Scar of comfortable leadership

A scar is a permanent mark. It disfigures. It deforms. It contorts into a strained shape and stamps and imprints confusion in the workplace. It sometimes irrecoverably alters identification, acuity and perception.

Comfortable leadership is when the office of a leader is in a state of ease and content that it conforms without qualms with a conventional mindset. This leader has no capacity for entrepreneurial wisdom and wallows in the delusion of status, authority, grandeur and power.

The comfortable leader will never lose, even temporarily, market share for innovation. His attitude, habits, thoughts and mental inclinations are plagued by the “usual mindset”. He cannot hire those who are smarter than him. He does not solve problems and his approach to opportunities is the product or services-first logic. He can never be a domain expert because he avoids mistakes and failures. In his sales activities, he prefers the sales funnel model than the customer-focused flywheel architecture.

The comfortable leader is the harbinger of yawning gaps in critical leadership in today’s very demanding economy. He cannot superintend crucial initiatives. He kills, without being fully conscious of it, values of talents and passion. He relies on conventional development practices that stunt productivity and growth.

His method of appraisal in the workplace stifles motivation because it is based on outdated performance criteria, very narrow surveys and inadequate criteria. How will an organisation with a comfortable leader thrive when he widens leadership gaps in his day-to-day decisions and actions?

A leader, who does not utilize the skill of encouraging and growing his team members, supervises the decline of trust, cooperation and innovation. He causes disconnection and disengagement in the workplace. He even hoards information because he thinks it gives him a leg up.

A smart leader must impact team members in their career journey. The leader must partner with his colleagues for fulfillment not only for today but always. This will greatly enhance performance.

The leader sets the tone in order to create an innovative organisational culture. He works towards the organisation’s purpose and common goal, the big picture. He must promote togetherness for loyalty and success. He must be the combination of transparency and accountability.

Accountability for his decisions and outcomes. Also, curiosity for his ability to rethink problems as well as partner with his team members for ideas and contributions. His transparency must be so “pronounced” that he keeps team members in the loop. His display of empathy is to identify with the organisation’s goals and team members’ purpose.

My advice to the comfortable leader is that he should ask himself whether his day-to-day activities are delivering bold and excellently delivered outcomes. He should ask himself if his actions are making incredible transformation in his organisation. Other questions include: Is your relationship with colleagues and customers transactional? Are you truly nurturing and nourishing a “virile” and thriving organisation? Are you championing sustainable customer acquisition, retention, positioning and differentiation of the brand in the marketplace? Are your decisions and execution strategies creating positive impact that you will forever be thankful for? Are you happy when your colleagues and customers are sad? Are you taking careful thought of what you are leaving now or when you are approaching the end of your present position?

Today, I want you to examine your leadership journey. Are you in your day-to-day activities diligently leaving indelible marks on the lives and careers of your colleagues? Is your leadership style adding transforming unique values to the organisation and the team? Have you been an amazing influence in guiding the choices your team leaders make about how to lead others? How are you moving the needle in terms of profitability?

Success is not a comfortable procedure. You cannot stay in your comfort zone and expect it. The 3Fs are instructive. You must be fully efficient, flexible and fast. You must maximise your potentials and strive always for continuous growth.

Winning requires a lot of hard work. You must not allow your competitors to take it from you. The leader must genuinely inspire his organisation to “outwork” others. You must seize your best chances. Do not allow others to take them from you. You must be smarter, better, better prepared, and fully utilize opportunities.

Please note that business is not done in a vacuum. Other leaders and their organisations also know your business. Some even know some things better than you do about the business and its customers. It is therefore urgent and compelling that you learn more and keep learning. You must outsmart them. You must be the best always. That is the first law in marketing.

Our entrepreneurial mindset tells us that there must be “very smart awareness” in riding the tide of business dynamics. We must know the competitors’ focus and their preparation.

The greatest worry of the leader should be lack of knowledge. He must keep learning, keep absorbing and keep acquiring information. Personal development and smart preparation make leaders succeed. The leader who is not the comfortable one must always rethink the predictable learnings of yesterday; learnings from today’s reality and learnings from the possibilities of tomorrow.

As a leader, do you know that the passion you have for great achievements and successes is a gift? It is a calling. It must give you direction and purpose. You must never allow your intellectual endowments to overrule you. This gift will enable you to take bold steps for big successes. It will also enable you to manage failures as experiments. Great successes compensate for failures.

Let me conclude with the following: The leader must be proud of hard work and always choose the hard things. Do not skip steps. There are no shortcuts. Ideas must be transformed into actions with persistence, relentlessness and flexibility with details. The purpose of our work is to improve people’s lives.

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