Strength of Vision or Strength of Leader

Recently I was asked about leadership and which was more important, the vision or the leader. The debate was centered on if success comes from having a strong leader that brings a team together to execute more effectively, or is a strong vision can inspire a team to in effect come together through self-motivation.

In reality both are useful in obtaining success, however most people are not strong leaders so I proposed a different approach. My response was as follows:

I have found that the strength of the message comes from listening. In my experience my vision has been greatly enhanced by listening to others and my role is to create a seamless vision that has pieces from the entire team.

This not only creates a better vision, but allows others to contribute their ideas and see results from their contributions.

Having that credibility with my team allows me to then provide (and receive) mentoring and coaching leading to a continuous cycle of improvement for all.

Of course being a good listener is certainly a key trait for great leadership. I would go further and say that listening and being able to orchestrate diverse recommendations from the team to a cohesive plan is among the top 3 traits of great leadership.

In my next blog I will discuss the importance of a leader to be willing to become a follower.

Comments and questions are always welcome.

Should managers apologize when they are wrong?

There is no question in my mind that managers need to apologize when wrong and look to learn from the experience.

Leaders need to exhibit a high degree of transparency in their actions and take accountablity for these actions. By not doing so, it erodes trust with the team and only serves as a demotivator, particularly if the leader holds the members of their team accountable.

On the other hand, a leader who is willing to take accountability provides a great example to their team and will inspire the team to be more accountable in their actions.

I've provided a link to a blog post I previously wrote on empathy in leaders which is related to this subject.


Comments and questions are always welcome.

Is Twitter a risk to business?

Twitter is no more of a risk to business than any other forms of communication, in theory.

Twitter has scale and is an enabler for information to become viral, with a certain level of anonymity. The anonymity aspect will (in some cases) change behavior, making people more likely to disclose proprietary information, information that someone would not necessarily disclose in a face to face discussion. Additionally, the risk of successful phishing is a higher on Twitter.

There is a very important point about the upside of Twitter. If managed properly, tools such as Twitter can benefit a company more than harm.

Yes there are official spokespeople, but we live in an age where we must accept the fact that people are more transparent with their lives and work. In reality, companies can mitigate risk of social media by embracing the fact that every person in the company should be trained to be an advocate for the company. Naturally this would be need to be adapted to specific roles, but if a company does not harness the potential benefit, the risk will only grow greater as social media evolves.

Comments and questions are always welcome.