Success During Recessionary Times --- It Begins and Ends With Leadership

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Author: Rick Johnson

Article source: http://www.ircg.com/. Used with author's permission.

People who get results are high impact leaders. They are consistent, explicit and concise and they command a presence when they walk into a room. They have enough charisma to turn the dullest moment into a high-energy event. When they move on, others want to go with them. They have a following. Their openness and honesty create a legacy which people admire and look up to. They gain commitment and foster trust.

Creating change, managing during turbulent times, or fostering growth in a recession all depends on a balance of this type of leadership. No one person can make a company successful. It takes a lot of people, but one person with a command of leadership can transfer enough influence, creating enough leadership amongst the management group to guarantee success.

Most of us are not born leaders. We are not adept at communication. However, a good percentage of us long to become leaders and make deep connections in our careers that lead to commitment - a commitment to success. To achieve our objectives we must understand the basic principles of leadership:

• Honesty

• Respect

• Trustworthiness

Sincere concern of others

• Willingness to take calculated risk

• Becoming a Maverick

Once we have learned and practiced these principles we must learn to leverage our leadership skills to develop the management team around us.

The true test of a successful leader is that he leaves behind the conviction, he leaves behind the will, and he leaves behind the understanding to carry on.

Leaders must make emotional connections with the management team that surrounds them. They must encourage these managers to open up, share dialogue and reveal dreams. They must teach and mentor. Leveraging their leadership entails advancing their personal agenda by advancing the agenda of their management team. A good leader is not intimidated by the success of others. They encourage others to succeed and help them fulfill their wants and needs.

Leveraging leadership helps determine the hidden factors in communication. Understanding inferences and assertions becomes a key component to understanding people. Leaders have high questioning and interpretation skills that allow them to drill down to real facts and issues.

Leveraging their leadership allows successful leaders to establish emotional connections, thereby diminishing fear and intimidation. This encourages enthusiasm and cooperation.

Successful leaders take the time to listen, imagine and investigate numerous alternatives. With the involvement of people, they forge creative solutions to difficult problems. They meet the challenges imposed by recessionary times. They challenge their people to stretch, go beyond their previous boundaries and think outside the box. Successful leaders feed off their people and allow their people to feed off of them. They give credit where credit is due. They give recognition as a means of gaining respect. Through these methods they learn to create new insights and possibilities.

Successful leadership means creating a sense of urgency and getting mutual commitment to action. Action steps are always clearly defined and precise. Often, due to the personification of the leader's own personality and charisma, employees are eager to leap into action - without forethought. High impact leaders communicate with encouraging clarity to command "buy-in" from every person involved to the commitments made.

Leading Through a Recession

The successful leader is constantly building advantages into the organizations at a much greater rate while they are eliminating disadvantages. The belief is that you not only have to be better than your competition but you must differentiate yourself. This means taking advantage of opportunity presented by the economic downturn itself. This concept demands creativity and innovation. However, this creativity and innovation must be built into the economic contingency plan. It must be distinctive and yet it must be manageable and predictable. This could involve anything from new technologies to market segmentation to development of new channels to taking advantage of the competition's weaknesses that may be accelerated due to the declining economy. It is all about improvement and finding newer and better ways of doing things. It involves cross-activity integration of processes and people. Activities must be linked across the entire value chain. Understanding the concept is critical to leadership success.

The primary focus of most organizations facing recessionary times is improved cash flow. Everyone has heard the cliché, "cash is king." In a down economy, that becomes the most dominant issue about which leadership must be concerned. However, we must not ignore the fact that contingency planning cannot succeed in any organization without the revitalization of its people. And, revitalization of the people requires high impact leadership.

If your organization finds itself in a financial crisis due to the economic decline, then survival planning becomes essential. This requires rapid analysis, quick decisions and immediate actions. This is undertaken with a deep sense of urgency. It creates a tidal wave of shock to the culture of the organization. Once this shock subsides, strong, high impact leadership must be present to set a course, structure an environment, and develop a team that can drive the organization back to success and profitability.

High impact leadership must be present during each phase of the turn-around process. Assessment, the first stage, is critical since leadership must not only capture a broad overview of the company to identify all potential problem areas for further analysis, but evaluation of management competency is a critical factor. Often times, the reasons a company finds itself in financial distress can be traced directly back to the executive staff and past management practices. This becomes the platform for discovery of "The Real Deal."

There may be ownership issues. One or more of the executive staff may be at the core of the problem. This needs to be determined quickly and resolved with minimal emotion and maximum concern for the corporation's survival.

One person can't turn a company around. Revising the organization chart doesn't turn a company around. Short-term plans, strategic initiatives and restructuring don't turn a company around. One person cannot deal with recessionary economics alone. One person cannot create growth. One person cannot create profit alone. People are not profit, but without people, teamwork and effective leadership, there are no profits. People create success during recessionary times - People who believe, people who are committed, people who care and people with values. You will find people with these traits in an organization that demonstrates high impact Executive Leadership. The kind of leadership that inspires people to get on board, be creative and innovative. The kind of leadership that creates an atmosphere of togetherness that perpetuates an aggressive approach to achieving common objectives.

Rick received an MBA from Keller Graduate School in Chicago, Illinois and a Bachelor's degree in Operations Management from Capital University, Columbus Ohio. Rick recently completed his dissertation on Strategic Leadership and received his Ph.D. He's also a published book author with four titles to his credit: "The Toolkit for Improved Business Performance in Wholesale Distribution," the NWFA & NAFCD "Roadmap", Lone Wolf-Lead Wolf—The Evolution of Sales" and a fiction novel - "Shattered Innocence." Rick's next book due to be published in November is titled; Lone Wolf - Lead Wolf, The Evolution of Leadership.

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