As organizations seek to remain relevant in fast-changing marketplaces while creatively finding new ways to grow their top-line, they must teach their leaders how to innovate their businesses. This means researching the needs and developing the skill-sets and competencies of their leaders based on the marketplace requirements for a particular business unit, client relationship or consumer audience. Companies spend millions of dollars to innovate their products and services. The same discipline and approach must apply to leadership. Organizations must invest in changing the mindset of leadership from general fighting the last war to creative enabler of opportunity, innovation and possibility.
How often do you find leaders in charge of business units they are unqualified to lead? This becomes quickly apparent when leaders strive to create impact on the front lines of their business, as Bartz tried and failed to do at Yahoo.
Leaders today must approach their business like a think-tank, where every member of the supply chain is an asset to the business they serve and thus accountable to contribute in ways that support continuous innovation. Leaders must be accountable for thinking strategically not just about their own business, but also about
their marketplaces and industries.
Organizations must begin to host thought leadership forums that invite key leaders who represent the supply chain partners of their particular industry. The goal is for participants to share their perspectives and recommendations in support of common challenges and opportunities that affect the businesses they serve. That’s how innovation becomes organic and is created with those who equally have the advancement of the industry in mind.
Today, clients want thought leadership partners, not order takers. They want partnerships to enable growth and partners that are not afraid to push the envelope of creativity. As a former executive in the food industry, my best clients were those that allowed me to challenge the status quo and introduce new ways of thinking to grow the business. I always respected their operating cultures and sought to complement their approaches to market. Costco, Trader Joe’s and Kroger where just a few of my favorites: leaders in the channel segments they served who welcomed new ideas and ideals.
We have all learned that leadership has lost the edge it once had because leaders have been required to be good managers, not great leaders. I have witnessed the weakening of leadership first hand. Leaders are scared to make real decisions and don’t trust themselves enough to take calculated risks during times of adversity. They spend too much time saving their jobs, being politically correct. As one Fortune 500 executive told me, “I purposely never share all of my secrets and intentions; I enjoy making others wonder about what I am thinking. This creates curiosity and heightens my importance, power and leverage in the department I lead.” What a waste of time. And when I asked him when the last time was that the organization invested in his leadership, he responded “over 5 years.”
It’s time for leaders to refresh their thinking and outlook. They need to escape a traditional outlook and an internally focused mentality. Leaders must be primarily accountable to innovate the business they serve; the personal employee brand of a leader must be associated with being a courageous enabler of innovation and opportunity. The old cookie-cutter, methodical ways of leading just don’t apply anymore in today’s fiercely competitive global marketplace. Leadership and innovation are becoming commoditized and organizations must invest in changing this quickly before it’s too late.
