Posts Tagged ‘successful leadership’

You might be someone who is highly creative, generates lots of ideas and identifies areas for continuous improvement.  At the same time you know that the ultimate indicator of your success as a leader is the results that you achieve.  So what barriers might be getting in the way of you achieving success as a leader?

Barrier 1: Not knowing the outcome

If asked, could you clearly articulate what performance results or outcomes you are aiming to deliver for your organisation, function, team or even project?  Without absolute clarity on what you are trying to achieve, it will always be a struggle to achieve results.  Make time to clearly define the performance results or outcomes that you want to achieve.

Barrier 2: Lacking confidence

Having confidence encourages you to take action and taking action leads to results.  Sometimes as a leader you need to have the confidence to follow your gut instinct and take action when everyone else is urging caution.  In fact, many of the most successful leaders are those that have been willing to take action when the odds were against them.

Barrier 3: Lack of focus

I sometimes refer to having focus as knowing the 20% of the things that you spend your time and energy on that delivers 80% of your results.  When you start to use your time and energies much more effectively, you can start to make a step change in performance and the results you deliver.

Barrier 4: Lack of belief

We all have nagging doubts and fears that a particular course of action might or might not be appropriate.  The question to ask yourself is whether you believe that you have the necessary skills and attributes to respond to the stumbling blocks that will without doubt arise.

Barrier 5: Lack of determination

Any long term success in leadership is a marathon not a sprint.  Quick results are rarely sustained so you need the drive and determination to keep going long term.

Bottom Line- Successful leadership is as much about mindset and attitude as it is what you do.  The question is what positive mindset shifts do you need to make to become a successful leader?

What type of leader are you?

The one who sets up the organisation and people for sustained success or

The one who applies sticking plasters and then moves on before they become unstuck?

Delivering short term success by acting on all the easy stuff is simple.  Trouble is that if you are not careful you find that the organisation is back to square one 12 months later or worse still ends up going backwards.

If you look at organisations that achieve sustained success, in most cases this was as a result of tacking the short term changes and at the same time laying the foundations for longer term success.

So why might you be avoiding delivering sustained success?

1. It is too tough
2. It takes too long
3. It requires too much effort
4. You are only interested in using the organisation as a stepping stone to something bigger
5. You need to adrenalin rush of achieving lots

Bottom Line – If you are series about achieving long term success, focus on trying to create sustained success in those organisations that you lead.

If you are leader right now you are likely to be facing some challenging times and if not, chances are they will not be long in coming round.  The current economy coupled with the continued media coverage of those organisations that are struggling mean that even the most optimistic of leaders probably has some element of doubt about the future.

Like any challenge, before you can start acting, you need to get crystal clear about the size and scale of the challenge you face.  So how can you do this?

1. Look at reports that contain the facts about how the business is performing.  These reports might not make great reading but they will give you a clear picture on performance.
2. Ask the people who are closest to the point of service delivery what they are noticing.  For example sales people might be seeing the number of leads slowing down or that the time it takes to closing a sale increasing.  Distribution people might be seeing stock levels building up or particular lines of product moving at a slower rate.
3. Stand back and work on some scenarios on the impact on the organisation if certain things happen over the next few weeks months and even years.  Starting with a best, worst and most likely is a very simple but highly effective way of doing some forecasting.
4. Research and look at trends in how the market is going right now and the outlook for the market or sector.

Planning to action starts with getting clear on the size and scale of the challenge you face.  So what other tips would you add to identify the size and scale of the challenges you face as a leader?