The Importance Of Leadership

Type in "leadership" and Google returns over 100 million entries. Amazon offers almost 400,000 books. Hardly trivial; and, not surprisingly. Think of your everyday life - at home, in the office, at sport, in local political meetings or other voluntary activities. Everywhere, there are leaders. Parents, division heads, supervisors, team captains, presidents, organisers, co-ordinators and so on.

As a humorist once put it: even a group of anarchists appoints a leader. So, the issue is not whether leadership is important but how you can do it as well as possible. I created V|E|C|T|O|R specifically to meet that need.

Whether your organisation is formal or just a casual grouping, there's a need for leadership. Someone to draw things together, allocate tasks, keep everyone focused and enthused, think about the future and address problems as they arise.

At any given time, though, how do you, as leader, know what to do? And, how best to do it? Is your response guesswork or doing what you normally do? Too often, that's what I do - and it doesn't work all that well! Even though the same actions might have once worked well elsewhere (but in different circumstances and with a different team). Happily, there's a better and more professional way.

If I asked you to come on a journey, what would be your first question? When I ask this in companies, most people reply with some variation of "where are we going; and, why?". And, if I answer with an exciting goal or destination, this often lifts their sights as to what is possible. And, for a group, it delivers goal alignment. Everyone knows where we're going and can get on with their duties with that in mind.

I may add credibility to the goals and destination, by demonstrating I've analysed the market, thought about success factors and explored strategic options. If I do this well, these actions may convince people I'm an OK leader, and worth following.

It's as simple as one-two-three:

1. Identify the key follower questions: what's holding your people back;
2. Define possible actions: to answer their concerns and allay their fears;
3. List specific leadership commitments: creating your personal action list.

Leadership is the missing link in business planning. And, in developing my V|E|C|T|O|R leadership action-planning tools, I've turned this three-step process, into something any leader can use.

As demonstrated at the beginning of this note, leadership generates millions of Google entries and thousands of new books are published each year. It's an industry. But, most of it focuses on generalities, concepts and theories. And, much on only one aspect such as people issues or technical ones or leadership in your first 100 days.

History shows, though, that leadership is not about the pristine world of theory; like us all, it's mired in the world of practice. And, far from being segmented, it has to be integrative - across both the hard market and technical issues and the so-called soft ones of people and culture.

There's no single right way; and no one-size-fits-all. Each role, situation or project is unique and needs you to tailor a specific approach. Developing a leadership action plan that responds to the actual people you're leading, their needs and the particular challenges you all face.

That's the uniqueness of V|E|C|T|O|R. It's a tool for developing a personal action list - for your current leadership role. It also provides you with resource material - relevant to the specifics of your plan. Enables to email your plans to colleagues. And, stores them so you can return and update them as you proceed.

We do for your leadership what an iPod does for your music

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