Turnaround Leadership

“In order to be a leader a man must have followers. And to have followers he must have their confidence.” Dwight D Eisenhower   

Simple yet profound, Eisenhower could almost be said to have been stating the obvious. If that were the case, however, his words would certainly not appear in compilations of great quotations!

Either way his words have massive implications for modern business leaders. Surveys that indicate employee engagement is running at less than 30% would suggest business leaders don’t really have followers, which, by implication, calls into question their business leadership and their right to be leaders.

Yet surely our business leaders cannot all be that bad and need replacing? The very scale of the problem seems to suggest a possibly deeper malaise and that it may be the method of creating and developing business leaders that is flawed.

So, if the essence of the problem is not solely the personal shortcomings of the leaders but the training they are provided and the tools they have at their disposal, there is a need to change those. But how? If the problem is not recognised it is virtually impossible to rectify.

Inevitably, it has to start with the leaders, who have to face up to and recognise this challenge. This will only happen once they have realised that the lack of any following makes all their own endeavours largely futile. Then they will inevitably change the way they view their followers and the process will begin.

It could, however, be accelerated. The Zealise proposition, to value and notionally account for people as assets, is the most obvious catalyst to engender the requisite change in approach. It also has the additional advantage of being the easiest to implement and in a way that will embed the new thinking and sustain the behavioural changes requisite to ensure a happy work force and a superior customer experience that will build all round greater loyalty and engagement.