The Leadership Challenge

I was working recently with a group of leaders in the healthcare industry and it got me thinking
about the common challenges that all leaders face. It seems that wherever we travel as leadership development consultants, these variables keep surfacing.

How well these five principles are addressed may be the difference between change efforts that succeed and those that fail. They also impact trust. The trust factor is paramount for collaboration and organizational success.  Unfortunately, a lot of time and energy may be wasted in dealing with the absence of one of these five principles.

The Leadership challenge:

1.      We chose how we respond - This seems simple enough to understand however there are
times when even the most experienced leaders may violate this principle. A lot of time and energy has been devoted to the subject of managerial self-control.  I.e. keeping your saw nice and sharp, finding balance and symmetry with Body Mind and Spirit. Regardless of how well
we achieve this ideal, we still choose how we respond.

2.      We own our team's work product – As with many teams, the leader experience people challenges. The leader is ultimately responsible for their teams work product.  this may mean that underperformers get managed up or out allowing the leader to devote more time with performers and high potentials.

3.      We lead with balance, wisdom, and sufficient EQ - Leaders who understand balance wisdom and EQ are likely to have high-performing teams.  Balance means that the leaders own limitations are not imputed as team limitations. It is the wise manager who knows but they don't know and have sufficient emotional maturity to navigate in that space.

4.      We forfeit schadenfreude when we sit in the Leader's chair - Schadenfreude means pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune, aka “dishing the dirt.” It is the opposite of Leadership. Grip it and zip it.

We win together as a Team and Organization - Very often we see organizations that have
fallen into the trap of believing that component pieces can function in isolation or independently.  Not so. Successful techniques for bunker busting include: revising internal communication plans; leadership advocacy; cross functional / non-routine ROI or efficiency summits; and humility in the form of good old fashioned team-work.