his job).  The team is strong, allowing people to leave the company without causing the company to suffer.
• The leader is recognized for allowing the team to grow and additional opportunities are open for the leader within the company.

As we discussed in our meeting, this cycle builds on itself and has a life of its own.

One key takeaway that we discussed at the end of this training was – Leaders must be continually giving away responsibilty and empowering people in order to grow.  The example above on how NOT to lead was based around the leader taking on more and more duties and resposiblities – but thereby causing the bottleneck.  However, the correct way is just the opposite, the leader surrounds himself with good talented people and continues to give away responsiblities and “power” to allow the organization to grow.

Hope this helped someone!

Lead On!

Sutton

Each one of us is at our own level of leadership, however we all strive to get to the next level.  Today I want to discuss the 5 Levels of Leadership to help you:
1.  Know where you are
2.  Know what is the next level
3.  To set your sites on the Top

Level 1,  POSITION:  Built on the principal of Rights. This is the first level of Leadership and the basic level.  This is also the level where most leaders practice leadership.  The position level of leadership depends on people following the leader because they have to, not because they want to.
This level of leadership only extends to the job description and is only based on your title – nothing more.  If you are a position level leader, you will have high turnover and low morale of your staff.  Very simply – people see you as their “boss” not a leader.

Level 2, PERMISSION:  Built on the principal of Relationships. People follow you because they want to.  Many times this type of leadership is developed on common interests or friendships.  Now, this leadership is a very good during times of fruit or success, however does not do well when there becomes a disagreement or non-success.  Permission level leaders will not keep highly motivated employees because they will become restless.

Level 3, PRODUCTION:   Built on the principal of Results. People follow you because of what you have done and what you are doing for the organization.  People follow you because of success sensed by most people.  The problem is that people follow you as a leader under “good times,” but not in bad.

Level 4, PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT:  Built on the principal of Reproduction. People follow you because of what you have done for them.  This is now getting to “sustainable leadership” and where long-range growth occurs.  Your commitment as the leader to developing leaders will insure ongoing growth to the organization and to the individuals.  As Dr. Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls with leadership.”  In this level of leadership, you have people rising to a Hole Nuther Level (teaching in a couple of weeks) or greater development for themselves.

Level 5, PERSONHOOD:  Built on the principal of Respect. People follow you because of who you are and what you represent.  This is the level of leadership we should all strive for, but unfortunately few ever obtain.  This step is reserved for leaders who have spent years growing people and organizations.  If your leadership is built on respect, people will follow you and “trust” you in good times and bad.  Remember, trust is something that can not be asked for, it is earned from respect built over time.

As we discussed in our meeting, these levels of leadership are set as a pyramid, with level 1 at the bottom with the widest base/area.  Then level 2 on top of it, and so on until you get to Level 5 which is the top and smallest in base/area.  These sizes respresent number of leaders at each level.  Most leaders are positional or rights (Level 1) level leaders.

Lastly, we discussed that as a leader, you will be leading different people that see you as their leader at different levels.  For instance, you can not expect the person that just joined your team to look at you as a Level 5 Leader based on respect.  They just joined your team and they only look at you as their “Boss” and see you only as a Level 1 or Positional Leader based on rights.  So, understand moving people up from Level 1 to Level 5 is a continual process and never stops if you are on a team where their is turnover.  Now you see another negative effect of turnover – when you lose a follower that sees you as a Level 5 leader and you replace it with someone who sees you as a Level 1 leader (only natural) how much does this cost your team or company?

Lead on!

Sutton

Hello Khidmah Team and Supports,

We have created a blog upon your request to publish and help document our weekly Leadership Meetings, especially for people who miss the meeting – hopefully for a good reason :).

First, as Dr. John C. Maxwell says, “Everything rises and falls with leadership.”  Which, as a follower of Dr. Maxwell, I firmly agree with and it has become my passion.  Over the past 19 weeks, the Khidmah Team has met for about an hour to learn about Leadership and for everyone to develop the leader in them.  No matter what your position is with Khidmah, you are called to be a leader, and mature as a leader.  Our future success lies in this simple thought – we must grow leaders as fast as we grow Khidmah.  It is the fuel we must have for this tremendous growth opportunity in Services Management.

So with this stated, let’s begin.  I will start posting to this website our lessons from Harvard & Dr. Maxwell, and leadership that I am learning here as one of the leaders at Khidmah.  This should be fun, so let’s have fun with it.

If you would like to comment about something that is written, please send me an email at Blog@Khidmah.com.

Sutton
CEO of Khidmah, LLC