The Business of Leadership

By Craig Perrin

This is the third of seven posts on AchieveGlobal's international study of leadership today, "Developing the 21st-Century Leader" (complete report available HERE.)

Leaders with superior strengths in "Business" make successful business leaders.

Now there's a redundant statement, if ever there was one. But I recently have taken a few contemplative steps back from this statement and discovered a core truth.

Our recent research identified six zones or categories of best practices required to meet the challenges of 21^st-century leadership. Of these six zones (Reflection, Society, Diversity, Ingenuity, People, and Business), leaders tended to rate the Business zone of highest importance.

What are some characteristics of leaders who excel in the Business zone?

• They adapt quickly to changing business conditions.
• They're effective at managing the costs of operation.
• They seek new ways to make the business competitive.

They work toward developing and implementing effective business plans.

They analyze and use hard data to promote business results.

They manage customer acquisition, retention, and lifetime value.

And they add clarity to their organization's vision and values. What's important or revealing about this? Well, the seven practices that define the Business zone are exactly what helps a leader define the business itself and what keeps that business running successfully: getting and keeping customers, keeping the company focused, quantifying all aspects of operations, and steering the company to success.

Leaders at every level need to understand and continually refer to the core goals and values of their own organizations. They need to be in a perpetual state of discovering and rediscovering how they can relate what they do to what the organization does, or should be doing, every day.