In business, as in other endeavours, the essence of leadership is positive Influence.

At its core, positive Influence is about inspiring people to take positive actions...where 'positive actions' means mean actions directed toward desired long-term goals.

In addition to the ability to inspire positive actions, a leader must have a pleasing personality (or at the very least an acceptable personality) in order to inspire other people to be motivated in positive ways...i.e., be motivated to take actions aimed at desired & shared goals. 

Inspiring People and Influencing them to take positive Actions toward desired & shared Goals...toward a shared & vivid Vision.

• this is the way to grow personal wealth through business
• this is the work of business Leaders

As a general rule, people of strong character do not complain about people they truly like. Certainly, people of strong character do not voice repeated complaints about people they like.

A mentor must, at the very least, like the person being mentored. A true mentor-mentee relationship goes far beyond just liking one another. Such relationships are founded on mutual respect and built on shared trust.

So, if someone says they are mentoring a person and in the next breath complains about that person then you know there is no true mentoring relationship. What the person is doing is simply complaining about another person. And, if the person is complaining about an employee then the person is simply criticizing an employee's performance. The situation is not about mentoring…it’s just another boss complaining about another employee....it's nothing special...it's common fare...it's just a display of a destructive bad habit.

When a mentor is mentoring an employee the mentor uses criticism most sparingly, if at all. In addition, the mentor refrains from sharing those criticisms with other people. That would violate the mentor-mentee relationship. A true mentor would not complain about a mentee to others. And a true mentor would use (at the very most) private and gentle criticism in performing the role of mentoring. The essence of mentoring is helping and good mentors know criticism is often destructive.

So, a boss who complains to others about an employee is not able to mentor that employee. The complainer is just a struggling boss. The person lacks, for one reason or another, the ability to constructively inspire and influence the employee to perform in a manner deemed satisfactory. The complaints about the employee are cries for help, whether the complainer knows it or not. That is the essence of the complaints. Needless to say, when bosses fail with employees the employees are caught between rocks and hard places.

When a senior-team person’s competence is being questioned we leaders have only 3 choices, we can:

1.Be confident the person can do the job. If we select this option then we, as leaders, must help the person succeed. We cannot second guess the person’s capability and/or send signals we think the person is going to fail. We must adjust our mindsets to contain only positive thinking and roll up our sleeves and help.

2.Be confident the person cannot do the job. If we select this option then we must expedite the person’s departure. That’s in everyone’s best interest. Lengthy, unsuccessful discussions about flawed performances sour relationships, kill positive momentum, and sour the business culture. 

3.Be confused about whether the person will succeed and have a plan that will remove that confusion within a set time limit. It is OK for leaders to be confused about a senior person’s abilities as long as (1) they know they are confused, (2) they set time boundaries for removal of that confusion and (3) they set clear action plans to remove that confusion within those time boundaries.