Executive Summary – Leadership Skills Book by Ben


  • Learn the leadership skills and techniques to use to lead all employees to be top performers
  • Find out how and why specific managerial actions ignite innovation and productivity
  • Discover why different approaches are wrong or weak
  • Find out how to instill your desired culture and values
  • Take the stress out of managing people
  • Increase morale and decrease turnover
  • Generate consistent sustainable results

Every executive and manager wants employees who are highly motivated and committed, fully engaged, with very high morale. This makes creating employees with these characteristics the ultimate goal of managing people. Why? Because such employees produce the highest quality products and services for customers and they also happen to be 300% to 500% more productive than if poorly motivated, are a joy to manage, and create the lowest levels of stress for management and the company.

However, the reality for most managers, from executives to supervisors, is that a majority of their employees are not fully engaged, performing in the middle and perhaps disengaged with low morale. So while you may want more top performers, most have not been able to find the tools to affect substantial and sustained performance change.

This book is written for those who want to achieve the goal and incite far above average performance, to realize a tremendous gain in productivity and to create a legacy of peak performance. This book outlines what to do, why to do it and precisely how to do it at every level of management.

You Get Clear Actions & Guidance

  • The Six Powerful Rationales to use to change performance.
  • The 11 Valuable Standing Orders to create a culture of commitment.
  • 22 Common Workplace Problems and how to solve them
  • The Don’t Shoot the Messenger Procedure
  • The Five Star Employee — watch the video
  • Master Listening, Your Most Valuable Leadership Skill
  • How to Convert Followers Into Non-Followers & Create a Legacy!

What Others Have Said

“In reading the book the first time, it almost seemed as if you had observed all the management mistakes I had committed over time and set-out to write a methodology on how to correct them.”
—Shanthie Goonetilleke

“Excellent does not do justice in describing your book. I don’t know of any executive who could sit down, read your book and not get excited. It’s a great wake up call for US executives and one that should be required reading of anybody who leads, or wants to lead, others.”
—Bill Vick

Hear From Ben, the Author

Here’s How the Book Delivers

The book presents three major areas of focus and expertise that when implemented and practiced together enable break-through results:

1) Understanding People,
2) Values and Support
3) How to Deliver Effective Leadership

Understanding People

Do you find yourself struggling with some people? Do you find you don’t know why some people “just can’t do a better job?” or “aren’t doing what you want,” or perhaps you are asking your team to “be more innovative” because the competition is gaining or beating you.

The number one reason that managers do not get the results that they wish to get from the majority of the people who work for them is that too much time is spent managing “things” and managing “people,” is neglected. This may be due to an overload of work or lack of knowledge of managing people, but output suffers, nonetheless.

By understanding what drives people to be top performers, the actions you and your managers must take to unleash peak performance become all the more clear.

At the core are the values common to humans. We all have a set of values that we use to guide our lives and we all have the power of choice. However, a large majority of us are followers (conformists) and this means we use the values projected in what we experience in the workplace to perform our jobs.

I outline these critial human characteristics — values, choice, following — and explain why they dictate how people respond to managerial actions and inactions. Understanding this is key to managing and leading employees to the highest levels of performance.

Each characteristic is reviewed in detail to reveal how to tap into what truly causes individuals to apply their full potential on the job. These are triggers that bosses often spend little time understanding or addressing, but that ignite the greatest trust, commitment, motivation, creativity, innovation and productivity.

Now, the idea that 90% of people are followers has been widely propagated. How to capitalize on this fact, however, has not. Society is generally authoritarian. It creates followers when what we need in the workplace is non-followers, people who waste no brainpower on following, but instead apply 100% of their brainpower on their work. This ultimate goal is what makes great companies, ones that can weather any economic downturn and blast past their competition. Because every individual has the power of choice, every person is in fact capable of becoming a non-follower, a superstar employee or exceptional manager.

Values Driven Leadership

Because of these common human characteristics, leadership in the workplace can only be defined as the transmission of value standards to employees, standards they then use to perform their work. Followers will conform to the value standards reflected in the boss’ support functions; good, bad or otherwise. This is a Natural Law. As such, it is a powerful force for bosses to utilize. The boss need only transmit exceptional value standards to raise performance and to build a culture of excellence.

