Let’s ask ourselves, when did we become tall? Or when did our weight increase? Or when did our weight decrease? Or when did we start developing wrinkles? Or when did our muscles start showing?
If we jog or go to the gym, we don’t realise when our muscles start to show. This is life. We have to go through the protocol of life, which is the process. It’s the same with how we need to lead. The process of leading an organisation or company or department will not happen in the blink of an eye. We’re not in the Harry Potter story or David Copperfield’s story. With one action, everything changes.
We lead and shape organisations not with one action and our business or organisation will change. The same goes for Marketing Plans, Sales Plans, or Action Plans. Leading people is a very subjective controversy. It’s not a process of 2 + 2 = 4. People are full of emotions. 2 + 2 sometimes equals 4, sometimes 0, and sometimes different; this is just an analogy.
Therefore, as individuals, we need to lead ourselves and our unit, department, company or community with a process.
Consistency and consistent processes are very important. You won’t be healthy by jogging 24 hours a day continuously. But God willing, you will be healthy if you jog for 15 minutes every day for 1 year. You won’t develop a muscular body or six-pack if you go to the gym and work out safely for 5 hours at a time. But God willing, you will have muscles if you exercise for 20 minutes every day for 1 year.
The leadership process is a process of understanding individual strengths within the company and these individual strengths will be combined with the strengths of other individuals to form a team. As a leader, your task is to “manage” individual strengths and “lead” each individual by understanding them (each individual has different strengths and weaknesses).
I would like to suggest these 5 foundational but impactful things that hopefully can help you carry out an effective leadership process.
- Meet with each member of your department and discuss their strengths and weaknesses. Discuss what they can improve.
- Make a GAP Analysis – Look at the current status quo and also look at the targets that the organization will jump. Look at the GAP that individuals should implement.
- The leader needs to align individuals according to their strengths and also provide inspiration and take them out of their comfort zone, namely the existing zone.
- The leadership process begins when you need to take them out of their comfort zone to the uncomfortable zone, but your leadership needs to be implemented so they are happy and excited with hope in the new uncomfortable zone.
- This process needs to be adapted regularly and changes need to be made at all times. The leader’s task is as a radar or sensor always to improve the worker’s “inspiration meter.” For that, the leader needs to be inspired by himself and the current situation.”
