by Quint Studer

As you look back over 2007, you’re feeling vaguely discontented. Business is sluggish. Several key employees have left. And with new competitors springing up every day, you need to be at the top of your industry.

Things are not terrible—not yet—but they could be a lot better. You need to turn things around, and you know you need to make some big changes in the next year. Problem is you’re not sure what they are. A new improvement initiative? A hot new product? A new executive team?

Here’s a suggestion: Make 2008 the year you focus on leadership. Not leaders, mind you—leadership.

Solid business results that stand the test of time do so for one reason only: consistently excellent leadership. Products and services change with the demands of the market. Individual leaders come and go. The key is to create an organizational culture that ensures great leadership today and tomorrow.

In other words, you need a long-term fix, not a magic bullet or a trendy program du jour or a charismatic leader. You need a culture built on good, solid, time-tested leadership principles. Organizations should institute proven across-the-board behaviors that don’t depend on particular individuals.

These practices are not complicated. They’re simple, commonsense tactics that leaders can get their hands around and start doing right away. Implement these five "biggies," and you’ll see dramatic changes by the end of 2008:

Let’s say your employee Carol consistently comes in late, gets "headaches" every other (nonpayday) Friday and spends more time cheerily chatting up co-workers than working. Others will notice—and they will be resentful. But worse than merely causing contention in the ranks, turning a blind eye to the "Carols" in your organization squelches profitability. Why? Because middle performers get pulled down to the low-performer level, while high performers either disengage or leave.

Too many of us give low performers a pass.

The remedy involves implementing a structured series of high-, middle- and low-performer conversations. It’s easier not to confront low performers, and trust me, a leader can find a thousand other things to do instead. But until you move low performers either up or out, your company will never advance beyond short-term gains. The low performer is an anchor holding everyone else back. Make this year the year you quit looking the other way.

The next time you’re having lunch in a restaurant, listen in on the conversations at nearby tables. Chances are you’ll hear people griping about their workloads, difficult clients, annoying co-workers or the ridiculousness of corporate policy. Everyone does it, but if people realized how harmful it is to their companies, perhaps they’d think twice. The solution is to hone the fine art of managing up.

Managing up means positioning your people, products or company in a positive light. Help employees understand what can happen when negativity is allowed to breed—good people quit and customers leave—and they’ll be more likely to stop griping.

I am a big proponent of what I call "rounding for outcomes." This critical leader behavior reveals my health care industry roots. (Think of a doctor making her daily rounds to check on patients.) Rounding helps you communicate openly with your employees, allowing you to regularly find out what is going well and what isn’t going well for them at the company. But remember, it’s not just empty "face time"; it’s rounding for outcomes, which means the process has a serious purpose.

In the business world, a chief executive officer, vice president or department manager engages in rounding by making the rounds daily to check on the status of his employees. Basically, you should take an hour a day to touch base with employees, make personal connections, recognize success, find out what’s going well and determine what improvements can be made. Rounding is the heart and soul of building an emotional bank account with your employees because it shows them day in and day out that you care.

Thank-you notes don’t just happen. If they aren’t hardwired into an organization, they don’t get written. And a thank-you note is just too powerful a tool not to use. People love receiving thank-you notes. They cherish them.

If you plan to hire in 2008, here’s a relatively easy step you can take that will pay off in a big way. We all know employee turnover is expensive. But did you know that more than 25% of employees who leave positions do so in the first 90 days of employment? To retain a new team member, the leader needs to build a relationship. Studer Group has found that scheduling two one-on-one meetings, the first at 30 days of employment and the second at 90 days, has an enormous impact on retention that directly turns into savings for your organization.

If these meetings are handled successfully, new employee turnover is reduced by 66%. I suggest using a structured list of questions to discover not only what’s not going well but also what is going well. You can be certain your new employee is comparing her first few weeks of work with your company with her last week at her previous job, which was filled with good wishes, tearful goodbyes and probably a going-away party. Clearly, your company will get the short end of an unfavorable comparison. These meetings will help you shore up an otherwise tenuous relationship.

When things aren’t going so well, many leaders panic and start doing things that make employees less satisfied. Don’t make that mistake. Your leaders’ job is to create happy, loyal, productive employees. They, in turn, will create happy, loyal, profitable customers. These are two sides of the same coin—and that coin is the currency that buys you lasting results.

Quint Studer is the founder of Studer Group, an outcomes firm that implements evidence-based leadership systems that help clients attain and sustain outstanding results. He was named "Master of Business" by Inc. magazine and is author of "Results That Last: Hardwiring Behaviors That Will Take Your Company to the Top."

Don’t just recruit great employees. Re-recruit them.

Say thanks. In fact, put it in writing.

Make a real connection with employees—every day.

Accentuate the positive.

Get rid of low performers. Now.

Five Leadership Tactics That Will Make 2008 A Pivotal Business Year