“The Power of Leadership”

Some of our readers may remember a Thought from the past where I talked about the failure of many of today’s top leaders, CEOs and presidents, in successfully implementing their organizations strategy. Out of 2,000 CEOs surveyed, only 38% admitted to successfully implementing their organization’s long-term strategy, of which many had actually been the architects of. With the view on short-term profits and not long-term success of their organizations, fully implementing an organization’s long-term strategy may not be the goal of these short-term focused leaders.

However, to those of you who consider yourselves “career employees” of a company, implementation of your organization’s long-term strategy is vital to your career growth. The following are some questions you should be asking yourself:

* Is the strategic direction of the company clear to you?
* What is your understanding of the strategy?
* Are you committed to it? Why or why not?
* Do you have concerns about the strategic direction that the company is taking?
* What is the biggest threat to the company from outside? From within?
* What is the likelihood of these events occurring?
* Do you see any solutions to these concerns?
* Do significant opportunities exist that are being overlooked?
* Do you know the quarterly and annual objectives for your part of the company and for the company overall?
* Are the financial objectives realistic for the current year and the next one?
* Does culture play a facilitating or distracting role in the company’s strategic direction? How?
* What are the top two issues regarding strategy?
* Do you have adequate resources to achieve the portion of the strategic plan for which you have responsibility? If not, what is missing?
* If you achieve your portion of the strategic plan, will you and your team be adequately recognized and rewarded?

Regardless of the level of your position within your organization, your answers to these questions raise both a level of threat to your career growth and an opportunity to your career growth. Which is up to you!

If your answer to many of these questions is “I don’t know” than either your company does not have a clearly written strategy or it is not being thoroughly implemented, at least not down to your level. Either way, this is a threat to your career growth opportunities.

If your answer to many of these questions is “I know” but have had to dig out the information on my own, you may have a real opportunity to have an impact on the implementation of your company’s strategy. If so, talk to a trusted mentor or superior in your company and offer your direct support to the implementation of the company’s strategy.

“The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.” … Richard Bach

Have A Good Day!

Russ

Russ M. Miller, LLIF – Chairman & CEO
Performance Institute (Human Capital Development)
Global CEO Academy (Management Training)
Sunny Hong Zhang – Managing Partner – China
Shawn M. Miller – Managing Partner – USA

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