Business Leadership Is At Question, Is It Not?

Geese Actually Rotate Leaders To Go Long Distances Successfully

Who is actually leading whom?  There is no leader.  There is no leader because their is no leadership.  Our business world is suffering from a serious lack of leadership.  The problem with our economy is leadership.  We are trying to blame the economy, but we lack leadership.  The lack for quality leadership is the root of the source for such a long disturbing level of wrong economics.  We are not being lead in the proper ways on the proper path doing proper things.  How tough can this vision be?  Pretty tough, I guess.  It ain't happening.

We live in a world that is not short on intelligence.  Unfortunately, none of that great resource has the courage to do the right things.  The world has become so consumed with the 'what about me' syndrome that our levels of intelligence have become nullified.  Leadership has all but disappeared.  Sacrifice and courage is absent.  In fact, it cannot be found in any corporate hallway.  The associate atmosphere of pure leadership is not manifested in the current hallways of the best companies with the most opportunity to lead our business world out of this terrible spiral it is slowly failing to manage.  Gang, we are growing deeper in trouble with trying to find some patterns of pure leadership.  The longer it stays away the more we become familiar with not having it.  When this kind of pattern takes over long enough, the more we begin to work on making sure we protect our own self.  The lack of leadership will continue to feed the selfish ways our business world is gradually heading.  Leadership is and has been in trouble.  So has our world economy.  It is following the levels of poor leadership quite nicely.  Gee, I wonder if there is a connection here?

Let's see.  Occupy patterns growing out of nowhere.  Cops in our own streets trying to figure out what to do with our own people who are growing stronger at become like a small country of enemies.  The enemy is beginning to surface from within.  That cannot be a good thing, people.  Do our leaders understand what this kind of pattern means?  Heck no!  They are blind to these patterns.  Business world!  These are your customers out there!  They are expressing how unhappy they are becoming.  Get a grip on why they are dissatisfied.  Wake up.  Get closer to why the consumer is beginning to build a disgruntled army of objectionable behavior.  Wake up.  Quit rolling this pattern off the backs of your weak leadership ways.  Our economy is on fire if you evaluate its core principles for profitable recovery.  That is not one of the great secrets we are facing.  It only happens to be one of the great secrets we are ignoring.  Leaders of the business world, where the Hell are you?  Get up out of your chairs and start doing what you are not doing.  Lead this country out of this horrible pattern of wrong doings.  Let's get going.  Let's start using good principles and begin drawing some clear lines on what needs to be done.  Where is your courage?

When movements of disgust begin at the bottom of the pile, we usually ignore the noise.  The best sound usually works from the top of the pile.  Leadership does not usually work well when it comes from the bottom ranks.  Leadership works best when it is driven from the top of the pile.  However, if that leadership at the top becomes too familiar with pure selfish ways and continues to arrange its own protection with terrible favoritism patterns that are obviously offensive...the bottom of the pile will begin to build a small head of steam and eventually a leader from that group will surface.  Once that revolutionary leader becomes identified, all Hell will break loose.  If that new leader has the proper skills enough to manage bringing everyone who feels dissatisfied together that new leader from the basement will easily gather a good head of steam for support.  A simple occupy movement will easily transform into something larger and more effective, a revolution, that nobody wants to see happen.  All energy will be devoted to trying to avoid this pain that a revolution brings.  Unfortunately, if the leadership at the top does not clean up its act during this kind of pressure, the bottom will quit listening in and begin to examine what the leader at the bottom is doing and as that leader builds a stronger set of skillful leadership success, the winds of the public will shift out of control.  The big's will sit back to watch how the little's will grow together.  Little's become big when they learn how to organize their effort.  This is when occupy becomes a serious concern.  We better thank our lucky stars they are not organized, yet.

The consumer is not happy.  The consumer is trying to find a better way to live.  The consumer has a lot of communication power.  The consumer has a lot of irresponsible selfishness developing within that communication ability.  The leaders of business models that truly understand this pattern of life are the ones who are winning at the cash register.  Those leaders get it.  They are absent in the political world but present in the consumer world.  The occupy movement does not seem to have a clear objective except that they do not enjoy being on the wrong end of the economy experienced by the "have not's."  If enough business leaders do not 'get it' on this one, eventually the consumer will become the largest voting block that is completely dissatisfied.  It will no longer be about party lines, political support will solely be determined about money and money alone.  The business leader will eventually be the one who determines the level of satisfaction the consumer experiences.  They will also be the ones the consumer attacks!  Is this beginning to sound familiar?  Wake up business leaders.  Occupy is not sitting at city hall.  They are sitting on the doorsteps of businesses and the place where the money goes, banks and Wall Street.  Unfortunately, you business leaders need to start heading towards the political tables and get better organized.  Right now you are getting your butt's kicked and the consumer has your future placed smack dab in their cross hairs of sight.  The lawyers and politicians are busy deciding your fate.  Where the heck are you?  Wake up before it becomes too late.  Your consumer is on fire and they are beginning the movement to yell at your doorsteps.  Do not ignore them.  Better yet, do not permit your politicians to decide how you will deal with their dissatisfaction.  Get out of your chairs and get to their tables of discussion.

