RESOURCES
Building The Leadership Ecosystem
Introduction
Leaders can only be as effective as their environment allows them to be.
I describe that environment as the Leadership Ecosystem made up of:
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The quality of the leadership team.
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The effectiveness of the leadership processes (the organisational rhythm).
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The appropriateness of the culture given the vision of the business.
Most leaders inherit their ecosystem, even start-ups are constrained by their resources. Therefore, the leader needs to first understand what they have and then begin to evolve a picture of what great would look like in their context. What’s needed for an early stage start up, is very different than a multi-product, multi-geography established business. Evolving from where you are to where you want to be is a continuing leadership challenge.
In my experience this is an area which is generally underinvested in. Most new leaders will prioritise the ecosystem in the first year and then often begin to lose energy. I think this is because it’s hard and the timescales are years, rather than months.
It reminds me of moving house – in the first year, I am typically very enthusiastic about doing modifications, decorating and sorting boxes but after 12 months I begin to lose energy. The changes needed are not so obvious, I’ve learnt to live with the boxes stacked at the back of my office, it’s not obvious the garden walls are not freshly painted and builders are less interested in doing a number of small unrelated jobs. At home it may not matter, as I have other things to do with my life, however as a leader, optimising the ecosystem impacts directly on the long-term performance of the leaders and therefore ultimately the value created.
That means the leader needs to continually focus on:
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