The famous comedian Milton Berle had a standard opening routine. After being introduced, he would walk to the front of the stage while everyone cheered. Berle would then bow and extend the palm of his right hand toward the audience to ask people to quiet down. At the same time, he would raise his left hand and repeatedly extend and curl his fingers to beckon everyone to cheer louder. The audience loved it. Indeed, the use of two simple hand gestures to convey conflicting messages can be the foundation for great humor, but an executive who is given one leadership mandate while others are operating under a different, conflicting set of directives would hardly be amused. Unfortunately, that’s what happens at many organizations.
Generally speaking, leadership mandates fall into one of three major categories: continuity, good to great and turnaround. Continuity means business as usual: carrying on policies, procedures and strategies. A typical example is the interim CEO, selected to maintain the status quo until a permanent CEO is found. Good to great refers to Jim Collins’ bestselling book of the same name. A good-to-great mandate is essentially this: We’ve been doing fine, but we can — and need to — do even better. Turnaround means dramatic changes are necessary: No business process, job or strategy is sacred.
A single clear mandate is the goal, but... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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