— To follow is a bullet of wisdom on leadership. It comes from Tom’s rifle, named Shot, who has seen it all. You’ll get the drift by clicking Blog in the menu at www.tomnewhouse.com. —
THERE IS A SAYING: If you polish over here, it shines over there. I get it. Often when my marksman, Rudy, addressed one aspect of our shooting, I got better at another aspect. That’s good. Now I have to admit that there were times when he addressed one aspect, and things went awry elsewhere. That’s bad.
A dilemma, you say. Not really. Let’s sort it out. First, the bad: When leaders implement some action, you can be sure that there will be non-anticipated effects which may be disruptive. An example is downsizing regular employees to save costs, and then having top talent voluntarily leave because they came to fear business failure. Now, when it comes to improving leadership behavior, the unintended consequences are usually good. Say a leader starts to delegate more effectively. Then strategic emphasis may get better, as well as collaboration and team morale. Fancy that. Here’s the point: Work on being a better leader even if it’s just one competency. Improvement there will likely lead to positivity (shine) elsewhere too.