No leader is master of everything
No leader is master of everything
Business leaders often find themselves in situations where they are expected to do things they have little knowledge of or experience with. With the multitude of things that can occur in business, it is unreasonable to assume anyone can be well prepared for every situation.
Just in the past few months, some of the brightest minds in the world have struggled to find solutions to the current economic crises. Jumping from inflationary fears to deflationary worries, our leaders are dealing with hard issues like availability of funds, as well as soft issues like fear and emotion.
While they could have avoided the problems, or at least been better at anticipating them, how could anyone have been properly prepared for the size and scope of this crisis?
THE PRESSURE TO PERFORM
Leading an organization requires many skills and strong emotional intelligence; it is not for the faint of heart. Scarred and battle-weary, you press on toward that ultimate goal of growing revenue and increasing profit. You invest your blood, sweat and tears into your organization and employees day after day only to be challenged with a never-ending stream of new situations and circumstances.
Because of the rules by which business is conducted today, leaders find themselves in situations where they are regularly asked to make choices based on experience and knowledge, and expected to execute those decisions with confidence and strength, even though experience and knowledge may be non-existent. All too often the pressure to perform can get the best of them, creating situations where they don’t use the proper amount of caution or concern. Just as failure to act can be costly, so can the failure to be adequately cautious.
As a leader, your job is to create alignment in your organization, and keep everyone working together as a team toward common goals. Unfortunately, you are also expected to be strategic, constantly checking the horizon for what’s to come; anticipating your next move in the game of business and looking for competitive advantages that will provide great returns.
With the daily pressure to perform as the resident expert, leaders often fall prey to certain harmful behaviors. When leaders are under the kind of constant pressure economic downturns can create, it should not be a surprise when a leader succumbs to hubris.
All too often leaders will avoid the necessary due diligence and make bad decisions simply because they are unwilling or unable to say they just don’t know. This is when the real danger is at its peak - when the greatest damage can occur.
Once a poor decision has been made, it is much more difficult to admit the mistake after the situation has become public. Often those leaders who have been consumed with hubris will not admit their error and take appropriate action. Rather, they will continue to make poor decisions that often make a bad situation worse.
ESCAPE FROM THE HAMSTERS WHEEL
Step 1 – As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step toward fixing the problem is recognizing that it exists. You must understand what is and is not expected of you by your stakeholders, and believe that no mere mortal has all the wisdom and intelligence to solve every problem of his own.
Part of leadership is knowing when you don’t have an answer and finding ways to get the information you need to make an intelligent decision.
Step 2 – Talk to your leadership team and ask them for advice. Allowing others to participate in critical conversations is a sign of strength, not weakness. As the leader of your organization, asking for input does not automatically relieve you of your authority or your responsibilities. On the other hand, it does demonstrate a certain confidence your management team and helps bring alternative viewpoints into your research and evaluation process.
Just because you ask for input does not mean you have to follow everything you will be told. The best ideas usual spring from a combination of two or more creative, sometimes silly, ideas you may not have thought of on your own.
Step 3 – One piece of advice commonly offered by consultants is to find someone that has dealt with what you are dealing with and ask their advice. While no one person is likely that have all the answers, there are certainly a many people that have gone through whatever problem you are going through and would gladly help you with it.
Asking for outside help is not a sign of weakness or vulnerability; it is a sign of strength and wisdom.
Step 4 – Slow the process down. Seconds, minutes, often hours will not make the difference between failure and success regardless of how certain you are that a decision must be made. And if time is that critical, sometimes it is better to just wait and prepare for the consequences rather than take action that may make those consequences worse.
Unlike the common planning adage, failure to act does not constitute acting to fail.
As a leader, you must recognize that there is no such thing as perfection, and mistakes will be made by you and your staff. So long as you get most of the decisions right most of the time, you are probably ahead of the game. When the stakes get higher, it is time to eliminate emotion from your thoughts and rely on facts, logic and probability, things that often escape us when we are acting under pressure.
We need to be careful and think about what we are doing, particularly when we find ourselves in situations where our experience and knowledge is not as deep as we want it to be. That is no reason to act irrationally, emotionally, or with hubris.
I remember the time when playing Trivial Pursuit with my wife and she was 100 percent confident of her answer. Those on her team (I was on a different team) let her respond only to find she was wrong. When questioned how she could have had so much confidence in her answer, she replied “I was bluffing.” Don’t put yourself in a position where you are forced to bluff.
No leader is master of everything - To learn more about this author, visit Larry Mandelberg's Website.
