Tech Biz Tips – Leadership: An Important Asset for Tech Founders
Leadership – plain and simple is: getting your team to buy into your vision and make it happen because they want to, not because they are told to.
The results of surveys continue to reveal that the majority of employees in companies across the country are not fully engaged and a large number are not engaged, at all. Why is that?
It must be because the leaders of these companies have not created a culture where their employees look forward to coming to work, but rather come to work to avoid working and look forward to leaving as soon as they can. What a sad testimonial to management at these firms.
It’s a known fact that to win at anything, sports, politics, war, and even at home, you need to have a team focused on winning and cooperating as a team toward that goal. Goals need to be articulated in a clear plan that the team understands, internalizes, and works to make happen. Leaders need to explain the plan and break it down into simple clearly defined strategies that their team can understand and act upon. These leaders then must “walk the talk”, as well.
If done well any organization will have created a culture where employees look forward to coming to work and to work toward making the plan happen every day because they have a vested interest in it. People by nature want to belong to an organization because they believe in it, are part of it, and are proud to be on a winning team.
Every year Fortune Magazine publishes the Fortune 500 and the Best and Worse companies to work for. If you review these studies you will see that those companies at the top of both if these lists are those that have the most dedicated employees working the company plan for the betterment of all of the stakeholders – the customers, employees, shareholder’s, and the communities in which they do business.
And those at the bottom are typically those companies who have done just the opposite and have the highest number of disengaged employees. Doesn’t it make you wonder what the CEOs of these firms are thinking and doing?
This lesson echoes the wisdom of Peter Drucker, the well- known management guru who said: “the purpose of a company is to create a customer, and the job of the leader is to serve the customer.”
Shouldn’t these age old words of wisdom be the goal of any company and the strategy to achieve that goal?
Bob Donnelly is an author, educator, and brand builder for businesses and individuals. He is an entrepreneur himself and has started and sold several technology based businesses. He teaches Entrepreneurship & Innovation MBA courses at Saint Peters University, and also for an online global university. His book, GUIDE BOOK TO PLANNING – A COMMON SENSE APPROACH