Business leadership is at question, is it not?

Even Geese Know The Value Of Leadership Respect

When my daughter is playing down the hall in her bedroom and I holler to her to ask her a question, if she does not answer me does that mean she is not there?  She is still there, isn't she?!  She is.  Just because she does not answer does not mean she is not there.  We get caught up with this kind of wrong rationalizations.  We think because we are not at the table of leadership in our political machine that our concerns for our business future are well at hand.  Unfortunately, that is not true.  My daughter is still in that room.  The political winds are not protecting my business future.  The two are exactly the same.  They are true.  Only my mind develops the wrong perspectives.  The truth is otherwise.

Small business leaders are in very serious trouble.  They are not at the table where the real decisions are being made.  Their presence is not even being considered as one of those that needs to be joining in on the future developments of where consumer money goes.  The small business world is not finding its presence in representation during these times of difficult policy making.  The small business voice is absent.  Shame on you.  I guess you will need to live with what they decide.  If that is fine with you, why should I care?

I once co-chaired a small business movement in my little town in the early 80's.  It was a sanctioned program for re-development efforts in our little downtown core area.  I shared the leadership of that effort with another local businessman.  We gave that effort two solid years of re-development energy.  The most resistance we faced came from within the core business district.  The dog that was caught in the bear trap complained the most about how we were going to release the clutch of their trap.  The onlookers, the consumers, were the most supportive.  Go figure.  My co-chairman, Jim, and I talked a good deal behind the scenes about this phenomenon.  We tried to understand why the leaders of those businesses felt so compelled to destroy the work that would have become great methods for increasing their potential for future success.  The community, via an approved small taxing district, was willing to foot the lions share of the cost.  The business district fought so strongly against itself that they eventually lost the project support and thereby nullifying the funding criteria for continued support.  The project failed.

Jim has moved on to conduct his business development in another thriving community.  He has built a nice set of successful business models in that other region.  I, too, have moved on.  Once in a long while we see each other and our conversation rolls back in time.  We laugh at how badly those business owners shot themselves in the foot when the cards were beginning to turn up well in their favor.  Many of those stubborn owners no longer own business models to this day.  In fact, Jim and I tried to examine where those previous business owners are today and after some discussion we discovered that none of them are present owners of any business models.  All of our previous objectors are gone from the world of business ownership.  They either failed or quit playing the game of business.  Go figure.

What kind of business leadership are we looking for?  The consumer is looking for someone who leads with consistency.  They want to know what they can count on.  They want to be able to trust what they see and what they know.  Consistency provides that opportunity.  The consumer wants to be a part of some organizational effectiveness.  Wishy, washy organizations get lost in the desire for customers to be able to understand what they can expect.  Leaders get this down properly.  Get consistent.  It is one of the traits for success.

The consumer is also looking for stability.  A business that does not look stable is one of the places consumers avoid.  If the model appears weak, unprofitable, uneasy in its presentations and disorganized the consumer will tend to avoid participating in what this business model offers.  Stability is a must.  The consumer gets that kind of stable feeling from the employee atmosphere, the facility appearance and the overall product timeliness and availability.  Weaknesses in these areas will quietly chase the consumer away.  The leader is the one who provides these components to the business mix.  If the staff is disorganized, its leader is also.  The staff reflects the leaders skills.  An unhappy crew will drive customers away.  It will have nothing to do with the economy or lower prices on good products.  Consumers can smell instability.  It stinks enough to drive them away.

Above all, consumers want to witness integrity.  They do not want to participate in providing fodder and money to those who cross the lines of wrong doings.  Consumers actually have this one down very well.  Consumers like to support good causes, good leaders, healthy and happy employees.  Consumers want to know that their money goes to good use.  Consumers do not object to helping out a good cause.  That is why benevolence is such a strong movement in the business world of marketing, today.  Consumers actually care.  They want to know that integrity is present.  They will support that effort with their trade.  They will avoid it if they see it going wrong.  If consumers witness the loss of integrity in an organization, they have no problem jumping ship to a competitor.  They may never return.  They want integrity.

Consistency, stability and integrity better be on your leadership list.  Consumers honor well these three things.  I suggest that every small business owner get right on these three subjects and find a way to begin holding hands together.  Develop the art for organizing better fundamentals and take those proper efforts as small business leaders to help each of you to find a few strong ones to represent your cause.  Begin to build your army.  You need to get to the table of political decisions with some active, effective and serious force.  Quit taking all of this wrong leadership with your hands down.  You are getting your butts kicked.  Get out of your weak leadership chairs and do something about how badly you are getting kicked around.  Wake up and do something.  Get involved.  Your healthy future is at stake.  I know you are already feeling this pinch.

Get right with yourself, get right with your business model and start sharing how others should do the same.

I challenge each of you to do something stronger today!

Until next time...