Leadership

3. What Do Leaders Do?

Leadership involves taking on six tasks.

3.1 Achieve clarity about the changes that must happen.

• For example, a courier business might need to grow quickly - possibly by acquisition - to achieve the critical mass that makes multi-drop trips possible.

3.2 Turn ideas into action points and motivate others to act on them.

• Be flexible about ways and means - 'tough on the what, easy on the how'.
• Ask managers to put proposals in a one-page summary plan, so you can see the quality of their thinking.
• Encourage people to achieve more by setting demanding targets and helping them to achieve them.

3.3 Win commitment based on honest, realistic, two-way discussion.

• Make it clear that you expect problems to occur, but that they will be overcome.
• Let everyone see that you are confident about the long-term future.

3.4 Create a climate of learning, so people know it is safe to make mistakes.

3.5 Keep going. Without persistence, even the best ideas can come to nothing.

• One survey found that 80 per cent of corporate change programmes had failed within two years. Of the surviving programmes which were successful, 75 per cent had come close to being scrapped at some point.

3.6 Learn from your experiences.

• You are looking for lessons that will help you replicate your successes.
• At the very least, make sure you do not make the same mistakes twice.