“Taking control of uncertainty is the fundamental leadership challenge of our time.” Ram Charan in the opening line of his latest book, The Attacker’s Advantage-Turning Uncertainty into Breakthrough Opportunities.
Frankly, this is a remarkable time to be in business and to be serving in a leadership role. The risks, fears of change, possibilities of disruption or the realities of creative destruction and non-destructive creation are all facts of our business lives and they create a remarkable backdrop for us to create…to innovate. But first, we’ve got to fight our natural tendencies when determining how to act in this environment.
Three Nearly Fatal Leadership Mistakes in this Era:
- Waiting for Normal to Return. Some leaders imagine a return to an environment that feels more like equilibrium. Newsflash…the new equilibrium is a constant state of disequilibrium. Quit waiting on this friend to return. She’s gone.
- Fighting Unseen Dragons. Others have as their sworn duty the need to protect their firm against risks…known and unknown. This fear-driven response to the environment narrows the options and in some cases induces an organization-wide paralysis that nearly certainly leads to decline and death. If you’re not moving, you’re dying.
- Striving to Control the Weather. Worse yet, some attempt to impose order on the big forces propelling ever faster change in our world. Whether it’s through traditional approaches to long-term strategic planning (oxymoronic) or expecting the customers and market to bend to the whims of leadership’s wishful thinking, the attempt to impose order on these forces is a lot like expecting you will succeed in making the weather respond to your bidding.
See this and other newsletter articles at http://amt-mep.org/files/6114/3048/5059/2015-05.pdf
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