Leadership - Practicality
Practicality
Vision v reality
On the one hand leadership is all about setting the vision of the future but on the other hand this has to be set in the real world.
This doesn’t mean that the leader should turn into a pessimist overnight.
What it does mean is that the leader will not bury his or her head in the sand but will make sure they are aware of all of the hurdles that need to be overcome in order to achieve the vision.
A good leader will have the attributes of a snake! Through its forked tongue it will continually assess it surroundings by ‘tasting’ the air.
It will make adjustments in its direction until ultimately it reaches its own personal goal of finding food.
Unfortunately, for a snake its overall ‘vision’ isn’t too good (unless you consider infra red).
The snake has a goal and executes a plan to get there brilliantly by continued assessment.
Information
The only reason we will perceive problems will be based upon previous experiences and knowledge.
We have spoken about the intuitive ability of a good leader.
Exactly what is intuition? No one know exactly, but some people seem to be able to ‘predict’ problems and future events much better than others.
It could be that these people have a much better ability to rapidly assess a lot of information and from this draw inferences and from these predict a train of events. Others may be able to assess the same data / knowledge over a longer period and come to the same conclusion.
However, the intuitive person can produce the result in a much shorter time frame.
Intuition is not dependent on age but may be more acute in older people if experience and knowledge are factors.
A chess player is extremely good at assessing the implications of many scenarios before deciding on the next move.
In order to be able to assess the practicalities of a ‘vision’ you must draw on a body of information.
This could derive from many sources.
- Personal experience and knowledge.
- Team experience and knowledge.
- Date e.g. reports of previous projects.
- Information from similar projects elsewhere.
- Statistical trends etc.
Mining for the correct data.
In order to find out what information exists and what you may need to generate you will need to ask the right questions.
- What is currently available. Current projects, historical data, other industries.
- Is it accurate, relevant or outdated.
- What are the current facts.
- How can you utilise the information.
Scope of practicality
We have spoken about the need to assess data to ‘test’ the practicality of getting to your vision.
There are other areas you may wish to consider that are a little divorced from ‘pure data’.
You will need to consider these other areas to check whether your approach is sound and you are not making assumptions that are not practical.
- Stakeholders. Who has a vested interest in the vision and what are the problems in gaining their support?
- How is the team performing? Are new skills required?
- Budget and physical and human resources – are they adequate?
- SWOT analysis will help identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Your own personal development.
- Environmental and legal issues. In particular existing and future changes.
- Cultural and language difficulties.
- Market place issues, competitor problems and technical advancements.
- Political trends.