Actionable Leadership
By Mike Myatt, Chief Strategy Officer, N2growth
The path toward any accomplishment worthy of note begins with the first step. Understanding and implementing the concept of “actionable leadership” is a major key to success in becoming a great CEO. Much has been written about leadership theory, leadership concepts, leadership style, leadership dynamics, what leaders are, or are not, and a plethora of other leadership-centric content. However my question to you is this: What is leadership without action? Theory is fine for the classroom, but in the business world, theory without action is little more than useless rhetoric. Don’t tell me, show me…Don’t talk the talk, but walk the walk. In today’s post I’ll discuss the element that separates wannabe leaders from authentic leaders…Action.
Do you have great vision? Are you a master of strategy? Do you have boundless energy or mesmerizing charisma? While the aforementioned qualities are certainly admirable, they are only valuable if they influence or create action. Walt Disney, one of the greatest creative talents and true innovators of our time realized the value of action when he said: “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
A close examination of truly great leaders will reveal that, to the one, they all have a strong bias toward action. It was Andrew Grove the former Chairman and CEO of Intel and Time Magazine’s 1997 Man of the Year who said “You have to take action; you can’t hesitate or hedge your bets. Anything less will condemn your efforts to failure.” If you can’t take action, if you can’t make the tough decision, and if you can’t instill a bias toward action in your peers and subordinates, then you don’t belong in a leadership position.
A critical part of the talent management life-cycle is leadership development. If your mentoring and training programs don’t focus on the development of action oriented leaders then you are simply breeding obselesence, and utlimately…failure. When an organization stops learning they begin dying. It is more critical than ever in today’ economic climate that leadership development be a top priority for CEOs who want to build a thriving enterprise moving forward.
Remember that leadership is not a spectator sport. Great leaders will do anything to get off the bench and into the game. If your company has passive and/or timid leadership you will face serious problems in sustaining your competitive advantage. Furthermore, if your company isn’t leveraging action learning to develop leaders, fuel innovation, foster collaboration, and catalyze growth then you are missing a substantial opportunity. My message is a simple one…stop pondering and pontificating and take action.
Passive and timid is okay as long as it's action oriented. Bold and bombastic does not, in my opinion, mean leadership – we have so many of these aggressive people in power today and all they do is yak, yak, yak and fill their bank accounts. Why do we crave leadership nowadays? Because there is so little of it around! Everyone can be a leader and that's the real message we must start instilling in people – and they don't have to be a certain personality type either – I'm totally on the same page as you when you say, "My message is a simple one . . .stop pondering and pontificating and take action." If only someone in power could hear that!!!
While you make some valid points, I'm not sure I understand the link between timidity and passivity with being action oriented. A timid or passive person is by definition not action oriented. While I have experienced more casual approaches and more muted personalities in leadership roles, to the one, the successful ones are all still action oriented.
I also don't believe that all people who are action oriented are bombastic and mean. I do agree that different personality types can all succeed as leaders. That said, regardless of personality type, any leader must have a bias toward action to be successful. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.
Great Post, Mike!!
You NAILED this one! The one thing I would clarify is that there is a distinction between 'Motion' and 'Forward Momentum'. I know some very action-oriented leaders who think 'action for action sake' is the key. We both know that isn't necessarily a good thing. Action is definitely the pointy end of the leadership spear but 'Effective Action', in alignment with the other critical leadership tenants, is the the real change-agent.
Blessings
Mark
Completely agree Mark…Action always creates a certain amount of chaos…Action by design, that which is in alignment with the vision, mission, etc., creates a positive disruptive force. Action just for the sake of action creates negative disruption. Thanks for adding to the discussion Mark.
[...] as of late is to do more and talk less. Seth Godin calls it shipping, Mike Myatt calls it being an actionable leadership, and I will call it “mouthless [...]
I just wrote a similar post. I been pondering this idea for the last week. Would love to hear your thoughts.
http://hour9.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/your-idea-s...
Thanks for your words.
Hi Kevin:
I just read your post and left a comment on your blog. As you might imagine, I love actionable advice – Job well done! Thanks for stopping by Kevin.