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Leadership
Leadership continues to rank at or near the top of everyone's list of
key success factors. However, the demands of the information age are causing
us to reframe the way we think about leaders and leadership. Leadership
has generally been considered the province of the CEO, or at best, a few
people at the top of the organizational hierarchy. It is becoming clear
that no small group at the top can provide the leadership needed for an
entire organization of any size in the information age.
Shared Leadership
Today, better informed customers, rapid change, and fierce competition
from global competitors demand shared leadership, i.e., empowered employees exercising leadership at every level of the organization.
The number one priority for the CEO and the senior staff is still to
develop and sustain a collective vision aimed at satisfying important customer
needs. A major portion of their time will be spent on an ongoing basis
communicating and nurturing the vision which serves as a broad-brush map
to keep everyone focused and energized.
The second priority of the senior staff and leaders at every level of
the organization is so close in importance, it can't really be separated
from the first—it is to create the conditions for success. In broad terms
here are the fundamental conditions for success:
| 1. |
Acquiring and managing key
resources—people and technology
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| 2. |
Building effective teamwork |
| 3. |
Assuring strategic alignment by taking the
systems view and creating shared models of success |
| 4. |
Building a learning environment and a process
orientation |
| 5. |
Empowering everyone to make a difference
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| 6. |
Making sure everyone has easy access to the
information they need |
| 7. |
Embracing change and diversity |
| 8. |
Rewarding people fairly for their contributions
to the whole |
| 9. |
Sustaining focus on what's important—serving
customers and achieving key results |
Like it or not, leaders are models others look to for cues as to how
they should behave in order to be successful. They do not need to be perfect,
but when leaders are serious in their efforts to create the conditions
where everyone can be successful, it promotes the development of trust
which may in the final analysis be one of the greatest services leaders
can perform.
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