the art of leading

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Last week , in Why the First 100 Days Could Make or Break Leaders, I mentioned the importance of “the First 100 Days” of a leader in a new position. In today’s post I’ll map out one possible course of action that someone might take in those first 100 days, to make the most out of them. The list was thought of in a step-by-step approach, but each item can be seen as a separate idea.

1. Ask for suggestions from present employees on what are the things that must be done. This doesn’t mean you’re going to do whatever they tell you, but it will be useful information to know what are the perceived top priorities.
2. Meet with your executives, 1 or 2 per day depending on the size of your organization. Get to know who you’ll be working with.
3. Prepare a report where you gather and analyze the information that has been gathered.
4. Take your people on a get-away to collaborate on the design of a new strategy, based on the information that has been gathered. Come away with new goals and a new strategy to achieve them.
5. Focus on communicating the new strategy to your organization.
6. Ask employees if they’re willing to work and collaborate with you in reaching new goals and following a new strategy. You need only the most willing people.
7. Re-assign or fire those who aren’t compatible with your vision.
8. Hire those who need to be hired. Use this opportunity, if given, to fill in the gaps. Do you lack sales and marketing skills? Then hire people who excel at sales and marketing.
9. Take the first step in your new strategy. You were brought here for a reason, so get to work on what you have achieved in these 100 days. You have just begun.

Whatever you do in your first 100 days, my suggestion to you is to focus on gathering information and developing a plan to synthesize and utilize that information. Whichever method you choose, that should be the most important goal.

Categories : Action, Communication, General Leadership, Goals, Relationships, Success // 4 Comments »

I keep hearing and reading that there is a tendency towards leaders having to be “technically proficient”, against being merely “charismatic”. I partly disagree with that, and I’ll try to explain myself in this post.

Charisma isn’t the cure-all anymore

A “charismatic” leader will not be automatically successful just for being “charismatic”. That, I think, is a given. What I don’t necessarily agree with is the “technically proficient” part. The CEO of a car manufacturing company doesn’t have to know how to work the assembly line. Granted, she should know about the car industry. She should know about the tendencies, disruptors, external and internal factors, and other highly relevant information.

That’s NOT called technical proficiency… it’s called benchmarking proficiency

But here’s the thing: knowing those things does not make you technically proficient. In fact, those are things that a true leader could learn during the job. Knowing those things make you benchmarking proficient. Technical proficiency, in my mind, refers to nitty-gritty details. Benchmarking proficiency, on the other hand, refers to knowing how to measure success.

So what does measuring success mean?

The true modern leader should be a master at interpreting data about past, present, and future tendencies. He should be a master at reasonably predicting trends in the industry, and developing action plans to participate in those future trends. He should be a master at establishing trends and becoming a pioneer of those trends.

So, today’s leader doesn’t have to be a technical genius, although that may sometimes be a boon. But today’s leader should know how to create benchmarks. He should know how to compare, contrast, and predict. He should know how to place his organization in relation to competitors and the environment. He should know how to benchmark.

Categories : Benchmarking, Environment, General Leadership, Goals, Success, Systems // Add Comment »