What´s the difference between a GOOD leader and a GREAT leader? How can you become a GREAT one?
According to Jim Collins "Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice and discipline."
Here's a list the top 10 to-do's for leaders from Jim Collins:
1. Build a personal board of directors – those are selected not for their accomplishments but for their character.
2. Take time to think - turn off your electronic gadgets. Begin the discipline to put white space in your calendar....engage in the glorious pocket of quietude.
3. Work on your three circles - The Hedgehog Concept: A) What you are deeply passionate about, B) What you can be the best in the world at, and C) What best drives your economic or resource engine.
4. First define, who and then what - great leaders make sure they have the right people on the bus and the right people in the key seats before they figure out where to drive the bus.
5. Fire bullets, then cannonballs: First, you fire bullets (low-cost, low-risk, low-distraction experiments) to figure out what will work—calibrating your line of sight by taking small shots. Then, once you have empirical validation, you fire a cannonball (concentrating resources into a big bet) on the calibrated line of sight.
6. Start your 'stop-doing' list. If you woke tomorrow morning and discovered you inherited $20 million, and had discovered you also had terminal disease with 5 years to live, what would be on your stop-doing list?
7. Preserve the core and stimulate the progress- keep clear the difference between your organisation´s core values (which never change), and operating strategies and cultural practices (which endlessly adapt to a changing world).
8. Build a culture of discipline: where people do not have jobs; they have responsibilities. When you blend a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship (freedom within a framework), you get a magical alchemy resulting in superior performance.
9. Be the 'Genius of the AND' - builders of greatness reject the 'Tyranny of the OR' and embrace the 'Genius of the AND' - they embrace both extremes across a number of dimensions at the same time — purpose ANDprofit, continuity AND change, freedom AND responsibility, discipline AND creativity, humility AND will, empirical analysis AND decisive action, etc
10. Obsessively ask “what if?” - By preparing ahead of time, building reserves, preserving a margin of safety, bounding risk, and honing their disciplines in good times and bad, they handle disruptions from a position of strength and flexibility.
Jim Collins is a student and teacher of leadership and what makes great companies tick. Having invested a quarter century of research into the topic, he has authored and co-authored 6 books that have sold in total more than ten million copies worldwide. Read more here.
Don’t miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to hear Jim’s keynote at the Distinguished Leadership and Innovation Conference (DLIC) on May 5th 2017.
