So you want to be a better leader. At leading what? where? when? and why? These are the questions I started asking clients when I established the People Development Co. nine years ago. I quickly realised that in order to develop leaders and managers they needed a roadmap defining why they were in business (Purpose), where they were going (Vision), what principles would guide them (Values), etc. essentially a strategic roadmap. This roadmap would be a reference for the business but also for me and my client for their leadership development.

My approach with SMEs is to develop the leadership and management culture through the execution of the business strategy. The win win here is that the business gets the focus it needs and the management team are consciously developing their capability in the process. The end goal for me is for the business to prosper and for the people to develop the capability to continue developing the business without support from people like me.

Consider the following example: George is struggling in his business. It seems to have outgrown him. It’s not the business he started five years ago where he was in control of everything. Now he has a management team of five. Good people, but. His sales & marketing manager (Mark) doesn’t give the attention to detail that George did when he looked after sales. The financial controller (Mary) doesn’t have the commercial acumen George needs to support him on critical commercial decisions. “She doesn’t seem to show much interest in developing this skill either” according to George, “I just can’t understand it” he says.

And so the story goes on, we could tell similar tales about Una who manages operations and Derek and Gavin who manage procurement and design respectively.

So what’s the problem George? “well there are many problems, we don’t sing off the same song sheet for one, communication within the team and the wider business is bad, teamwork is poor to say the least, AND, the business is facing serious challenges that I don’t think some of the team appreciate the severity of”. “And what’s more, I’m stressed to the nines”.

-> -> Fast forward eight weeks -> ->

George decides to book himself and his family a weekend away in a really nice hotel in Galway on the west coast of Ireland! “George, we can’t afford this” says his wife Beatrice. “Yes we can” says George. “The team and I have worked really well over the past two months. We’ve learnt more about our business over the past two months than we have in the past three years.

We’ve now have a really clear purpose; we know why we need to continue to work so hard, we are aligned on the vision for the next three years. We have a really exciting strategy to get there that will leave the competition in awe. We’ve all agreed a set of values that will align our behaviours and way of doing things. Plus, we have a set of clear tangible goals that can be measured so that we know what progress we’ll be making. It’s also clear who is responsible and accountable for what. My business coach calls this CLARITY for the business. I now also have CLARITY for my leadership as I know what I need to do and be as leader to make all this happen. The team also has clarity both individually (like me) but also as a team in terms of what we need to do and be in order to make this plan a reality”. “Beatrice, for the first time in a long time I have peace of mind going away for a weekend with you and the kids knowing that I’m on top of my business and not the other way around”.

As you can see George sounds upbeat. He hadn’t been away with the family like this for three years since he celebrated winning a major contract with a global customer. The sad reality is that he only realised a fraction of the value he could have with that customer, mainly because he and his team didn’t have the type of CLARITY described above.

These days we are all facing a lot of noise, there is so much information coming at us, a lot of complexity. We need CLARITY for ourselves as business owners/leaders, for our business and for our teams that are managing the business.

This is what I do. Help develop CLARITY for YOU, Your Business and Your Team. Call me to discuss how I can help you get peace of mind knowing you’re on top of your business….

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