LEADERSHIP: WHICH HALF IS WASTED?

As Sam Wanamaker famously said: I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted ... I just don't know which half.  He might equally be talking about leadership training and development.  Checking Amazon, I find they have over three hundred thousand titles under "leadership".  And, how many have you read?  Or should you?  Perhaps two or three!  The key test: does this one give me a tool to diagnose what my team needs from me, in their current circumstances and facing their particular challenges.  Anything else leaves you reliant on theory or anecdote.  As a leader, you practice a craft: customising your leadership actions.  Not borrowing, copying or mass-producing!  And, the output has to be a personal Leadership Action Plan.  So, how would such a tool look?  And, what does it need to do?

To say it's "as simple as one, two, three" is an oversimplification but those numbers provide a start.  The tool you choose needs:

• ONE clear objective: to increase your leadership and business effectiveness.  This isn't about some generalised theory but what your people need here and now to move forward.  There goes perhaps a third of those 300,000 books!
• TWO key assumptions: first, recognising that the only thing you must have is followers.  Tell me, what's your job title?  Well, let me tell you: it may be fancy but it's irrelevant.  The only thing that matters is whether when you look over your shoulder, you see and hear the footsteps of colleagues wanting to follow you.  Second, action is the language of leadership.  It's that old walking-the-talk.  How would your people rate you on that?  No, don't tell me, we might both be embarrassed, just read on!
• THREE steps to arrive at your plan.  First, diagnose your followers concerns re the coming months of the project, transformation or product-launch you're leading.  If you gave them the chance (yes, ask them!), what questions would they have?  Second, what actions would they suggest to answer those questions?  And finally, what then are your action commitments: your Plan?  Ten items on a single page is plenty!
• FOUR differentiators.  First, producing a forward looking plan, not a backward looking evaluation.  Keep your rear view mirror for reversing!  Second, creating a plan that's integrative across the "hard" and "soft" aspects of business - market and technical issues as well as people and culture ones.  There go another 200,000 books, since most focus only on people issues.  Which is too much of a good thing.  Third, test every action for specificity and appropriateness to your people and their situation.  It's not about you, but them.  And, their needs today, not your default responses or what worked elsewhere.  Finally, ensure your leadership action plan is on-the-record, checkable and updatable.  If so, you've closed the missing link in business planning!  Rather than on-the-record, too much leadership is off-the-wall - in almost every sense.

As you see, "one-two-three" was an oversimplification.  There are actually four points!  Take them to heart - if you want to get on; or today, to survive!

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Understanding V|E|C|T|O|R

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