While many people agree that "leadership is influence" (and I mostly tend to be one of them), I think there is something deeper at work, something that plants and cultivates the influential seeds of leadership. To find it, we have to dig down and look at leadership at it's most granular level (I really like the word "granular"). There, among the molecules, we find that leadership is...BUM-BA-DA-BUM...problem-solving. Let that simmer for a moment before you begin sparring with me. After all, necessity is the mother of invention (and innovation).
I know what you're thinking: problem-solving is reactionary by nature, so how can it equate to leadership, which is typically associated with all things proactive? Great question, and if you checked out my earlier post about Bricks, you learned how to respond to flying objects. The kind of problem-solving I’m talking about here, the kind that forms true leadership, is proactive problem-solving. Proactive problem-solving? How does that make sense? Because it comes from a leader’s desire for a preferred future - your vision. In other words, getting from where you are to where you want to be presents a big, hairy, proactively-framed problem for the leader to solve.
Consider a Quarterback who has to lead his team down the field to win the game in the final seconds. Is his vision to win? Yes. Are there problems to overcome along the way? Yes. Will his ability to solve those problems and move his team forward create influence with his teammates and followers? Yes, and the opposite is also true. Likewise, making your budget or reaching your sales targets creates a series of hurdles, challenges, and problems that you the leader must creatively overcome. Therefore, the core of leadership is problem-solving.
Proactive problem-solving can be like aiming at a moving target that you can't always see. Whether you are quarterbacking a team down the field or leading your organization, there is a significant degree of anticipation involved. Honestly, it is quite impossible to anticipate anything at all until you first have a wise and realistic understanding of these key areas:
• Your own strengths and weaknesses as a leader
• The strengths and weaknesses of your people
• What your organization does well (or even better than anyone else)
• What your organization does not do well
• The status (and source) of your current resources
You also need to know the landscape you are leading your team into. This includes your competition, the economic realities of the market (because resources matter), and of course the stakeholders you need to win-over if you are to move forward. Yes, there is much homework, soul-searching, and preparation that comes with proactive problem-solving (that's why it's proactive, right?). This is why a solid game-plan is mission critical - you will need a map to keep you on course when things get tough, which they will.
Think again of our Quarterback for a moment. His leaders are responsible for hiring the right coaches and other players who pass the filter test (fitting the DNA of the organizational vision). The coaches must then spend countless hours watching the opponent’s games on film before knowing how to formulate their own strategy based on each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. Once completed, the game-plan is communicated to the players. Our Quarterback then must execute the plan based on the key points above, solving problems and making adjustments along the path to victory. It's really no different than you leading your organization.
A coach certainly wouldn't formulate a plan that asks players to produce via their weaknesses, nor should you. A football team that has a lousy defense isn't going to count on winning the game by stopping the other team from scoring. Not only would that bring horrific results, it’s simply wrong to expect people to produce via their weakness. In considering the economic reality of your market, chew on this one: would you attempt to grow your business in a market that has zero appetite for your product or utterly lacks the resources to support it? It's bad business to waste valuable resources while trying to jam your organization down someone’s throat who doesn’t want it in the first place.
Reality check: Nobody can see around corners, nobody gets it right all the time, and hindsight is indeed 20/20. And when it comes to leadership, there are several ways to skin the cat (my apologies to cat lovers). But as the leader, it's your responsibility to know yourself, know your team, and know your resources. Develop your strategy honestly and make sure it aligns with the greater vision. Base it on the strengths and weaknesses of your organization and the realities of your market. Promote your business to those who have an appetite for what you do rather than wasting your energy on people who couldn’t care less. Learning to anticipate what might be lurking, and planning accordingly, will help you become the kind of leader who practices proactive problem-solving, which of course leads to the influence every leader so desperately wants and needs. Now that's granular.
Thanks for reading.
J.
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