The Responsibilities of a Leader

As leaders, there are four primary tasks that we are expected to do and do them well, for the overall success of our team and the vision we are trying to realise.

Observe:

As leaders it is our responsibility to observe what is happening inside the organisation, within our team, with the people who we are leading.

It is our responsibility to observe what is happening at the periphery of our organisation, with our customers (internal or external).

And to observe what is happening within the industry that we operate in. It is also our responsibility to observe the intersections of the different industries that we might be participating in, so that we are aware of potential disruptions early.

And lastly to observe what is happening at the societal level. We can use all the different tools that are at our disposal for this. We can talk to our peers, attend industry conferences, read trend reports, engage with recent pass outs from college, etc.

Reflect & Decide:

Once we have made our observations, as leaders it is our responsibility to then reflect on what all of this means for us, our teams and the organisation that we are leading. We need to make sense of all that we observe.

Once we have made sense of what all of this means to the team, then we need to come up with a point of view about how we could respond to all this stimuli in a way that we are moving towards our goals as a team.

This sense making process can also be done collaboratively with our colleagues. We just need to be deliberate about whom to involve in what stage of sense making. Hearing diverse opinions about what the observations could mean to us as an organisation is definitely something that will help us in coming up with the PoV or a strategy to move forward.

Communicate:

Once we have made our decision about the PoV or the strategy and decided the next steps, it is super critical that we are able to communicate this with our teams with extreme clarity.

At this stage, if the strategy requires a step change in how people need to respond or work, it is important to explain the rationale and involve the team in the whole process. In such situations, it is best to share the?commander’s intent?and empower the teams on how they would like to achieve the intent.

As leaders, we should not fall under the trap that it is enough for us to have communicated our strategy or PoV once or in one format. In a diverse work force, there are people who are visual thinkers, some who prefer text, some who prefer interacting. So, we need to involve all the different senses (audio/video/text/interaction) to communicate this with our teams. And we need to consistently communicate the PoV on a regular basis so that this never leaves the zeitgeist.

Execute:

Once the strategy is decided and communicated, it is time for putting it into action. This part of our work requires us to identify and set up goals (leading and lagging) that will take us closer to our goals. This stage also requires us to put in place management systems that work like a compass and tells us when we need to course correct.

This is also the time when we start going back to the observation phase and see the impact of the work that we are doing and if there are any significant changes happening to our environment, which might warrant a response and the cycle continues.

In conclusion:

When talking about this, we might talk about each one of these as a distinct phase with clearly defined activities to be executed. However, in reality, all the four phases are always playing out at the same time. So, as leaders, it is our responsibility to find time on our calendars to do all the activities that each one of these phases require.

We can’t have any one phase ignored or take over all our time. We need to be deliberate about where we spend our time, focus and attention. As professionals, this is what we are expected to do. This is not easy and requires deliberate practice. It is just a matter of thinking of ourselves as professional athletes and behave like they do – be deliberate about every aspect of their life (diet, practice, mindset, learning new skills, etc), so that can bring their best to their playing field.

WE owe it to our teams and to our organisation to bring our “A” game, every day.

This post originally appeared on "Musings of a Salesman" and has been republished here with permission.

You can also find other posts that I have published in the past week here:

• Decision Making Frameworks – The Cynefin Framework
• Leading for Creativity and Innovation
• A System for Becoming Better Leaders
• Making Judgement calls
• Are you an Amateur Leader or a Pro?
• What Leaders need to know about giving Advice
• Lessons in Leadership with Ken Wilcox, Emeritus chairman of Silicon Valley Bank
• Three Modes of Communication – Where do you spend the most of your time as a leader?