Leadership : Keeping the focus on the bigger picture

In a challenging business environment senior executives often program themselves to go into survival mode by focusing on operational minutiae. Tackling the immediate challenge is always pragmatic, but worthy leaders never lose sight of the bigger picture. A universal paradox of leadership is balancing the competing strains that pull apart our available resources, time, money and people. It forces us to prioritize and focus on immediate execution, but that shouldn’t be at the expense of losing sight of the overarching goal. Here are a few reasons why leaders should not lose sight of the bigger picture:

#1: Bad times don’t last

The good news is that nothing lasts forever, the bad news is that nothing lasts forever. Markets and economies go through cycles, in varying degrees. At an impressionable age, I lived out the Asian financial crisis as an expat in the late 1990’s convinced that an economic Armageddon was playing itself out. Since then, like most folks here, I’ve been through one boom to bust, to another boom. The point is that there will also come a time when the economic environment improves. When it does, as a leader you don’t want to be caught on the wrong foot and be in a position from where it’s too late to get back into the game.

# 2: Staying relevant is key

Unless you’re in the business of manufacturing floppy discs or providing an equivalent antediluvian service, managed well, chances are that your business can and will be able stand on its legs and ready to run when needed. With a proliferation of on-demand business models, disruptive technologies and fickle customer loyalties, it’s getting harder staying relevant in the market place. Your organization was set up to serve a purpose and as long as you don’t lose sight of that and continue to build capabilities around this purpose (staying relevant) you have a good shot at success. Dubai epitomizes this principle. Under the leadership of H.H. Sheikh Mohamed Maktoum the landscape has morphed from shifting sand dunes into a bustling Aerotropolis; fast becoming the cynosure for modernity and innovation. Dubai stays relevant.

# 3: People in markets have short memories

To quote Steve Carell (Big Short) “I have a feeling, in a few years people are going to be doing what they always do when the economy tanks…”

You could be focusing all of your energies to dig yourself out of the hole, but as a leader you also need to keep asking yourself what do you’re going to do when you’re out of the hole? People will quickly forget how bad it was. When the economy improves, it’s bound to throw up new opportunities (& threats). As a leader if you’re not positioned to seize the opportunities (or if you get blindsided by the threats) it’s you who will be to blame and likely also end up as a marked man for the businesses stakeholders. As a leader one is expected to captain the ship through the storm, but one is also mandated to keeping the ship seaworthy & sailing after the storm has passed.

# 4: What gets measured, gets managed.

This axiom becomes all-consuming especially in depressed market conditions. Financial measures, departmental KPI’s, productivity metrics and daily dashboards, start taking up our energies and planning for the future starts to take a back seat.

My day of reckoning came while delivering a seemingly great news presentation to a Board of Directors in Canada. We had successfully executed a herculean divisional turnaround, but our smiles only lasted till the Group’s CFO asked me what the next 5 years looked like for this business? There was no ambivalence in the message – thanks for managing the return to profitability but you’re also accountable for shaping the future profitability & growth agenda. In an era when discontinuity is perhaps the only constant, it is imperative for leaders to pair operational management with big picture aspirations for the future.

# 5: Wait and watch

It’s not uncommon for managers to wait and watch their way out of situations when the outcome is less than predictable. Leaders on the other hand are demonstrably more decisive and base their decisions on information, gut, experience or a combination thereof. Even bad decisions throw up benefits (versus no decisions) with lessons learnt and allowing for course correction to facilitate powering ahead. Leaders need to rise to the challenge and use the situations/opportunities that present themselves. To borrow the proverb from Sun Tzu “opportunities multiply as they are seized”. It’s been said that 'There are three types of people in this world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened”. Go ahead, choose.

The nugget – when times are tough it is tempting to get consumed with the tactics and lose focus of the bigger picture. Good leaders invest the time in conceptualizing the big picture and then toil through the operational rigor, without losing their focus of the bigger picture.

Vikram Joshi https://ae.linkedin.com/in/vikram-joshi-94307b6