Clebrity Night Shot

Several times during the last twenty years the rules of leadership in business have changed. They have changed without warning, without celebration and they have changed quietly. The world of leadership is now a different place. There is a strong overtone of unpredictability that makes the world of business more difficult to understand as more information is being added. Stability is not a word that we would use in the same sentence as business. Some of the changes have been initiated by social, economic and political situations in the former USSR, China and India.

Most of the leadership rules of yesteryear no longer apply and no one is in a position to really reliably claim how the present rules work or reliably forecast the future. The only certainty is that business weakness, either perceived or real will be punished. There will be winners and losers and the losers will go out of existence. To a degree many of the losers vanished during the last recession and some of the weaker businesses have been irreparably damaged but are still limping along.

Concepts such as lifetime leadership employment in the same business is now part of history. This means that every single individual, industry, business, and country will have to have a number of options available just to cope with chaotic change. Survival will be the only outcome for those businesses who are working at an optimal level and have the nimbleness to change in react to needs in the market. This survival will be dependent on the quality of leadership in the business.

The successful leader of tomorrow is going to have to recognize that single factors can have a vast and far reaching effect on business outcomes. It is the small things that will be able to make or break businesses. Normally, with traditional business thinking the concept promoted has been that small, sensitive events do not adversely affect the monolithic organization. This no longer holds true.

It requires a considerable shift in thinking. Because of globalization, national boundaries which are so important to governments and of course politicians, are no longer so important during the scramble to secure low-cost labor in developing countries. The successful leader will have to take all these factors into consideration as they look to create environments where staff and systems develop optimal performance. The other area requiring optimal performance is the interface between the business, the product and the customer.

The way ahead is not clear because we will be operating under new rules. The businesses that will thrive and flourish under these new rules will be the ones with their staff produce optimal performance. It is only very good leadership that can create this environment consistently. Unfortunately, at this time, good leaders are few and far between.