The Leadership Framework

Leaders don’t manage every aspect of their organizations. They cannot and they should not. They do make sure they have established a framework that focuses on the four things that allow their teams to figure out how to execute and innovate. Those four elements are each vital to successful problem-solving:

1.      STRATEGY. From our analysis of our Current and Future States, what are our specific goals? What must we achieve? In the near- term? Over-time? In the long-term? The clearer and more specific the goal, the more likely it will be achieved.

2.      PROCESSES & STRUCTURE. Who must do what to achieve these goals? Who is accountable for each aspect of every goal? If accountability for goal achievement cannot be identified, the goal will not be achieved. It’s as simple as that. Are there new processes to connect teams and organizations that must be put in place to achieve a goal? Does work need to be restructured to reflect new realities and assigned accountabilities?

3.      METRICS. What should we measure? How should we track progress? Just as accountability must be determined to achieve goals, so progress must be measured. When we measure something, we convey that progress and achievement are important. We focus energy on that which we measure. What gets measured is what gets done.

4.      CULTURE. What kind of behavior is necessary to achieve our goals? Truth-telling? Teamwork? Data-driven decision-making? Innovation and creativity? Listening to di?erent perspectives? Thinking this “soft stu?” through is incredibly important. In a crisis, lots of things will go wrong, no matter how thoughtful the plan or careful the thinking. And even in “normal” times, we cannot predict the future and things will occur di?erently than we expected. Then, we must rely on people to problem-solve in real-time and to behave in ways that accelerate progress.

?To learn more, check out Carly's digital leadership course: Unlocking Your Potential