Like the brother-in-law that you dodge at family gatherings to avoid his pitch on the latest “can’t fail, get rich quick” business scheme, some people are involved in a constant game of that childhood classic, Chutes and Ladders. Catch one ladder and you skip over the rest of us as we wind our way along on journeys of unknown destination and duration.
Occasionally, these short-cut seekers find their way into positions of business and leadership responsibility, and the results range from a preoccupation with the near-term to overt decisions to cut corners in an attempt to move faster. It’s a short-drive from cutting corners to committing egregious offenses against companies, stakeholders and society. This holds from Enron to B.P.
Leading is Not a Short-Term Game:
- There are no ladders that allow you to skip over the hard work of finding and developing talent.
- You can’t command people to create or to innovate…you have to foster the environment for these activities to flourish.
- You cannot lead effectively employing “do as I say, not as I do” tactics and you cannot avoid the tough people issues inherent in the role.
- Leading properly requires patience and the methodical application of timeless principles of respect, support, guidance, feedback and encouragement. There are no shortcuts for this hard work.
The leader has the one role that is required to look at the person today and see the leader or senior contributor they are capable of becoming tomorrow.
Leaders Must Learn to Pivot Between Today and the Future:
The pressures to operate in the short-term are fierce. It’s my observation that the challenges of leaders and leading have grown more complex over the two decades that I’ve had the privilege to serve.
The people issues haven’t changed, but the environmental factors driven by technology, time-compression and the shrinking globe all require leaders to operate much like a basketball player that has stopped his dribble. This individual can still move, but the motion is restricted to a pivot, with one foot planted and the other moving around the pivot.
Depending upon circumstances, the leader has a pivot foot planted either in the here-and-now or in the future.
When survival is threatened, it’s hard to think about the long-term, and emphasis is mostly in the present. The effective leader however, retains one foot in the future and recognizes that if and when survival is achieved, new talent and new leaders will be critical to sustaining.
During times of prosperity, the effective leader prepares for change and for the next crisis, and while the emphasis is on leveraging the positive circumstances, one foot is planted in the future looking for the leaders and the talent that will lead change or ensure survival when the time comes. And yes, that time always comes.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
The short-term pressures in our society are intense. From the drive for quarterly profits on Wall Street to the bombardment of messages promising that a pill will fix everything or that untold wealth is just a phone call and credit card order away (buy now and I’ll throw in the steak knives), we are increasingly a society of short-cut seekers.
We’ve got a solid decade of corporate scandals to show for this short-term pre-occupation, and the final chapter still hasn’t been written on the temporary blindness that brought the global economy to the brink of destruction.
The temptation to seek a shortcut in business is fierce. However, the effective leader understands the need to pivot between today’s pressures and tomorrow’s needs and opportunities. And while the pivot foot might change from time-to-time based on the leader’s judgment, the hard work of building for tomorrow is never far out of mind.
Great post,
Thanks Art
Mark Allen Roberts