Now in english! In order to try to reach a larger audience, I have decided to test writing in english. Please rate this post. Use one star if you think english is a foolish idea and five stars if you think it is great. Thanks…
In recent articles, I have layed out a lot of thoughts about what leadership is and how a ‘perfect’ leader should act. I strongly believe that a humble, listening and thinking leader with respect for his team is a must in order to create succes. However, a leader must also be able to make decisions and execute. What does that mean? Most leaders exists in a team. The whole idea is that noone can do everything alone and they need good, intelliegent people to help analyze, discuss and make decisisons. Howevere, it does happen that a team is not able to come to a consensus, but gets stuck in ever longer discussions about details, facts, opinions etc. and the leader must therefore be able to cut through the crap and decide what to do.
“Thank you all for you valuable input. I have heard many good ideas, we have looked at a lot of facts and yet we are not in total agreement. Based on our dialog, my decsision is…” could be a polite way of getting things moving. The leader must then make sure, that the team will back the descisison and take actively part in the execution. If the leader has been doing things right in the past – that is being humble, listening, respecting etc. – chanches are that the team will be both willing and able to execute well. Just like it is to late for the parent to start educating the child when he is screaming for candy at the cashier line in the supermarket , it is to late to start educating the team when execution is about to start.
Cutting through and making decsisions does not make a leader popular – at least not in the short term. Hopefully it does raise the respect for leader on the long term as he is showing fairness and integrety. A leader should not in the game to be popular – we have TV shows for that. A leader should be in the game to get things moving, to create value for the stakeholders and to make a positive difference. That is really what makes a ‘Level 5 Leader’ as described by Jim Collins in his book “Good to Great”.
I am very interested in your views on leadership – please participate in the dialog…
