Leadership is the ability to achieve the franchise organization's objectives through the proper use of the staff and resources of the organization. The leadership function is involved in building an organizational climate which encourages excellence, quality control, and superior performance.

Leadership develops personal involvement in the staff and employees of the organization. The franchisor needs to know every individual within the headquarter's organization. In addition, the franchisor should personally know and be on talking terms with every franchisee awarded a franchise agreement. The vision and values of the franchisor need to be instilled into each and every individual within the organization.

Leadership maximizes the contributions of the staff by encouraging and building enthusiasm. 

RULE OF THUMB: Individual attitude determines a person's altitude.

Good communication and taking time to listen and allows individual and group growth. The development of a friendly atmosphere which encourages excellence on the part of everyone involved develops an attractive work place and encourages excellence on the part of everyone. Strong leadership rests upon respecting individuals and developing trust with them.

A natural by-product of effective leadership is good communication. Franchisors need to learn to communicate with their staff as well as with their franchisees. Many franchisors establish weekly memos for their own staff as well as monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly newsletters for franchisees in the field. Some franchisors, such as Merry Maids, even provide quarterly newsletters for franchisees' employees. This encourages communication and recognition throughout the franchising system. This also encourages the sense of family and belonging and allows the headquarter's organization to interact on a friendly and familiar basis with the franchisees and their staff. Good communications are the lifeblood of a franchising organization.

Some franchisors, such as Kwik Kopy Corporation, have established 800 telephone numbers for franchisees to contact headquarters. In addition, the Kwik Kopy Corporation has a group of individuals who contact each and every franchisee each and every month. With over a 1,000 franchisees to contact, this requires a tremendous amount of work and effort. Therefore this highly skilled and trained collection of individuals are referred to as the "sweathogs". They have an important endeavor to interact with, train, and field requests from the franchisees each month. At the end of their conversation with the franchisees, the sweathog member asks the franchisee to evaluate them on a scale of 1 to 10 on how the telephone conversation was handled. They have an average score, right now, of 9.0+ -- a phenomenally high response rate from franchisees.