The Call for Leadership

In my last two entries I shared some predictions and suggestions for successfully dealing with the current economic crisis.  These suggestions and predictions were based on historical research done by William Strauss and Neil Howe in their Book “The Fourth Turning – An American Prophecy.”   The book written in 1994 predicted that we were moving towards the next great American Crisis and so far the author’s prophecies have been eerily on target.  Whether or not Strauss’s and Howe’s predictions come true or not – we can certainly agree we are in unprecedented times and one of the keys to meeting the challenges of such a time has always been strong leadership.

Why is leadership so critical now?  Because leaders ultimately are the ones who create breakthroughs, challenge old ways of thinking, help others to find the strength to rise to a challenge and ultimately to share in the solutions that ultimately can take us to new heights.  In an earlier entry entitled “Markers for Executive Success” – I outlined three overarching competency arenas for transformational leadership:

• Personal Engagement
• Interpersonal Engagement
• Organizational Engagement

I will leverage these three areas as anchors for exploring the leadership imperative for the challenging times we find ourselves in.

Personal Engagement

As I have said before – no one truly embodies masterful leadership unless they have some personal stake in it.   Masterful leaders are driven from the inside out – from their own purpose and passion for fulfilling that purpose.  This allows such leaders to act courageously in the face of their own fears as well as the fears of others.  They rise above the fray and focus their actions towards a great vision.

During times of crisis – a leader must take an honest look at their personal concerns.  Any executive today can point to a number of areas of concerns including:

• A Loss of personal wealth given the fall of the markets.
• Anxiety over how they can continue to grow their businesses in the current environment.
• Angst about what they may have to do to cut costs so that their organization survives the crisis.
• Worry that their jobs may be in jeopardy.

All of these – and more – are real challenges executive leaders are personally facing.  In facing these concerns we all have two fundamental choices:

• Give into the fear and allow our reactions to this fear to drive our behavior.
• Reach deep inside ourselves to determine the difference we most want to make in the current situation.

The later choice requires that a leader think deeply about:

• What is truly important to them?
• What has to happen for them to act consistent with what is most important?
• What is the impact they would like to have for their organization, their customers, their employees and themselves?
• How can they be models for others?

You might say to yourself – well my family and my survival is what is most important to me – I don’t really care about the other questions.  This certainly is a valid choice.  That being said – if the crisis worsens – a leader who acts from a deep sense of purpose and through a clear set of values will likely have generated a bank account of support from others.   In addition, acting from a strong place of center will allow for greater personal fulfillment and confidence.

If you have not taken the time to consider the questions above – I invite you to do so.  You can still chose to act as you wish yet once these questions are answered yet if you take the time to answer them you will have a more powerful set of choices to act from.

Interpersonal Engagement

If we face a true “Fourth Turning” then connection to others – especially to your local community – will be critical to surviving as well as leading through the crisis.  Now is not the time to be a wallflower.  Your focus needs to be on strengthening both your personal and business networks.  Therefore you need to consider the following questions:

• Who are my most valued connections and what am I doing to stay in touch in valuable ways?
• What am I doing to stay in touch with my business community?
• What is my business community most needing right now and how can I contribute to this?
• What can I do to increase my visibility in my broader local community?

The goal here is not to fill up your time doing networking.  It is about sharpening your focus on the places in your business and broader community where you desire to make a difference and then to focus your attention there.

In addition, your clients are facing their own challenges.  To continue to strengthen those relationships – ask yourself:

• What kind of support do my clients need right now?
• What am I doing to reach out so that I better understand their challenges?
• What are we doing to generate services that would be particularly valuable to our clients right now?

Again, this is a time to strengthen connections – not shy away from them.  Integrate a strategy to strengthen your network and take action.

Organizational Engagement

In the current environment, I have seen many historically successful companies fall prey to singleness of focus on survival.  When this happens to an extreme it generates more fear and reactivity.  Exactly what we are trying to move away from.  It has been said that while many lost everything – others made their fortunes during the Great Depression.  Here are some questions you might consider to move from concern over survival to seeing possibilities for growth:

• Is this a time of reinvention for our company or is it a time to deepen the connection to our existing mission?
• What are we doing to explore various trends to determine if we can generate value to the market place given our core strengths?
• What are we doing to engage our clients and employees to support us in answering these questions?
• What have we done to decrease debt and improve our liquidity so that we can take full advantage of this time?

The ultimate value of an organization exists in its ability to serve the market, to provide a place for those employed to be sustained and make a difference as well as generate profitability for shareholders.  During times like these – organizations cannot afford to be sloppy in how it integrates these. Ultimately such times provides an opportunity for leaders and their organizations to dig deep and potentially reinvent themselves.

Conclusion

We are all facing a choice of stepping more deeply into fear and worry or stepping out to act from what we care about most.  Either choice is valid.   Yet, depending on the choice we do make – we will either be actively engaged in the solution and gain great support from this or we will may find ourselves safe yet more and more isolated from others.

Finally, I want to reiterate that the goals of the last three entries was to challenge thinking, consider deeper questions, and ultimately to do some scenario planning that supports long term success.  Regardless of the depth of this crisis – this is time for all of us to accept more responsibility for doing our part so we can strengthen our companies, our country and our world.

Tags: Leading in Crisis, Succeeding During Down Economic Times, Trends

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Leadership Development, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.