A leader always has plans for tomorrow’s business. What are yours? I’d love to hear. Please vote and then share your thoughts.
Posts Tagged ‘leadership’
What are your plans?
Posted: December 1, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: business, consulting, leadership
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reflections on leadership
Posted: November 30, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: business, consulting, holistic marketing, leadership, sales
Leadership is more than commands meant to correct a process. Leadership is more than long hours. Leadership is more than business success. Leadership is more. Leadership is about being able to knock down the walls compartmentalizing life to find the same you in each place. Leadership is about balance where the family life and balance sheets both carry the same weight. Leadership is more.
Leadership adapts to the needs of the business, adapts to the needs of their people, adapts to the needs of their families. Leaders don’t lack for ambition, they lack in balance.
How does one get balance back? There can be some adjustment. A good consultant can point out places, attitudes and processes. Holistic marketing, where the whole company works together to shape an image, helps align a business and create momentum. Implementing these thoughts and refinements cannot be done by a gunslinger alone. Leadership remembers that employees follow by choice or by coercion. If they follow by choice, momentum is created. If employees follow by coercion, the “leader” is not really a leader as he has no followers.
Why do businesses fail? Leadership.
What are your thoughts?
Leaders and trust
Posted: May 30, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: competence, integrity, leadership, loyalty, sales, trust
Trust in our leaders is gone.
In 2008 I remember a conversation that took a very insightful direction down a conflicting path. The path was an exchange where the CEO bemoaned the practice in television series of demonizing business men in the suit and tie while lifting up the menial worker. The theme of the complaint was very insightful as we exchanged ideas as to why white collar employment was subjected to such scrutiny. The sum of the conversation was trust. In the CEO’s opinion, trust should be awarded because of the position they held as leaders.
Maybe we should define trust:
“Trust is a positive expectation that another will not – through words, actions or decisions – act opportunistically.” Robbins (organizational behavior, p356)
From this perspective, trust has been raped by individuals in positions of leadership. Bernie Madoff, WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, Merrill Lynch are all great examples of broken trust in the corporate world. In schools, Wisconsin teachers take a “sick-out” to lobby politicians and encourage the political stalemate of a minority who left town to pout their lack of power. Washington politicians – you get the picture. The tyranny of selfishness has been “opportunistically” seeking to satisfy self. CEOs plumping up stock to cash in on short term gains only to have to further prostitute themselves for the next quarter. Today’s numbers are all that matters. Maybe that’s why the average CEO has tenure of 4-7 years at any given location.
As long as this continues, trust has left these lands. But this isn’t a first. History repeats itself. Take the historic empire built by the Romans. The Romans make great examples of how to establish success, but also how to lose it. The decay of Roman power happened long before the Barbarians stormed cities or even broke outer defenses. The decay happened in leadership. The rot of individual character tore down the Roman Empire from the inside out.
How does one get leaders and subordinates to set aside their individual fiefdoms for the greater good? Can the political games end long enough to rectify the ship? Even the employees are having a hard time trusting. A poll in 2003 showed 43% trusted CEOs and that was up from 31% a decade earlier. The trust graph has dipped back down. Today the CEO is placed in the bottom 3 as to trust. Firemen are 7x more trusted than CEOs. We have a problem.
What is the solution? Rethinking who and how we promote those who are to lead us.
Robbins (organizational behavior, p356) says the following 5 characteristics are paramount in establishing not only trust, but leadership.
- · Integrity: honesty, truthfulness (most critical)
- · Competence: technical and interpersonal
- · Openness: can you rely on that person to get the full truth
- · Loyalty: willingness to protect and save face for another
- · Consistency: reliability and predictability
Kissing babies and shaking hands in political maneuvers may gain position, but will not satisfy trust. Exacting numbers for short term success may increase stock ratings, but does not increase trust. I believe we have a leadership crisis on our hands. The crisis is one that extends into the character of the soul.
…Doing what?
Posted: April 21, 2011 in salesTags: leadership, sales, sales leadership, sales people, sales risk
Sales rise and fall on leadership. To expand this concept a little further, sales rise and fall on the character of the leader just as much as they rise and fall on the leadership of the leader. Character determines integrity of not only the path taken but also of the tracks to follow.
Sales people by nature are risk takers with ability to pave paths where no one has gone before. The challenge with sales people is they tend to be big picture people, and not detail people. Chain-sawing their way through uncharted sales paths is not uncommon, paving over the stumps left — not so uncommon. Now is not the time for a “do as I say….”speech to keep the light shining on the strait and narrow. Now is the time for character generator to kick in a keep the power on, expose shortcomings and clean them up as soon as possible for the good of the entire company.
Leadership sets the tone, the pace and attitude. Leadership may not be crossing the line, but stomping all over the line is sure to leave you covered with the line’s color of the paint. Where are you headed? After all, you are the leader.
Those in Leadership Tread on Lonely Ground
Posted: January 16, 2011 in salesTags: leadership, mediocre, mediocrity, sales, sales leadership, sales mediocrity
Standing alone? Standing alone could be the sign of leadership. The crowd likes to congratulate and pat eachother on the back. The crowd celebrates mediocrity. For if each of us look alike, talk alike and work alike, all our results will be celebrated with mediocrity.
To stand above the crowd requires uncommon resolve, uncommon dedication, perseverance and one good friend.
- uncommon resolve: any light weight can start something, only a leader can keep it going long enough to find a way to make it work.
- uncommon dedication: The strength of a tea bag is evident only when the water is hot. Leaders may fail, but they remember and sacrifice for the goal.
- uncommon perserverance: The second and third wave of trouble call for a rubberized steel spine that is stiff enough to withstand, yet flexible enough to adapt.
Those in leadership face life’s challenges at a different level. Leaders understand success is not a permanent part of life. Leaders also understand how failure plays into success. Failure eliminates one more frailty, one more path of doom exposed. Failure is not terminal. Prepare for failure, it is more commont than success.
The mediocre understand little about failure since they have ventured very little into hot water or turned back at the first sign of heat.
Those in leadership tread on the lonely ground, because the mediocre turned back long ago.
