A series on leadership — insight two

Recently I thought I had reached a level of wisdom that I could offer thoughts on a number of things in a blog; one of which was Leadership. In my brief overview on the topic, I said this:

Leadership is defined when times are difficult: with vision, decision making, and ownership. This applies to character for that matter.

It struck me that maybe it was impossible to define leadership in a single sentence, and even if I did accurately hit on the three key elements, it’s obviously a very deep subject which warrants more than a sentence. With this in mind, and the need to explore a very important topic further, I thought I’d share some insights from those leaders I have known over the years. I suspect most will fall into what I’ve pointed out as decision making, with vision and ownership being figurative bookends. As I make my way, hopefully I will find something I didn’t pay enough attention to — a reminder that reflection is a powerful tool.

insight two

I remember being informed the Chief Commercial Officer had decided to cut the marketing budget by fifty percent. When asked why the reduction was so drastic, the answer was to drive more innovative thinking and action — his thinking was having less money to work with would force different thinking and actions. There were other things going on at time that influenced his decision, but his point and decision was nonetheless valid.

In a discussion about goals and objectives I heard recently, a leader reenforced she was more interested in what was done opposed to what wasn’t done — the primary message was to drive action, review what was done and learn from it. It should be noted the only thing you learn from inaction is that nothing was done, and that isn’t much of a learning opportunity.

In both these examples, deciding to create an environment (and a culture) to drive action, measure it and learn from it, was the goal.

There is also another consideration to why action is an important indicator of leadership — action is something you can own and as mentioned, ownership is a key component of leadership; whereas inaction reflects nothing, and you can’t really own “nothing”.

ac·tion /ˈakSH(ə)n/ noun : the fact or process of doing something, typically to achieve an aim.

The definition of action itself does a pretty good job of suggesting the decision to drive action may be a crucial part of defining leadership.

iamgpe

PS — We all believe we’re making things happen and getting things done. It is important though to either spend some time with honest reflection or get honest feedback, and then ask the question, “Am I driving action or just keeping busy?”