Staying focused on the job

Celebrity leadership continues to persevere. Major publications continue to tout singular individual “leaders” at the same time that they impossibly confuse and conflate the meaning of the word as they uncritically apply it to fields so diverse as to defy comparison. Others continue the relentless focus on the putatively unique characteristics of, and extraordinary hopes invested in, the special personalities of individual CEOs; although the tone has become somewhat subdued in recent years - in the past few days we have been told about one specially featured CEO that he shouldn’t be underestimated, and about another that he exercises so much that he wears out a lot of tennis shoes. What, exactly, are we to conclude from such insights?

Perhaps it would be best for you and your firm if you avoid being so distinguished by the press in your career as a manager. The key element in management - whether for a CEO of a major corporation or a sole proprietor with just a few employees - is to stay focused on the task at hand. However successful you may have been, the issue remains the work, and not you. Moreover, as they say, past performance does not guarantee future results - and normally doesn’t predict them, either.

As soon as you begin to notice yourself becoming personally flattered, injured, embarrassed or the like to ideas, decisions or advice presented to you, you should consider the possibility that you are becoming too absorbed with your image. You are becoming a driver focused on yourself in the rear-view mirror, and you may be about to go off the road. If you notice that people, especially your advisors and employees, do not approach you with ideas, simply wait for instructions, or offer flattery and compliments in inappropriate occasions or degree, then you can be sure that you are in danger.

Your customers want your products or services, and will purchase them because they are well priced/packaged/delivered - not because of you. Stay in the situation. When you are being presented with ideas or advice, evaluate them in the context of the business, and not with regard to how much they do or do not accord with your own ideas or flatter your self-image. If you have a trusted advisor - a spouse or an old friend, say - make sure to run such ideas by them before you pass judgment on the suggestions.

What makes people successful is identifying and executing the right decisions - not necessarily identifying by themselves the ideas that make them up. Your success - and even your brilliance, if you insist - will consist in your ability to stay focused on the business, and to identify and integrate every idea, decision, or piece of advice that comes from any source at all into effective support for your business.

Yes, you are the manager, and you should be behind the wheel. Moreover, you don’t necessarily want back-seat drivers second-guessing you along the way. But you do want to have people helping you consider which route to take, mapping out the way, and reminding you when turning points are coming up. Make the decisions, but get all the advice and ideas you can (including about what those decisions should be). Those other people around you, whether your employees, vendors, or customers, aren’t there to worship you or to make up your retinue; they just want good business from you. Put your attention back on the road, and let them help you get everyone to the destination you all seek.