Do You Have The Grit To Lead Into The Future?

3 Indications that you don’t have the grit to lead your company to a new level of performance.  Developing a new idea or a new direction for your business is never a sure thing.  If it is a sure thing, know that you are a late-comer to the market and should be prepared to play the pricing game.  If you are anticipating the need to make a big change in with new strategic direction, make sure you are up for it.  It takes strong strategic management to and true grit to see it through.

Here are 3 indications that your leadership may NOT have the what it takes to lead the implementation of a new strategic direction.

1.  You Over Listen to Your Customer: You depend on customer input to set your direction. In any aspect of your business, product development, customer service, operations, or market focus, if you depend too heavily on what your customer’s say that they want/need from you today, you will be eternally behind the curve.You need to take their input as one element in your thinking and balance their input with other market factors.

Spend more time examining your competitors and their influences to create your own hypothesis about where the market is heading, then set your direction.  If you truly understand your market, you will place your “bets” in the right place; right where your customer’s needs are – tomorrow.

2.  You Practice Decision by Committee: You conduct endless review and update meetings on your plan to seek approval and wordsmithing how you describe your new direction rather than if it is the right direction!

Your planning group should include all the best minds you have on your business regardless of your reporting structure. If you have everyone in the room when you build your plan, you shouldn’t need to spend (what to some will feel like) endless rounds of review meetings with stakeholders that “bless it” before you decide to begin implementation.

If your thinking is radically new for your company and you feel out of your depth, find and bring expertise into your process right away, before your planning process is complete. Don’t keep going until the plan is fleshed out and then bring them in to give you the thumbs up.  What will you do if they give you the thumbs down at that late date?

3.  You Are Afraid To Fail: You hide your mistakes or recast them.

Leading any entity to a new level of performance is challenging and you will make mistakes get comfortable with that and realize it is part of the process. See them quickly, make the necessary changes and move on. Don’t lose momentum trying to recast or ignore a mistake; this will unwind your planning efforts. Learning to fail and get back on track quickly is a hallmark of great leadership and an innovative culture.

So, do you have the grit to lead into the future?

If you have a low tolerance for risk or are too much of a perfectionist, you should not be in charge of the future of your company.  As the leader, it is incumbent that you find someone who can help you take your company to the next level.

Think you need to retool your strategic plan? 

Maybe you just need a Strategy Boost™.