Could your organisation survive a leadership challenge and change?

If it can happen in politics, it can happen in business – within a minute a leader can go from Rooster to Feather Duster.

Our former PM is now Rudder-less and we quickly forget the person but the failed policies and promises are not forgotten. Nor will the reputation of a leader or government that was reckless in spending or failing to deliver on its promises. What we will remember is a lack of integrity.

The new PM is wasting no time making her presence known and felt. Time will tell however whether the new leadership will help Australia and Australians recover from the failure of the past leadership to fulfil its promises and responsibilities. I guess now we won’t have to wait for the media to splash it out in the tabloids – we will feel it in our workplaces, our home and our schools.

But what has happened in recent weeks in politics can happen in business. Surely it begs the question whether leaders in organisations are aware of what their people are feeling, thinking, doing, and needing? Or, if they blindly going about implementing policies and procedures without really preparing sound strategies to build, support and implement growth, will they too pay a price?

Perhaps the main difference between though between politics and business is that business - especially small business may be more accountable in the spending of their money and not be quite as reckless with initiatives as politicians have been of late.

Some questions you may like also ask yourself in light of this is could your organisation survive if your leadership was challenged or changed? What would you recommend those organisations do to firm up their leadership and test the foundations while things are going well, rather than waiting for someone or something to shake the cage?

The way to respond to the events of both the GFC and the political turn around is to

• Keep your best people doing what they do best
• Inform them of the financial status of the business
• Rotate the responsibility of Chairing meetings
• Allow key people to be “CEO for the Day” – What would they do
• Allow key people to be CFO for the Day – What would they suggest
• Create “What if” scenarios and ask for best practice around hypotheticals that are relevant to your industry/business
• Rotate job roles so that people are aware of what is happening in and around the business
• Have Opinion Polls in regards to new initiatives or suggestions.
• Let people know what the short term, medium or long term projections are so they can contribute to them in some way

Have your say and contribute to the list of what you have done or would believe would contribute to build a sustainable and high performance organisation.

For further information and current and new trends, and to order your copy of The Integrity Factor – Why Reputation Rules in Business and Leadership. which will support your leadership initiatives visit our website www.rickynowak.com