Given that you are reading this article I will assume that you are in business. Whether you are an owner, manager or key contributor, the fact that the heading interests you means that you are someone that wants to contribute to the success of a business.
There are a wealth of publications that offer insights into what it takes to build and run a successful business. Over my career, and based on continual research, I have concluded that there are three essential elements required for success in business: Leadership, Strategy, and Execution, (hence I named my management consulting practice ‘LSE Consulting’).
A business is an inanimate object without leadership. For the business to exist, someone came up with an idea and decided to build a business to pursue it. It doesn’t matter if it is a ‘for profit’ or ‘not for profit’ business, someone, or a small group of people, can be identified that founded it, then determinedly set about building it.
People such as the businessmen that started the Smith Family in 1922; G.J. Coles who opened a low-cost retail store in Collingwood, Melbourne in 1928; the Cabrini Sisters that arrived to take over St. Benedict’s, a small hospital in Melbourne; Reg (R.M.) Williams who started his leather ware business in 1932; Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne who founded Apple in 1976; etc., etc.
These people are a minute sample of businesspeople who had vision and demonstrated leadership to create organisations that are highly regarded today. To build their respective businesses, they assembled teams of people that in turn demonstrated leadership in their disciplines towards the idea (vision) of the founders.
To implement their ideas, these leaders developed clear strategies (plans). These strategies, aimed at achieving their clear goals, considered the internal and external factors that they would face to turn their idea into a viable business, and defined clear actions that they would take to materialise their goals.
The leaders knew that a plan that is not relentlessly executed is merely a useless document. They relentlessly drove their organisations to implement the strategy, monitored results, and adjusted it as circumstances changed and their organisations evolved.
If you are a leader, at any level of a business, its success, “Is up to you”.
As leaders, it is up to us to demonstrate clear leadership to our people, devise and continually adjust the strategy, and relentlessly execute it to achieve success.
Examine your situation and pose the question: “Am I demonstrating leadership in my organisation with a clear, current strategy that is relentlessly executed?”
As the truism states: “If it [success] is to be, it’s up to me!”
