If it were only that simple. Or is it?
If you look at any organizational outcome and ask why enough times, the leadership will ultimately surface as a root cause or very close to it. If you find yourself scoffing right now, you’re in denial. After all, if the outcomes are good, who gets the credit?
Organizations mirror their leader. That’s as close to an absolute in business as you can get.
In large organizations strapped with archaic leadership processes, the leadership turnover rate at the top is often multiples of the speed of the leadership communication through the organization (N.B. communication). These organizations are easy to spot. Indecision, uncertainty, and organizational schizophrenia are the primary indicators – turnover of national pool employees is a good metric. The leadership mirror in these cases is generating a strobe effect. The good news is that the converse is true.
In small organizations, the mirror is so close that the organization takes on the persona of the leader’s mood that day. “If Mama isn’t happy, ain’t nobody going to be happy!” What’s true at home is true away from home.
So if you accept that leadership is the root of organizational outcomes, and you accept that organizations mirror their leader, than what an organization is and is able to accomplish is a direct outcome of the expansiveness (or lack of it) of its leadership. As leadership thinking and functioning capability is stifled or stagnant around the five strategic aspects of any organization, so goes the business. As that same thinking and functioning capability expands and grows, so goes the business.
It’s that simple. Or is it?
