Three Leadership Locks and How to Overcome Them

Craig Ross

Three Leadership Locks and How to Overcome Them

Every business leader is looking for the breakthrough solution or secret strategy that will launch their organization to the top. But what these people sometimes fail to realize is that the greatest innovation can be the leadership they display.

The most crucial strategy a business can enact is the one that determines how people lead others and themselves. How do you know if you’re doing it wrong? Here’s an easy test: when something goes wrong with an employee or a project, go “upstream” and see what you could have done differently. This is how you can identify Leadership Locks – the gap between what is being achieved and what is possible.

There are several common Leadership Locks that we, as CEOs, face. The ability to unlock these challenges makes it possible to release untapped potential and achieve better results.

The key is to look at the problem or pain point you are experiencing, and then identify the root cause to inform the changes and adjustments you need to make. Here are three examples:

  1. Leadership Lock: “We are falling behind the pace in our industry.”
    How to unlock it: This frequently occurring obstacle has a simple solution – execute and do what your organization says it’s going to do.
  2. Leadership Lock: “It seems like I have to do everything.”
    How to unlock it: The issue here is delegation. You need to delegate more effectively and drive cleaner execution of the work being done.
  3. Leadership Lock: “Things seem to take twice as long as projected, and the rework is killing us.”
    How to unlock it: In these cases, it’s likely that not everyone is on the same page. As a leader, you need to get everyone engaged and onboard with the direction of a project.

As you can see from these common pitfalls, unlocking leadership is very important. If you have just one person operating at a “ho-hum” level, regardless of their position, it will undoubtedly affect countless others in your organization. When you take it upon yourself to break Leadership Locks, it aligns people and purpose, and positive change begins to happen.

For more on Leadership Locks, check out the book Stomp The Elephant In The Office