Leadership is always important and yet not urgent until there is a crisis.
This article was inspired by an article in Human Capital Magazine
Inspired by an article – Leaders are drowning, not waving:
In The Human Capital Magazine
We have a huge convergence crisis on us at the moment. Developing leadership skills has been neglected by the majority of business to date and now that we are in a financial crisis we find there is no one who really knows what to do.
The leadership crisis we are facing today has been riding what has become known as the tidal wave of the GFC. Now it is too little and to late for many companies and leaders to survive the disaster. What is required right now is clear decisive leadership from truly inspirational and well put together individuals.
The problem is that leadership is a function of character and not a prerogative of position or a birth right. For far to long businesses have neglected the training of their up and coming leaders and developed their essential leadership skills. The development of true leaders is done over time with clear intentional practise.
If leaders and managers are over stressed and generally out of their depth right now then a two day retreat on stress handling or “assertive recession strategies” is not going to work. What is required as a matter of urgency is a commitment to a well thought out leadership program where the participants are coached and hand held through the current crisis for over 12 months.
Leadership has just made it into the urgent and important quadrant.
Developing leaders requires a significant investment of both time and money. Personal engagement of the individual leaders is critical and yet it is common for business owners and CEO’s to be heard complaining and blaming their people instead of looking at their own leadership first.
What is required is the personal engagement of the CEO and business owner first. When they personally to developing their own leadership skills we are able to truly address the leadership issues across the entire organisation and definitely not before.
Leadership programs tailored to assist the leader to deal with the “stuff” on the table today. Redundancies, moral boosting and productivity increases in a shrinking and retreating market are the function of the true leader. Leaders must also at this time have the courage and skills to deal with the “smelly stuff” under the table and seeping out the doors of the executive board room.
We all know that when the going gets tough the tough get going and dealing with performance issues and the stress of declining profits quickly and efficiently is the name of the game. We can all welcome the extreme challenge we are facing right now as the pressure and stress of the downturn is giving many of us a much needed wake up call.
The wake up is that leadership is a function of character and to be a great leader we must first be a great human being.
This article was inspired by an article in Human Capital Magazine
Written by Jennifer Elliott CEO of Integrity and Values.Com with a team of licensees delivering Leadership in Action.
