LEADERSHIP: YOUR FISCAL STIMULUS

Published: 2009-02-02   please add a comment below

Whether you're President Obama or the leader of China, France or any other country, you’re currently struggling to craft or manage a stimulus package that’s both effective and efficient.  Effective in creating growth and jobs; efficient in doing so without waste.  There’s no point giving money that isn’t spent, gets into the wrong hands or takes years to impact.  OK, but what about your personal stimulus package?  In these times of retrenchments and cut-throat competition, what are you doing (and investing) to grow as a leader and keep your job?

Begin as national leaders have.  Think back over your previous expenditure.  How effective was it?  Did it lift your leadership performance?  In what way and by how much?  And, who says so?  Or, did it just tick the box of "courses attended"?

And, what did it cost and what did it deliver?  Did it give you a plan of action?  What did this look like?  Did you follow through - and for how long?  Or, was it just an evaluation or profile, telling you you’re in the top decile compared with some thousands of other leaders?

From my experience, most profiling isn't much help.  First, it's believed to measure general leadership competence whereas it reflects mostly performance in your current job.  Which is likely to be quite different to your last or next.  Each has different business challenges and different people - needing entirely different leadership actions.

Second, telling someone they're in the top decile swells their head and they assume they've nothing to learn.  And, if in the bottom decile, they're looking for a knife to slit their wrists.  Either way, you've lost their attention.

Even Myers Briggs, which has merits, tends to focus on who you are, which is fascinating but not the point.  The real issue is: who are you meant to be leading?  If any profiles are relevant, it's theirs not yours.  Similarly, you need to know the business situation: what needs to be achieved and what's the market environment - easy sailing or, as today, really rough?

Sounds challenging; and, it is.  More so today than ever.  But, here’s a start: think through your followers' concerns, the questions you need to answer to allay their fears.  Is it about bridging to them personally and giving encouragement?  Or, more about market and technical competence, so they feel confident in your skills?

In sum, you need a plan of action (not a profile of attributes): specific actions you're going to take to excel in today's leadership situation, not the last or next.  And, there’s no universal approach - regardless of what some people tell you.  It's specific to the current people and current situation.  It has time and place.  Just like any stimulus package.

Dr. Timothy Pascoe AM
PhD (Cambridge), MBA (Harvard), BE & BEc (Adelaide)
Creator, V|E|C|T|O|R Leadership^®