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Hu●bris (hyü-bris) n. excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance.
Business leaders often find themselves in situations where they are expected to do things they have little knowledge of or experience with. With the multitude of things that can occur in business, it is unreasonable to assume anyone can be well prepared for every situation.
Just in the past few months, some of the brightest minds in the world have struggled to find solutions to the current economic crises. Jumping from inflationary fears to deflationary worries, our leaders are dealing with hard issues like availability of funds, as well as soft issues like fear and emotion.
While they could have avoided the problems, or at least been better at anticipating them, how could anyone have been properly prepared for the size and scope of this crisis?
THE PRESSURE TO PERFORM
Leading an organization requires many skills and strong emotional intelligence; it is not for the faint of heart. Scarred and battle-weary, you press on toward that ultimate goal of growing revenue and increasing profit. You invest your blood, sweat and tears into your organization and employees day after day only to be challenged with a never-ending stream of new situations and circumstances.
Because of the rules by which business is conducted today, leaders find themselves in situations where they are regularly asked to make choices based on experience and knowledge, and expected to execute those decisions with confidence and strength, even though experience and knowledge may be non-existent. All too often the pressure to perform can get the best of them, creating situations where they don’t use the proper amount of caution or concern. Just as failure to act can be costly, so can the failure to be adequately cautious.
As a leader, your job is to create alignment in your organization, and keep everyone working together as a team toward common goals. Unfortunately, you are also expected to be strategic, constantly checking the horizon for what’s to come; anticipating your next move in the game of business and looking for competitive advantages that will provide great returns.
With the daily pressure to perform as the resident expert, leaders often fall prey to certain harmful behaviors. When leaders are under the kind of constant pressure economic downturns can create, it should not be a surprise when a leader succumbs to hubris.
All too often leaders will avoid the necessary due diligence and make bad decisions simply because they are unwilling or unable to say they just don’t know. This is when the real danger is at its peak - when the greatest damage can occur.
Once a poor decision has been made, it is much more difficult to admit the mistake after the situation has become public. Often those leaders who have been consumed with hubris will not admit their error and take appropriate action. Rather, they will continue to make poor decisions that often make a bad situation worse.
ESCAPE FROM THE HAMSTERS WHEEL
Step 1 – As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step toward fixing the problem is recognizing that it exists. You must understand what is and is not expected of you by your stakeholders, and believe that no mere mortal has all the wisdom and intelligence to solve every problem of his own.
Part of leadership is knowing when you don’t have an answer and finding ways to get the information you need to make an intelligent decision.
Step 2 – Talk to your leadership team and ask them for advice. Allowing others to participate in critical conversations is a sign of strength, not weakness. As the leader of your organization, asking for input does not automatically relieve you of your authority or your responsibilities. On the other hand, it does demonstrate a certain confidence your management team and helps bring alternative viewpoints into your research and evaluation process.
Just because you ask for input does not mean you have to follow everything you will be told. The best ideas usual spring from a combination of two or more creative, sometimes silly, ideas you may not have thought of on your own.
Step 3 – One piece of advice commonly offered by consultants is to find someone that has dealt with what you are dealing with and ask their advice. While no one person is likely that have all the answers, there are certainly a many people that have gone through whatever problem you are going through and would gladly help you with it.
Asking for outside help is not a sign of weakness or vulnerability; it is a sign of strength and wisdom.
Step 4 – Slow the process down. Seconds, minutes, often hours will not make the difference between failure and success regardless of how certain you are that a decision must be made. And if time is that critical, sometimes it is better to just wait and prepare for the consequences rather than take action that may make those consequences worse.
Unlike the common planning adage, failure to act does not constitute acting to fail.
As a leader, you must recognize that there is no such thing as perfection, and mistakes will be made by you and your staff. So long as you get most of the decisions right most of the time, you are probably ahead of the game. When the stakes get higher, it is time to eliminate emotion from your thoughts and rely on facts, logic and probability, things that often escape us when we are acting under pressure.
We need to be careful and think about what we are doing, particularly when we find ourselves in situations where our experience and knowledge is not as deep as we want it to be. That is no reason to act irrationally, emotionally, or with hubris.
I remember the time when playing Trivial Pursuit with my wife and she was 100 percent confident of her answer. Those on her team (I was on a different team) let her respond only to find she was wrong. When questioned how she could have had so much confidence in her answer, she replied “I was bluffing.” Don’t put yourself in a position where you are forced to bluff.
No leader is master of everything - To learn more about this author, visit Larry Mandelberg's Website.
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David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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