Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Leading a start up company today

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him"

Viktor Frankl.


A short post today, I have already mentioned before that I lecture on "the great leaders of our Past and Present", both political and the services, they all had there own style and technique, but there is one thing that they do which is common to the great leaders, they make sure that they task there followers with objectives worthy of there effort and time, and even there life's on occasion. This is something that modern leaders in all areas of service, whether it is Business or Government should emulate, if you have hired the best, make them work to the best of there abilities, stretch and push them, coach them into new areas of experience, and reward them. This is a leaders responsibility to your followers, do not abuse them or waste the resource, like many leaders have and still do. Business these days is complex and competitive with new challenges emerging every day, to compete and succeed in these times, you need to be on the top of your game, and your people.

There has been a tendency to waste away in "safe jobs", but you are deceiving yourself and wasting your potential if you want to be the best you need to push yourself and the business you are involved in, you can be a technician on the shop floor or the CEO of a corporation you still need to fulfill your potential. I have always been my happiest and most productive when I am pushing up hill, developing teams and products in the hard to win businesses, I spoke to a senior guy a couple of weeks ago from a contract manufacturing business about extreme challenges and winning through, and that there are times in a new venture that there is a difficult challenge that looks impossible, you will always find a way through, it is during these times that you see the human being at there peak performance, these are the times that you will remember if the future.

So back to the quote from Viktor Frankl, to develop the potential in you and your teams, make sure you give them tasks and goals that will stretch and develop them, that way you all win.


Slainte


Gordon

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