Change challenges
leaders to articulate a vision and to nurture every employee's growth.
Change is nothing more than venturing from the familiar
into the unknown. Change forces you to confront your comfort zones
and expand them by rising to the challenges you face.
Executives charged with leading organizations have
a responsibility to navigate them safely through an uncharted, turbulent
future filled with shifting markets, new technologies, globalization,
e-Commerce, and worker shortages.
What can a leader do to maintain a steady course
in the midst of all this? Stake out a specific destination before
commencing your journey, so that when you have traveled long enough,
you will arrive at the destination you seek.
Two Responsibilities
Leaders have two primary responsibilities.
The first is to set and articulate the direction of the organization.
The second is to lead the organization in that direction. Which
way you go matters a great deal. The arrival matters too.
1. Articulate a direction. Let’s begin
with direction, your planning bedrock of vision, values, mission, and
strategy.
Vision is the reason you exist - the why
of your being. It is the concrete statement of your dreams for
your company and for the world that you impact through it. Framing
your vision is more a process of discovery than of development.
Your vision already exists, as part of the unspoken, but well
understood fabric of your company. You must discover and frame
it in a simple, inspiring phrase.
Values reflect your character and culture.
They are your convictions on how business is conducted and people are
treated, inside and outside your company. They are not how you make
a product or perform a service; they are how you behave as you make
and perform. Values are long-lasting. They affect all that
you do. Companies are like people. The good ones stand for
something positive and know why they stand for it. They live out
their values consistently and impact others by their example.
Mission translates your vision and values
into something tangible - the what of your existence. It
identifies the products or services you provide, for whom, where, and
how. Your mission states unambiguously who you are by what you do. Equally
important, it implies what you do not do! Your mission
guides your everyday efforts and is your touchstone for decision making.
Strategy connects the present to the future.
It is the particular path you follow to move toward your vision, while
fulfilling your mission and living your values. Strategy bridges the
gap between today and the future. You will follow your strategy
for years. It's important to get it right.
2. Lead people and the organization in that
direction. The defining act of leadership is nurturing
leaders throughout your company to take it into the future. Investing
in each employee's growth is necessary to sustain your productivity
growth in the face of a diminishing workforce.
Common Themes
The methods of nurturing leaders are as varied as
the individuals involved, but we see some common themes:
Foster a culture that cares. Most people
care about the wellbeing of their family, friends, and coworkers.
Yet, structures and practices in business work against this care, the
stated values of the company, and the professional growth of employees.
Seize every occasion to convey, reinforce, and live the values and principles
your company espouses.
Support teams. Provide training on
team behavior and expectations. Rework compensation, taking this
team focus into account. Practice open book management to trigger
gains in productivity, profitability, and growth.
Challenging job assignments. Develop
your people by giving them gradually more complex, important assignments
in more functional areas - and give them support at each step along
the way.
Global exposure. Even if your
products or services are not directly exported, those of your clients
and suppliers are likely to be. Without exposure to the cultures
and business practices of other countries, your management team will
have a myopic view of what can be accomplished and how to make it happen.
Continuous process improvement. The
shortage of younger workers for the foreseeable future requires improvement
in every process in your company.
Think flexibly. Creativity is a prized
attribute. In the future, it will take on more significance as
companies focus on mass customization rather mass production.
Customers demand unique solutions to their problems and needs, not merely
a set of products or services.
Train. Life-long training is an imperative.
This nurturing focus guarantees that as markets, processes, and business
conditions change, your company is ready to respond rapidly and embrace
these new challenges.
Grooming multiple successors. To prepare
for your own departure, groomed several potential successors, each with
broad experience and unique skills. People thrive in circumstances
where their leadership qualities are called for. Since you can't
foresee which qualities might be needed in the future, nurture leaders
with different strengths to ensure the company will have the right leader
regardless of the future that unfolds.
Your challenge is to point the way and to lead the
team in that direction. Focus on dominant trends, and harness
these for good purposes.
