The ever present tension of bottom line results and culture

This does not become any easier especially since we live in a society that brings a focus on the short term - and the short term generally demands a focus on the bottom line. Stakeholders all too often want short term results and this usually means we ignore the impact on culture, and of course people.

We need to demand a focus on sustainability for the long term - from a people, brand and financial perspective. Too frequently we demand financial results at the complete expense of the people and brand - we need more creative thinking to find collaborative and holistic ways of managing this ever present tension.

Increasingly these stakeholders are customers/clients - are we prepared to allow them to dictate the way we treat our people and develop our brand? It is time to be courageous and stay true to culture and brand and have the courageous conversations with our customers.

Courageous leaders know managing is also about people

I had an interesting conversation today with a wonderful colleague and we talked about the differences between managing and leading - referring to the work of John Kotter - where he clearly states that we manage to implement (or as some now say - execute) and we lead to inspire. I have experienced many people attach managing to the task and leading to the people.

When developing Courageous Leaders I remind them to acknowledge that managing is equally about people and leading is equally about the task. It is just the level at which either of these are undertaken may change as they progress in an organisation.

Managing is not just about the task; it is also very much about people - and I know that many organisations suffer from mediocre performance because we are not managing the people - it is much easier and often more personally rewarding to manage the task. Instead managing the people requires tough conversations as referred to in an earlier BLOG. It requires people to have delegating conversations, giving feedback, receiving feedback, resolving conflict - each is a tough conversation which most of us run away from given half a chance!

While leading is also very much about leading the task and not just about leading the people. The nature of the tasks changes as you progress in the business and includes such tasks as creation of the business strategy, conversion of opportunities into real revenue for the business, completing research into particular issues of interest to you and to the business.

Courageous leaders juggle the tension between people and task in the way they manage and lead others. They do not avoid the tough conversations and they do not avoid the challenging tasks that require more leadership capability.