Most businesses that fail, fail because
of poor leadership. Most businesses that are mediocre
are mediocre because of poor leadership.
Think about it. Let’s say that you run
an accounting firm but your firm doesn’t seem to be
growing, turnover is astronomical, and the firm really
isn’t that profitable. You can blame it on external
factors, such as the economy only for so long. Why?
Because there are hundreds of accounting firms
flourishing doing the exact same thing you are
trying to do but your firm is failing and they are
succeeding.
You have to begin to wonder why your firm
is only average or worse. You might say well we just
could not get the right people. Well why did you have
the wrong people? Because you had poor leadership in
place that kept the wrong people around too long or
didn’t have the discipline to interview the 38th person
in order to get the right person for the job. And
sometimes that is what it takes to find the right
people. We’ve all seen the kind of employees you
end up with when you settle after the first couple of
interviews. Poor leaders will do just that, settle.
If your leader does get lucky and a
talented person ends up joining your firm, if your firm
is mediocre, the good talent is not going to stick
around. If your management’s leadership skills only
reach the level of 6, 8’s, 9’s and 10’s are not
going to stick around. People naturally follow people stronger
than themselves. Studies show that when people
leave their jobs, 65% of them are really leaving their
managers.
Another reason you might say that your
organization is mediocre is because you didn’t have
good strategic plan in place. Well, guess what? The
reason you didn’t have a good strategic plan in place is
either because your “leader” couldn’t come up with one
or he did have one but didn’t have the discipline to do
the things necessary to make it happen.
Some people like to blame the demise of
their company, or other companies, on the economy or
some other factor that was completely out of their
control. Just look around. Companies are
failing everyday that are in proven lines of business
that had the same market and the same opportunities
available to them as the companies that flourish.
Bottom line is, if your company is in a
proven line of business in which there are other
companies flourishing and more profitable than yours, you can bet your last dollar that if they are
outpacing you in the market, it is because of
leadership.
So look around your organization, your
division, your group. If you think your people are
negative, then you better check your attitude. If you
think the people you attract could be better, then it’s
time for you to improve.
When I refer to great companies or
companies that are flourishing versus companies that are
just average or worse, I’m not at all talking about
differences in size. Greatness of a company is not measured by
the number of employees. Whether you have two employees
or 50 employees or 100,000, if you can answer yes to the
following questions, then your company is successful and
probably even great.
PMETH Principles
