Every year Rotary creates thousands of leadership opportunities at both club and district levels. How can we maximise the impact of these opportunities so your club or district can demonstrate real and lasting benefits to your communities?

Article by PDG Euan Miller, Rotary Club of Norwood

Here are 6 tips that will turn you from a good leader into a great leader

1. Learn to speak without reading. Public speaking is like learning to swim. It is scary, even terrifying, but once you master it you immediately recognise that it is the most powerful communication tool at your disposal.

You think you won’t be able to speak effectively if you don’t read it, your grammar will be all wrong and you will um and ah your way through it. When you chat to a person one-on-one you don’t have notes, you don’t stumble over words. Conversational English comes naturally and it will come just as naturally in public speaking. All you need is a few headings written down to keep you on track.

When you speak without reading you can observe your audience’s reactions and know whether or not your speech is making an impact. You don’t make speeches just to communicate information - you use this power to influence outcomes.

How do you learn? Rotary has partnered with Toastmasters International where you can take a short course to master the technique or even decide to join a club for a few months to learn how to influence through public speaking in many different settings. Great speakers read their audiences and adapt their message and delivery to suit.

2. Get your messages out early. In Rotary you are only given a year to make an impact so you need your strategic plan in place on day one and all your messages communicated to every member within the first few weeks. If you haven’t got your club, team or district focused on outcomes by now you are losing precious weeks to achieve your goals. However, it is never too late to change direction – you always need to change if the outcomes are not being achieved.

3. Delegate as if your life depends on it. Rotary, like all large and long-established organizations, relies heavily on compliance and completion of tasks. You can’t become a great leader if you get bogged down with compliance and tasks. You have to remain focused on leading for the achievement of agreed goals. Your skills at delegating to others to perform the majority of these tasks, as well as determining which tasks don’t need to be done at all; is the hallmark of a great leader.

4. Don’t blindly copy your predecessor. Don’t be afraid of change. Every leader should offer something fresh to the organisation, should offer the opportunity to try different people in different roles, should offer the challenge to take their Rotarians into unfamiliar territory, to provide opportunities for personal development and at the same time, find new ways to achieve even greater results.

5. Leave your mark by developing others. Great leaders pass on skills and opportunities so their legacy and that of their organisation, is not only preserved, but grown by the development of others.

6. Spread your influence as a figurehead. Great leaders don’t just lead within organisations – they use this opportunity to spread both their messages and influence externally by building partnerships with other influencers and power-brokers in the community to achieve mutual benefits.