By Daniel Bobinski
If an organization is to succeed it needs good leadership. But what is that? Before I define leadership responsibilities, let me first state what leaders do not have to do.
Leaders are not heroes who ride in to save the day. That myth comes from movies and novels. People love the idea of someone being fearless and infallible, either because that’s what they’d like to see in themselves or because they want to feel safe knowing someone like that is in charge.
Besides, a good leader should not have to ride in to save the day. A better approach is to ensure everyone is trained to the best of their abilities. That way it’s extremely rare that a day would need to get saved.
Also, leaders do not have to be gregarious extraverts who go around making others feel encouraged and empowered. Not that this is a bad thing, but some of the best leaders are reserved individuals who do more listening than talking, carefully weighing their choices after gathering much information and considering the potential ripple effects of each option.
In the same way, leaders do not need to have dominating personalities. Those with dominant styles tend to make fast decisions and can jump on problems as soon as they arise. That can be a strength, but sometimes that approach causes more problems than it solves. Different problems can require different solutions. A good leader recognizes that.
At a fundamental level, a good leader recognizes the fundamental areas of responsibility that should be overseen, and what must be done in each of those areas to achieve the most effective outcome.
Areas of Responsibility
From my perspective, three fundamental areas of responsibility for leaders exist, and they are ideas, the horizon, and the organization’s capabilities. Certainly, more areas of responsibility must be attended to, but I believe that these three fundamental areas are too often overlooked.
First on the list is ideas. More specifically, it’s a leader’s responsibility to collect and consider ideas. With that, if leaders want to excel, they should seek input from every level in the organization, because everyone has ideas, and many times some great ideas come from front-line workers who have never stepped foot in the executive conference room.
But let me also emphasize that ideas must be evaluated. Some ideas are great, others aren’t. But even some of the bad ideas end up leading to good ideas.
Perhaps you’ve seen the TV show “Undercover Boss.” In production now for more than a decade, the show features high-level executives or business owners going undercover as entry-level employees in their own companies. What they learn is often eye-opening, and the end result is leaders collecting great ideas for how to make their company better. However, leaders need not go to this length to gather useful ideas. Genuine curiosity when asking questions goes a long way.
The second area of responsibility for leaders is the horizon. The word “horizon” means our range of perceptions or the extent of what we can see. Leaders should have multiple horizons on their radar, such as economic horizons, geo-political horizons, local market horizons, technology horizons … the list goes on. Good leaders take time to read and learn about these various horizons and also confer with their colleagues and support teams, discussing the implications of what’s happening “out there.”
That said, let me elaborate on how this area of responsibility correlates to the first area, collecting ideas from all levels within an organization. Picture a leader as the pilot of an airplane flying at 40,000 feet. At that height, the leader has a good view of the horizon, but the viewpoint is primarily forests, not trees. If leaders confer only with others who fly at 40,000 feet, they may make decisions that seem right at the time but will be expensive and time-consuming due to not having enough information.
For example, what may look like prime woodland at 40,000 feet might really be a swampy muck underneath. People on the front line with experience in that forest can provide valuable advice on what can be done to achieve the best return on investment.
One company president I know says, “Nobody is omniscient, so don’t pretend to know all the answers.” And, since that president believes his core responsibility is making decisions to move the company in an effective direction, he purposefully seeks input from people who are well-versed in the various horizons so he can make good decisions.
The third area of responsibility is the organization’s capabilities. In other words, leaders should be aware of the capabilities and limitations of the organization’s equipment, personnel, policies and procedures. This is not advocating for micro-management. Leaders just need to know what the organization can and cannot do. From there, leaders must be proactive in providing funding for improvements if a cost-benefit analysis shows the investment would be worth it.
The Bigger Leadership Picture
Naturally, leaders are responsible for much more than what I’ve listed above. Other responsibilities include setting and communicating the vision and mission as well as budgeting and financial management, just to name a few. But I’m a firm believer that way too often, ideas, the horizon and the organization’s capabilities are three areas of responsibility that get shoved too far down the priority list. That’s because none of these three are necessarily urgent. All three are vitally important, but rarely are any of these things urgent. And so they get shoved aside way too easily.
The fix for this is to become disciplined. Firefighting on the latest major problems can easily consume one’s day, so finding ways that help with regimentation on these core fundamentals is essential. Perhaps it’s establishing an accountability partner, which might be as easy as creating standing meetings with administrative assistants where standard questions are asked and priorities are set. If not someone from within the organization, perhaps someone from without, such as a peer or an executive coach.
Whatever way works best, leaders must devote sufficient time to each of these areas so these vital fundamentals don’t fall through the cracks
