Leading a downline is a challenging part of any MLM or network marketing business. But effective leadership is a vital part of helping your downline to produce at top levels.

Here are eight success strategies for effective MLM leadership.

1. Ask questions. Effective leadership involves empowering your downline to do things for themselves. Allow your downline to solve their own problems and answer their own questions. Guiding them to the answers is a matter of asking the right questions as an upline:

“What do you think you could do in that situation?”

“What worked out the best for you with this business-building event?”

“How would you handle that differently next time?”

When you are tempted to tell a team member what to do, ask a question instead and allow them to discover the answer for themselves.

2. Find each individual’s personal strength. Many times, the network marketing industry is so focused on duplication that we forget the fact that each individual brings a unique set of skills, strengths, and experiences. Invest some time identifying particular ways that a person can be successful with your business – even if they are beyond the duplicatable system that you have set up.

3. Lead, don’t push. Effective leadership doesn’t involve pushing, dragging, or bribing people to success. Leading is about walking out in front of people, successfully working the business so that they will want to follow you on their own accord. It’s about making personal relationships with people so that they can ask you questions. Provide the information and tools they need, and then inspire them by successfully demonstrating the example yourself.

4. Manage your time effectively. As a leader, you’re constantly identifying the one thing that is the most valuable use of your time, right now. Effective leaders don’t allow each of their team members to chat away for hours on the phone. View yourself as a businessperson, and keep each conversation on task.

5. Teach that consistency is the key to success. Help your downline to understand that success is never about one isolated event. It’s a marathon - not a sprint – with continual and consistent baby steps. Create a list of simple business building tasks, and teach them to keep a log of the tasks completed each day. Whether it’s 3, 5, or 10 tasks, let them know that success depends on how many of these tasks they commit to completing on a consistent basis.

6. Keep consistent communication. Send team updates or newsletters via email to your downline at least every two weeks. Recognize achievements as much as possible. Everyone loves to see his or her name in print. This, in itself, can be tremendously motivating.

7. Know when to move on. Recognize that you can’t make anyone do anything. You can lead, but if one of your downline won’t follow – it might be a better use of your time to find a more self-motivated person than to beat yourself up to motivate someone who, for one reason or another, isn’t working at the business.

8. Take five. Creating a large and successful network marketing team is so fun and rewarding that we sometimes forget to take breaks – and that can lead to burnout. Take some time off every now and then, and enjoy the journey.