This article reflects on my 27 year old career as an engineer, strategic planner, and attorney.  It lists 5 traits of strong leaders that I have had the pleasure to work with.

(1)     Be organized

One of the first lessons I learned was from Ronald Collins who led the Georgia Department of Transportation’s (GDOT) Materials Research Lab years ago.  Ron taught me to act on it, file it, or trash it.  That was in 1990.  I still act on every piece of paper in this manner to this day.  It keeps down clutter and chaos.  Taking action simply entails making the decision to delegate it to others or respond to it yourself.  The key is to not linger.  You have to read it and make the decision as soon as it arrives in the mail or hits your desk.

(2)     Help pre-professional buds grow into professional blossoms

Not all things are equal, thus being alert with respect to details is vital particularly when money is involved. The appearance of various technological advancements has turned out to be highly helpful to the world, though costs have correspondingly soared high-sky as well. Imitations of goods are prevailing just to compete with the cost in the market and this may invole the employment of “trickeries” even in a worldwide industry such as the insurance business.

One of the ways by which you can save on lawyer fees is by ensuring that you have done your homework and that you have all the documents that you need. For example, you can already create a draft of any contract that you would like to enter to and just seek the advice of a lawyer to see if there are things you have not included. This way, you only need to pay for the consultancy services instead of having to enter a retainer agreement.

Unfortunately, creating a comprehensive contract may seem to be a daunting task especially if you do not have any legal background. In reality, creating, for example, a partnership agreement can be quite a breeze.

One of the things that you need to keep in mind when creating a partnership contract is that your first four paragraphs should lay down some basic information between you and the other party, your partner. This includes the name of the partnership, the people involved in the partnership, the nature of the business, and where the business would be conducted. If, for instance, your partnership has a different name as the company you are putting up, you would need to indicate a clause stating the name your company would be doing business as.