ShareWelcome to this edition of Simple, Smart & Sexy.
Nowadays there’s no Leadership without Innovation and no Innovation without Leadership. Do you agree?
As you will see on today’s video we have a very important announcement to make. Something that makes us super happy and excited. To summarize it: Innovation can’t happen without true Leaders and leadership practices which will enable it and managers cannot pretend to be real Leaders unless they enable innovation, promote innovative work behaviors and reward innovation.
Take a look at today’s video and come back to the post to read more about what it means to be a true Leader in today’s world and how to enable leadership practices which will drive innovation and will help you multiply results in your company.
We know the world has changed dramatically in the last ten years. It was only 1999 when Blackberry launched the first Smart Phone ever and 2003 when Mark Zuckerberg wrote the Facebook code, and today we cannot imagine a world without smart phones or interconnected through social networks.
Think about it. In the United States only, 30,000 completely new consumer products are brought to market every year. This means, change is the new constant, chaos and confusion the most predominant feelings.
We keep saying changing realities need changing leadership approaches. And we mean it. While up to 2010 or even 2011, leadership had to generate Direction, Alignment and Commitment, nowadays it also requires courage and collaboration.
Courage to set it’s own style and rhythm despite the constantly changing challenges. Courage to change direction as often as necessary and collaboration to engage employees and stakeholders understanding that it’s not enough anymore to set rules and polices.
Our understanding of Leadership has four axes:
1. Ambition: Ambition is sometimes seen as a negative. but our own definition of ambition is to have an “ample vision”. Companies need to work on building cultures which support huge steps and powerful beliefs. No mediocre will ever get to become a Leader.
2. Embracing Challenges: there’s no tomorrow; market changes permanently and those changes are beyond our control. Leading organizations embrace challenges and transforms them into huge opportunities.
3. Engagement: companies need stakeholders’, including employees, shareholders and clients unreserved and wholehearted commitment to make their “ample vision” come true.
4. IMPACT: at the end of the day all it matters is that through our actions we IMPACT our organizations and our world in a meaningful way.
And of course, everything we do is supported by the most successful strategy pillars: Simple, Smart & Sexy.
Leaders & Leadership
Nowadays, The most prominent and renowned Leaders are those who have an ‘Ample Vision’, embrace challenges and risk taking, engage stakeholders (from venture capitalists to potential partners) and end up impacting the world in a very significant way. Under this description we can probably think of Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, The Google Boys and many others. They all have one thing in common: they are serial entrepreneurs.
However, if you have been following me, by now you know our obsession and commitment is to drive Innovation (and now Leadership) in traditional organizations. Those which are impacting the world every single day, but for some reason this new world order is chaotic, confusing and highly challenging. We are speaking about most Fortune 500 companies with whom we work to make Innovation and Leadership happen. Although not an easy task, we try to make it very simple.
- We don’t drive innovation: we work on transforming products, processes, cultures, marketing from traditional to Simple, Smart & Sexy
- We don’t work with Mark Zuckerberg, but through Viral and Transformational Leadership techniques we support ambition, challenges, engagement and impact.
That’s the difference between Leaders and Leadership. One is the essence, which exists in some, the other is the process which can be learned and applied in all.
Join our discussion about Leaders, Leadership and Innovation by leaving your unique understanding of each one of those in the comments box.
Have a Super Week!