Each of the values most relevant to the workplace are reviewed, along with how management can demonstrate the highest standards of each. The same is done for each of the elements of support with particular emphasis placed on providing direction because it is the area where most managers go wrong with unintential consequences.

“I’ve now gone through the book and have found it more than illuminating. In fact I have printed out a copy of it for my 17 year old to read and take back to college with him; I think your approach and insight into dealing with people will be invaluable to him, whether he is operating from a leadership position or simply as a team member.”
—Charles Bearsdley

The Most Important Leadership Skill – Listening

With an understanding of people and the role of the boss/manager in supporting the workforce, we move on to the skills and tools to master, starting first with listening to employees. How to listen properly and how to respectfully take action are fully explained.

There is no other way for bosses to express that they actually care about what is going on and the effects on their people and it is the only way to show respect for employees and thusly meet their most important needs of being heard and being treated as a valuable team member.

It will be through listening and responding respectfully that the boss will lead the majority of employees to become highly motivated, committed, fully engaged, and transformed into strong and independent self-directed individuals.

One-On-One and Group Meetings

There are two leadership mechanisms to master: one-on-one interactions and group meetings.

It seems so obvious, but many managers and executives do not fully leverage these venues and actually mismanage them. These are the arenas where the management listens and exemplifies the standards for performance. Precisely how to conduct oneself in each from start to finish is outlined, including the reasons why each method is most effective.

There is no other way to hear employee complaints, suggestions, and questions or to resolve them. These forums are also where employees are led to address issues on their own. Again, quite obvious, but the norm is actually the opposite.

Through this process of one-on-one meetings and group meetings, managers and executives can increase overall team and organizational performance considerably, access untapped talent and increase their own value to the company.

Each level of management comes with its own set of responsibilities. These levels of leadership are called out with a good example being group meetings. If ever executive management needed to change culture, it is driven through group meetings. There power must not be wasted.

Scripts and procedures to follow and practice are provided along with the reasons why the methods presented propel people, teams and you to explosive performance.

Results From Implementing Ben’s Leadership Skills & Techniques:

  • Increased employee motivation and commitment.
  • A highly ethical, values-based culture arises.
  • Higher level of creativity and innovation is unleashed
  • Lower costs due to decreased turnover of top talent and absenteeism.
  • Lower costs due to decreased absenteeism.
  • Lower costs and greater innovation enable you to beat your competition!
  • Problems due to change, personality and diversity conflicts and ethics issues disappear.
  • Your stress from managing people turns to satisfaction!
  • You greatly increase your ability to turn around major personnel issues or management disasters.
  • Issues and problems noticeably decrease because people are solving issues themselves.
  • Productivity gains over 300% per employee become very possible!

“What about motivating my employees?”

My managers and I proved that self-motivation is the key to success. It opens all doors and you know that your best people are self-motivated self-starters. I teach you how to have a workplace where self-motivation is the norm. I teach you how to create the environment where this happens which will also prevent de-motivation and all its fearsome consequences. In truth, there is no limit to what employees can accomplish once your leadership skills tap their own motivations. I know this first hand from over 30 years of managing people and turning around organizations considered hopeless.

“What about differing leadership styles?”

Don’t worry about your leadership style, personality, looks or charisma or that of your subordinate managers. What every manager at every levels needs to do is focus on the actions that drive full employee engagement and explosive performance that is sustainable and replicatable. My managers and I proved that actions are what count, and that carrying out the actions specified by the leadership skills outlined in my book will make you an exceptional manager of people. Also, you will be able to coach subordinate managers and feel comfortable farther up the ladder or taking on organizational challenges.

“Why follow your methods?”

I am not talking about small gains, I am talking about substantial and sustainable gains, all of which are proven results from my 34 years of managing people. I devised these methods, I taught these methods and my managers and I used these methods over and over to realize great success and satisfaction. This is not about organizational change, implementing a new “program,” or about managing to personalities or styles, this is all about actions that when taken, practiced and repeated drive serious results. All of the results listed above are achievable. I teach you to leverage your resources and your management talent, completely. This is what gets good companies to become great companies!


leadership skills book by ben simonton

Essential Leadership Skills That Every Manager at Any Level Must Know to Drive Top Performance

Available on Amazon.com as soft-cover book or Kindle.

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