Friday, April 20, 2012

A Leadership Flatline


What would you want a doctor to do if this is what was showing on your monitor at the hospital?
  
Would you want the doctor to keep continuing what they were doing despite the results?

Would you want the doctors to spend their time diagnosing how the flatline was really the patient's fault?

Would you want the doctor to put together a long range plan to begin to get a pulse?

OR

Would you want the doctors to change their current method because of the data on the monitor?

Would you want the doctors to hold themselves personally accountable for changing the results on the monitor?


These questions may sound absurd considering that we are talking about a life or death situation.  You would never want the doctor to behave according to the first set of questions.  

The most effective leaders would not exhibit these behaviors either.  Replace doctor(s) with leader(s) in each of the questions above.   The data would be around the goals of the organization that the leader is in charge of.  How many leaders have you seen behaving according to the first set of questions?  Many organizations are exhibiting flat lines and yet the leader continues to act in the same manner that brought on the failure.

Leaders must lead differently to spike a flat line in data.  How can you as a leader begin to bring your organization back to life?

You may need to grab the paddles...countdown and CLEAR your leadership practices.