Leadership may be defined as the process of meeting and exceeding defined performance expectations through the aligned efforts of followers. Performance expectations are defined from the context a leader is positioned in. This could be a result of choice or circumstance. When confronted with challenging business conditions such as a recession, effective leaders reevaluate, redefine, reorganize and renew the areas that they are responsible for, to deliver results expected by key stakeholder.
Leaders need to manage the 5Cs of - providing Clarity, building Commitment & Confidence, displaying Control and managing Change. These 5Cs form a useful and simple to implement framework for improved leadership effectiveness.
Clarity - requires leaders to reassess strategies, objectives, business priorities and investments to ensure the organization is prepared to weather the challenges ahead. Fancy talk about long term strategy needs to give way to address immediate challenges confronting the organization. Clarity needs to be established among leaders on how current actions designed to deal with challenging times will not cut into the core competencies of the organization. Clear choices would need to be made to allocate required resources even in tough times at the expense of other activities to adequately strengthen the core in preparation for the upswing.
Commitment & Confidence - requires leaders to effectively communicate the challenges, key issues and priorities that the organization is confronting and needs to overcome. Specific actions addressing how the organization will deal with difficulties, roles and behaviours required from all levels of employees need to be defined. Communication and management actions need to be planned and implemented to drive teamwork, commitment and confidence within the workforce that the organization knows what it is doing and not getting into a tail spin of random knee-jerk reactions.
Control - requires leaders to identify key levers, tighten controls, implement effective monitoring systems that provide relevant information for timely decisions making. Controls need to focus on life sustaining systems of an organization, namely Cash-flow. Typical areas of focus include capital investments, revenue generation, debtor collection, inventory levels, payments and headcounts.
Change - leading through difficult business situations require organizations to change gears or in some cases to change routes. This may be a challenge especially when people have got used to a certain approach to business. The workforce may not be mentally and operationally equipped to make the required change. Effective management of change requires organizational development actions that focus on training, realigning structures, performance management initiatives and incentives to create focus on the new game plan.
The 5Cs provide a simple but practical approach that leaders can use to evaluate, plan and manage through difficult business situations. Ultimately a leader during difficult times needs to be a point of stability that followers can look to and trust.
Leaders need to manage the 5Cs of - providing Clarity, building Commitment & Confidence, displaying Control and managing Change. These 5Cs form a useful and simple to implement framework for improved leadership effectiveness.
Clarity - requires leaders to reassess strategies, objectives, business priorities and investments to ensure the organization is prepared to weather the challenges ahead. Fancy talk about long term strategy needs to give way to address immediate challenges confronting the organization. Clarity needs to be established among leaders on how current actions designed to deal with challenging times will not cut into the core competencies of the organization. Clear choices would need to be made to allocate required resources even in tough times at the expense of other activities to adequately strengthen the core in preparation for the upswing.
Commitment & Confidence - requires leaders to effectively communicate the challenges, key issues and priorities that the organization is confronting and needs to overcome. Specific actions addressing how the organization will deal with difficulties, roles and behaviours required from all levels of employees need to be defined. Communication and management actions need to be planned and implemented to drive teamwork, commitment and confidence within the workforce that the organization knows what it is doing and not getting into a tail spin of random knee-jerk reactions.
Control - requires leaders to identify key levers, tighten controls, implement effective monitoring systems that provide relevant information for timely decisions making. Controls need to focus on life sustaining systems of an organization, namely Cash-flow. Typical areas of focus include capital investments, revenue generation, debtor collection, inventory levels, payments and headcounts.
Change - leading through difficult business situations require organizations to change gears or in some cases to change routes. This may be a challenge especially when people have got used to a certain approach to business. The workforce may not be mentally and operationally equipped to make the required change. Effective management of change requires organizational development actions that focus on training, realigning structures, performance management initiatives and incentives to create focus on the new game plan.
The 5Cs provide a simple but practical approach that leaders can use to evaluate, plan and manage through difficult business situations. Ultimately a leader during difficult times needs to be a point of stability that followers can look to and trust.
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