Focused Leadership

The concept of leadership is one that has been written about in thousands of books by thousands of people. There are dozens of styles of leaders, and dozens of titles for leaders. In businesses you have your CEO's, CFO's, COO's, CMO's, and all the way down the line to local managers. In schools you have your Superintendents, Principals, Vice Principals, Department Chairs, Coaches, etc... Governments the same idea. But who is right in all the ways to lead? Who in all those areas is really in charge?

The official leaders are the ones with the titles. But every level and every team has informal leaders the whole way through the chain. An effective team is going to have any variety of leaders, where some are thinkers, some are doers, some are supporters, some are creators, some bring opposing views as thought provokers, and often times these roles can change based on the situation.

The best organizations, no matter the field, have focused leadership. Study Steve Jobs saying no to hundreds of ongoing ideas and project at Apple. Walgreens focusing on having stores on easily accessible street corners ("the corner of health and happiness") so people can quickly and easily get in and out. Read Good to Great or any other book by Jim Collins to see that all the companies that separated themselves successfully (Best Buy vs Circuit City, Netflix vs Blockbuster) focused on being the best in the world at ONE thing, and not spreading themselves too thin.

The best leaders are able to bring the focus of the organization to their core values and purpose, and guide everyone into making decisions that fit that focus. They are also able to realize when the organization is veering off course, and working with their teams to determine if values and purpose have shifted and its time to adapt, or if it is time to reign things in and refocus the organization.

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