Customer Service and Leadership

My working life has been about servicing the customer to retain their business indefinitely. I have been able to teach a customer service class, and have done enough good and bad regarding service to understand that providing it in an outstanding manner is showing leadership.

I think customer service and leadership aren't linked together enough because the people providing it may not hold a management position. This doesn't matter because no matter what providing great service is offering leadership and it is becoming a lost art.

Think about some of the skills needed to provide great customer service. Listening skills have to be done effectively to be able to converse with customers. Communication should be controlled leading your customer to the product or service desired in a timely manner but this has to be done in a personable, unrehearsed manner. This is very difficult to achieve in a fluent way especially because of the diversity a customer base makes up.

A customer service provider must treat their customer base ethically. The ability to gain control of values, priorities, and responsibilities is showing leadership qualities. Power becomes intoxicating and offering customer service is powerful. Customers have to trust enough so they can be guided towards what is being offered and influenced by people they don't know. Many times the exchange of money is involved and the quest to earn more can influence the type of customer service we provide.

Many times customer service is making sure your base is listened to, talked with, making sure they receive what is asked for, and to make sure all services and products are available at all times. Providing this is showing awesome leadership.

Ethics in Leadership

Today I start a new semester of class, ethics, to be specific. I've taken this course maybe 5 years ago but I think I'll be anything but bored. First I hear wonderful things about the instructor so I'm curious how he'll present the material. The other thing is it seems business and leaders have struggled with the topic of ethics. We have endless examples over the past decade where organizations and leaders have displayed poor judgement in ethical behavior, and I'm probably being kind in my description.

Whether you speak of WorldCom, Enron, KMart, the Bernie Madoff scandal, or the current AIG mess the topic of ethics comes crashing into our worlds. How many times have we heard of people losing their life's savings in the past decade? Too many times. Hopefully leaders and organizations start practicing with higher ethical standards.

My wife recently heard this saying that ethics can be defined as how people behave while others aren't watching. I don't know the original source of that saying but I like it! It is so true and I bet my semester is filled with examples of how leaders should act and how they haven't acted while other people weren't looking.