HOW LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT STYLE MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

“I want less than one thousand deaths daily due to Covid-19”. That was ordered by Brazil’s President to his Health Minister.

Reading this information, I remembered that I have lived this kind of situation more than once in work, and I am sure many professionals have experienced the same. To receive a mission of outcome a number, without any process or criteria of evaluation data. Then, you have to build something, without foundation, to show the desired result.

Unfortunately, I have seen a lot of companies using this practice. Mainly in multinationals, where the headquarters receive reports from boards in other countries. They make any magic for hiding problems from headquarters while complaining about being micromanaged when are asked for cross information about numbers, action plans, strategy, and results. The lack of transparency almost always hides a huge problem that could affect the careers of executives. When the going gets though, the problem arises, but usually is late for any recovery action. The only thing they can do is to find someone to be responsible for the problem and punish the bad guy.

Does It sound familiar? How could this scenario be changed? 

1o - BEING A LEADER AND MANAGER

Although themes like exponential leaders, emotional intelligence, teamwork, and others are essentials for leaders, in most of the companies these statements of mission and values serve just to decorate the walls. They are not practiced nor required.

When you have a leader, he actively listens to people and peers and discuss what they need to consider for building an indicator and for what actions this indicator is important to reach results. Once it is built together the chances of success are enlarged.

2o - CHOOSING THE BEST TOOLS TO IMPLEMENT THE ACTIONS

There are many good strategic tools, choose what fits well to you for building your plan. But what is the value of having tools if you do not apply? Some of them are:

SWOT ANALYSIS – To map what you have, what you need to improve, and which risks and opportunities can be considered.

5W2H – Where, When, What, Why, Who, How, How much. Powerful questions to show ways to go from where you are and what you want to accomplish.

OKR – Objective Key Results – Once defined the objective which is the key results to consider and when.

SCRUM – Considering the objective as a project and adopt the agile methodology to reach the target

KPI – After actions done, measure the achievements. What is important to measure and why?

It is important that the method and process selected is kept, the data should be trustful and trackable, allowing actions to be managed. If there is changes in measurement during the process, the historic of numbers is ruined.

3o - SELECT THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS THAT FULFILL YOUR REQUIREMENTS

To make decisions and to measure, you need data, from what sources it will come? What do you already have and what you need to build for your task? Without automation, there is no transparency of information. Systems needs an engaged team, who adds value to work, to make plans happen.

In this case, the objective is to reduce the number of mortality due to Covid-19 and the key results, could be the number of hospitalized patients with symptoms, tested positive people, asymptomatic people or whatever was defined and agreed.

The three fundamentals pillars to succeed are people, process, and system. A lack of any pillars led to an imbalanced execution and enhance chances of failure.

Although each person is unique, some behaviors and skills are commonly found in people whose styles of leadership and management can achieve good results.