Mastering Your Leadership Dna

By Linsdale McKenzie

Many leaders take a haphazard approach to leadership, positioning themselves and their organizations for failure by adapting whichever methods and practices they believe will prove effective at the moment and demanding results no matter the cost. However, there is a more viable, effective leadership strategyone that allows the goals of an organization to be achieved when leaders embrace and replicate their leadership DNA. Mastering Your Leadership DNA defines the concept of this leadership DNA, exploring how a scientific principle can be applied to leadership. Author Linsdale McKenzie, an experienced leader with an extensive track record of managing employees to foster corporate growth, examines and explains the fundamental and foundational measures that foster the high level of managerial competency needed to motivate and support employee performance and build a foundation for organizational success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984522221

Linsdale McKenzie

Linsdale McKenzie is the founder of BLC Recruiting, a firm based in New York City, New York, that specializes in the selection and recruitment of management- and executive-level candidates for the hospitality industry. Mr. McKenzie is also the founder of McKenzie Innovative Solutions (MIS), which brings a dynamic, strategic, and conceptualized approach to enhancing a businesss growth and profitability by optimizing measurable efficiency levels that empower and motivate employees to perform with excellence. Prior to the inception of BLC Recruiting, Mr. McKenzie spent twenty years working for Fortune 500 companies in a leadership role, which allowed him to hone strong leadership, organizational, and interpersonal skills, along with a proven ability to direct, motivate, and supervise personnel to achieve maximum productivity. Through his work with these companies, he undisputedly developed a successful track record of leading, training, inspiring, and motivating employees. Mr. McKenzie is a devout Christian and resides in Long Island, New York, with his wife, Mary, of twenty-four years and his two sons.

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Copyright © 2018 by Linsdale McKenzie.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2018904770

ISBN:                  Hardcover                        978-1-9845-2224-5

                             Softcover                          978-1-9845-2223-8

                             eBook                               978-1-9845-2222-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/27/2018

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction: Conceptualized Leadership

Chapter 1   Finding and Establishing Your Leadership DNA and V.O.I.C.E.

Chapter 2   Sowing the Seeds and Cultivating Your Leadership DNA: Establishing the Framework and Mission to Lead the Vision

Chapter 3   Becoming an Effective and Fearless Leader

Chapter 4   Leadership DNA, Day to Day

Chapter 5   Identifying Your Team:

Finding Fertile Soil for Your Leadership DNA

Chapter 6   Mentoring the Next Generation of Leaders and Supervisors

Acknowledgments

Foreword

As life has its way of charting its own course, many of us try very hard to determine our purpose. We ask ourselves what we are to do here on earth or what purposes we are meant to fulfill. We wonder what is the one thing that would make us complete and peaceful with ourselves.

While we search for the answers, we conclude that if only we could find out what it would take to bring about our peace and complete happiness, all would be well. Yet, I have found out that regardless of what we may think is best for us, God has the final answer and brings it about in ways that cannot be scripted or dreamed of. It just happens—an aha! moment—and the light bulb is turned on.

This has been my experience. I spent a lot of time with my son Jason on his ninth-grade schoolwork, preparing him for a state-mandated exam in living environment. I must admit that he struggled with the subject, requiring some assistance in the research needed to complete his assignments and understand the subject matter. Considering that biology was one of my favorite and best subjects in school, I enjoyed tutoring him. It brought back vivid memories of my school days.

As we continued to research and work on practice tests for the exam, I was drawn to look at plant and animal cells from a completely different perspective and was very intrigued by DNA and its role in these cells. At the time, I was already 20 years into my restaurant career and had, in my management and leadership role, spent the previous two decades speaking with managers about their daily responsibilities, successes with operational matters, and failures and devoting ample time to coaching and preparing potential restaurant leaders for job interviews. It occurred to me that I could leverage this information and knowledge to write about how to master one’s leadership DNA, utilizing analogies to cellular structure and the function of cellular components in growing employees. That became the focus of this book.

Additionally, I got the idea to develop a leadership training workshop to bring my ideas to as many individuals and companies in as many industries as possible. The training program is a natural complement to this book and is built on an important logical concept I believe should be brought to the attention of the marketplace.

Jason, I offer my heartfelt thanks for the time we spent together on your schoolwork, which planted the vision to write this book. Thank you to my wonderful wife, Mary, for pushing me with her insistence that the Lord wants to birth all that is within me and has given me intellect, knowledge, and experience to write this book. To my daughters, Ralna and Yonah, thank you for your love and empowerment. And to my other son, Denzel, who recently graduated from Berklee College of Music, may this book motivate and inspire you to pursue your music career with excellence.

Finally, it is my desire that Our Lord receives all the honor, praise, and glory for this book, as I am only a vessel to do His will as directed by the Holy Spirit.

Introduction

Conceptualized Leadership

How do most people lead in a professional capacity?

The answer to this question may surprise you, but it is also rather disturbing when one really thinks about it. At the age of 24, I was appointed district manager of a major quick-service restaurant chain with responsibility for supervising 12 of its locations. I was the youngest person ever to be appointed to work in that capacity. In my managerial career with that company and the restaurant industry, followed by 20 years as the principal of a recruitment-consulting firm, I have had the opportunity to interview hundreds of managers and candidates for managerial positions. Within that time, I have come to realize that the majority of individuals lead by adapting whatever methods and practices suit their present situation to get

Reviews for Mastering Your Leadership Dna

[Dayna Medeiros · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well spoken from a true leader!
You are respected and appreciated by me.
Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge