What Is Leadership

Good afternoon everyone. Wow, it’s been a bit since our last post and discussion. I’ve been inundated with business of late, but now have the time to write what I hope you’ll find a motivating and educational update on three core organizational elements; strategy, consistency and empowerment. Why those three elements? As I considered the experiences of my career and thought about the most successful teams I’ve been a part of, led and studied, a theme began to emerge. The most successful teams always exude a solid strategy, a consistency of thought and action and an atmosphere of empowerment. As you can likely imagine, it’s not as simple as looking up those three words in the dictionary, reading the definition and then applying the definition to your business. Holding those words up to the mirror of experience and practical application proves much more useful.

Strategy. A sound, rationale and executable strategy is a feature element of the truly best teams and businesses. The best teams don’t shoot from the hip and make decisions on the fly. Typically, strategic plans are set on an annual basis. As the business year draws to a close, the leadership team of a given organization takes the time to evaluate the events of the current year and make the necessary plans for the coming year. In that planning process, 2 -3 specific, actionable targets are established for the organization to achieve in the coming year. Usually, the action items are either designed to enhance the most profitable positive trends that are already occurring and or identify new, likely profitable focus points for the coming year. The priorities are identified, budgets are allocated and the plan is rolled out, in traditional business terms, cascaded, to the entire organization. Please note that the important concept is that everyone in the organization must understand the core strategic focus items for the coming year. Failure to define and correctly communicate organizational strategy leads to lack of awareness, lack of buy in, and in turn lack of accountability. Finally, once defined and communicated, the best teams and organizations very rarely change their core strategic focus throughout the business year. The degree to which strategy must be changed or altered is usually directly connected to gaps in the strategic planning process.

Key check: Can everyone on your team and in your organization identify the top 2 -3 strategic items you are looking to accomplish this year as a business? If not, time to readdress and close the gap! Not doing so will really put you at a competitive disadvantage in your given market.

Consistency: I can hear some of you now, “Consistency? How can that be so important? Aren’t the best businesses adaptable and flexible?” To answer those questions, yes, adaptability and flexibility are indeed key. That said, the best organizations are adaptable and flexible within their strategic focus. In other words,  in thought and in action they are consistent in executing their core strategic plan. In my professional experience, I’ve witnessed numerous examples of inconsistency. Inconsistent application and execution of a team or firm’s strategic plan always leads to frustration and compromised results. As examples of inconsistency consider the following; when resolving a client dispute, the language in a sales contract is interpreted one way on one day and another way on another day. A new sales model is embraced and lauded for a quarter and then discarded, without considering the cyclical nature of the products sales cycle, time of year and the relevant experience of the team members executing the model. A firm’s key product is deemed to be insufficient based on client feedback, a solution in line with the firm’s strategic direction is devised, the plan is accepted for action and then not executed on for no apparent reason.  In each of the aforementioned examples, one core element is missing – consistency of thought and action as it relates to executing a solidly defined strategic plan. Recognize the importance of consistency as you execute your strategic plan.

Empowerment. A team or firm may have the best strategy and consistency of thought and action  possible and still fall short. In most cases, this is due to a business culture lacking the core element of empowerment. Top down, command and control leadership models very rarely accomplish outstanding results. We’ve discussed this in past posts, but as you consider your team and organization, I ask you to again assess how empowered are your leaders, your team members? Do you have a culture in which decisions can be made without fear of retaliation? Or do you work in an environment in which everything, including seemingly straightforward decisions must be “run up the ladder?” Assess your firm’s empowerment factor. Low empowerment is typically indicative of a culture that lacks trust and or is a command and control environment. Both are extremely undesirable for a business looking to optimize results. High empowerment is typically indicative of a talented and capable leadership team and an environment of trust. Both of those qualities will typically lead to goal surpassing results.  

I look forward to connecting with you all in our next update. Until then, here’s to your continued leadership success.

Tags: Consistency, Empowerment, Strategy