Leaders, I Hope You Are Wearing Corrective Lenses
Posted in People-Skills, leadership on Jun 4th, 2009
As a leader, your vision and focus affect, perhaps even determine, the ultimate outcome. How is your vision of the organization? Is it a perfect 20/20? Well I hope you are multi-focal corrective lenses to sharpen your daily vision because many things can cloud the picture.
Personality type.
If you are a driver personality, you may miss seeing the potential in people if it isn’t straight at you. Caring primarily about the end-result, you often see the distance better than anyone yet your close vision is blurred.
If you are an analytic personality type, your vision of details is superb yet you may miss the ultimate destination because you aren’t looking far enough ahead to steer others to success.
If you are an amiable personality type, your desire for harmony seeds great bonding yet your team may falter in the completion of tasks.
If you are an expressive, your team will know what you want yet you may not necessarily hear their questions or input.
If you are wearing corrective lenses, you can balance out your dominant trait with focus on these other important aspects.
Economic Conditions. Do you make the same wise decisions in tough economic times as you do in good times? Or is your vision blurred by the pressure of financial impact? The corrective lenses to wear in this case – a checklist of the questions that have guided you to wise decisions in the past. Update the list and use it!
A New Team Given to You. Picture it – you have accepted a leadership position of an existing team you did not previously know. As you do a quick assessment you sense they are not the right people for these jobs. If you are thinking, “I would never have hired these people”, your thinking will block your vision for success. The corrective lenses to wear in this situation are discussions with each person to truly understand what they have to offer. It is very possible that conditions have buried their talents. If it isn’t true, your vision for success will still be clearer than had you not worn these corrective lenses.
You Get a New Boss. There is a shake-up above and a new leader is over your organization. What is your reaction after you hear her/him say that there will be big changes in how things are done? Do you sub-consciously or consciously think “Oh s_ _ _ !” Get those corrective lenses on your thinking quickly and go into creative exploration mode. You and your teams will enjoy the journey through the changes and your new boss will have an exponentially better view of your value!
Your Customers’ Business Changes. They say that businesses fail when the market changes and businesses don’t. Are you in touch with where your customers’ businesses are going? Are their markets changing? As a leader, you need to be wearing multi-focal lenses to see far ahead so you have time to re-focus your teams. For example, if your customers are scientific researchers and their results take them in a completely different direction – it can have far reaching affects on your organization as a supplier or service provider. Keep your corrective lenses focused on your customers to stay current with their needs.
Remember, multi-focal corrective lenses sharpen your leadership vision and remove the clouds that can block your success. Is it any wonder that these lenses are known as progressives?
Kate Nasser, The People-Skills Coach
I received an ad in my email box for a customer service training video. Even after 20 years of teaching customer service, I still learn new things. So I took a quick look at the sample footage. What I saw was fake, neutral, and difficult for the customer.
